Chapter 15: Love or Programming?

The Haven Creek files scattered across their kitchen table like autopsy photos, each document a piece of their dismembered past. Mara's hands shook as she sorted through patient intake forms, therapy session notes, and medication logs—all bearing their names, all dated from a time they couldn't remember.

"Look at this." Daniel's voice cracked as he held up a photograph. Black and white, grainy, taken through what looked like security glass. A teenage girl sat in a chair, her face turned toward the camera. Dark hair, hollow eyes, thin wrists secured with leather restraints.

Mara stared at her sixteen-year-old self and felt nothing. No recognition, no memory of that room or those restraints. Just a cold absence where familiarity should have been.

"Patient 47," Daniel read from the file attached to the photo. "Mara Delacroix. Admitted December 16th, 2003. Diagnosis: Acute trauma response with dissociative episodes. Recommended for Protocol Seven integration."

"Delacroix isn't my name."

"Maybe it was. Before."

Before what? Before they erased her? Before they rebuilt her into someone else?

Daniel flipped through more pages, his breathing shallow. "Here's another one." He showed her a second photograph: a young man in a white coat, maybe twenty-two, standing behind the same glass. His face was softer, unmarked by the years that would follow, but unmistakably his.

"Staff therapist," Daniel whispered. "Daniel Kessler, provisional certification. Assigned to Patient 47 for... for behavioral conditioning."

The words hung between them like a blade. Mara felt something shift in her chest, a recognition that bypassed conscious thought and went straight to her bones.

"You were my therapist."

"I was too young. I wasn't qualified to—"

"You were my therapist, and I was sixteen."

Daniel's face crumpled. "Christ, Mara. I would never... I wouldn't have touched you. Not like that. Not while you were a patient."

But even as he said it, she could see the doubt creeping in. The same doubt that was eating at her, whispering that nothing they remembered could be trusted.

She pulled out another file, this one thicker. Session notes in Daniel's handwriting, though younger, more careful. Her eyes skimmed the entries: 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘺. 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 12—𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺. 𝘙𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘴.

"What's suggestion protocols?" she asked.

Daniel's jaw tightened. "Hypnosis. Deep state conditioning. They were..." He swallowed hard. "They were programming you."

"𝘞𝘦 were programming me."

"No." He shook his head violently. "I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have hurt you."

But Mara had found something else. A photograph tucked behind the session notes. This one was in color, taken from a different angle. She was in the same chair, but Daniel was closer now. Their hands were almost touching through the glass, her fingers pressed against one side, his against the other.

The look on both their faces stopped her breath. Not therapist and patient. Not doctor and subject. Something else. Something desperate and forbidden and achingly tender.

"We fell in love," she whispered.

Daniel took the photo with trembling hands. "That's impossible. The ethics violations alone—"

"Look at our faces, Daniel. Look at the way we're touching the glass."

He looked. She watched him see it—the connection, the longing, the complete abandonment of professional boundaries. His young face in the photo was soft with something that could only be called devotion.

"I loved you," he said quietly. "Even then. Even when I shouldn't have."

"Or they made you think you did."

The words came out harsh, clinical. But they had to be said. How could they trust any emotion when their memories had been carved up and rearranged?

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the dates." Mara spread the session notes across the table. "December 16th, first session. December 23rd, major breakthrough. January 15th, Protocol Seven implementation. January 30th, subject shows complete compliance with handler directives."

"Handler?"

"You, Daniel. You were my handler. And according to this, by the end of January, I would do anything you asked me to do."

Daniel's face went white. "That's not... that's not how it worked. I cared about you. I wanted to help you."

"Did you? Or did they condition you to think you cared? Did they make you fall in love with me so I'd be more compliant?"

"Stop."

"Think about it. A traumatized teenage girl, isolated and vulnerable. What's the fastest way to break down her defenses? Make her believe her therapist loves her. Make her believe she's special."

"Mara, please—"

"And what's the fastest way to ensure a young therapist's cooperation? Make him believe he's saving someone. Make him believe he's the only one who can help her."

Daniel stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. "You think our entire relationship is fake? You think everything we feel is just... programming?"

"I think we were children playing with forces we didn't understand. I think they used our feelings against us."

"Then why are we still together? If it was all conditioning, why didn't it fade when we left Haven Creek?"

Mara looked at the photographs again. The desperate touching through glass. The look of worship in Daniel's young eyes. The complete surrender in her own.

"Because," she said slowly, "some programming is designed to last a lifetime."

Daniel's face crumpled. He sank back into the chair, head in his hands. "So what are we? Are we in love or just... broken?"

"I don't know."

"How do we find out?"

Mara stared at the files, at the evidence of their dismantled selves. "We remember everything. Even the parts they cut out. Even the parts that might destroy us."

"What if we can't handle the truth?"

"Then we'll break. Together."

Daniel looked up at her, and for a moment she saw the twenty-two-year-old therapist who'd fallen in love with his patient. Young and idealistic and doomed.

"There's something else," he said quietly. "Something I didn't tell you."

"What?"

"I found employment records. From Haven Creek." He pulled out a manila folder. "I was on duty the night it burned. February 15th, 2004. I was supposed to be doing night rounds."

Mara's blood turned to ice. "You told Detective Finch you weren't there."

"I don't remember being there. But according to this, I was the last staff member to clock out. At 3:47 AM." He met her eyes. "The fire started at 4:15 AM."

"Daniel—"

"What if I started it? What if I burned down Haven Creek to destroy the evidence? To protect you?"

Before Mara could answer, her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘨𝘦.

She looked at Daniel, watching the color drain from his face as he read over her shoulder.

"Who knows we're looking into this?" he asked.

"No one. Unless..." She thought of Detective Finch, of the way she'd watched their house. Of the bloody handprints on the darkroom window.

"Unless someone's been watching us all along."

The phone buzzed again. This time it was a photo attachment. Security footage, grainy and time-stamped. February 15th, 2004, 3:52 AM. A young man in a white coat walking down a corridor, carrying what looked like a gas can.

The man's face was turned away from the camera, but Mara knew those shoulders, that walk.

"Daniel," she whispered.

He stared at the image of his younger self, the gas can in his hand, walking toward what would become an inferno.

"I remember," he said softly. "I remember everything."