Her Cruelty, His Code

ommissioning at brunch,

he wine in her glass. "They confirmed the d

ile playing on her lips. "No

looking smug. "It's for the best. You've bee

lly. "It' s just... hard to let

ed every similar conversation, every time they had spoken about me as if I were a

turned to me. "Actually, I

It was a maintenance device, one that gave

ching," she said.

ssed a

ling my shoulders into a rigid, painful position. A loud click echoed fr

l of mechanical stress that my processors interpreted as pure a

anaged to say thro

do," she said calmly, p

isting at an impossible angle. My optic

c, a memory flashed. Not one of mi

d, his body broken. Chloe was sitting beside him, crying. But Liam was ther

ial story claimed. It was an attack. The real Ethan had been t

t. A lie built to

. Chloe was watching me, her eyes

unresponsive to verbal commands. It

soft on him, Chloe. That's

tried to move, to straighten my head, but th

my ear. "This is all your fault. The 'kidnapping'. Everything. If you ha

chine. Rewriting a histo

ock on my neck. My head fell forward, and I slumped in th

What do you say to Liam? He's the one who saved m

ness. The command to obey was powerful, burned i

The syllables tasted like ash. It was a h

d, a predator e

head like I was a dog. "Maybe the next on

f meaning. "And we won't have to wo

oth la

for the first time, I wasn't just

y were decommiss

a they were cre