Dose

I was doing exactly what I was trained to do when they came for me.

Synthesizing compounds in my lab. Following protocols. Serving my purpose. I never questioned it-why would I? Project Architect gave me everything: skills, meaning, a reason to exist.

Then he took me.

Theon Kovač-one of the escaped subjects, a traitor to everything I was taught to believe in. He should have killed me. That's what his kind does to operatives like me. Instead, he locked me in his lab and told me he needs to study my methods.

He's lying.

I see it in the way his eyes track my movements. The way his breath catches when I lean over the workspace. The way he finds excuses to touch me-correcting my grip, steadying my hand-like he can't decide if he wants to worship me or ruin me.

He says I'm a prisoner. That I've always been one.

He says Project Architect didn't save me-they made me.

He says I should be angry.

I don't know how to be angry. I only know how to obey.

But every day in his lab, something shifts. Every argument we have plants a question I was never supposed to ask. Every time his fingers brush mine over a beaker, I feel something I was conditioned never to want.

He calls me brilliant and hates himself for it.

I call him broken and realize I might be too.

They taught me chemistry is about control-measurements, predictable reactions.

But what's building between us? It's volatile, dangerous, and completely out of control.