Page 53
"Now," he continues, stepping back to reclaim his shooting position with mechanical precision, "you should aim to be a normal omega who will find a pack to submit to and integrate with society. Stop dwelling on institutional nightmares and focus on building the life we purchased for you."
Normal omega.
Submit to a pack.
Integrate with society.
The words taste like poison in the autumn air, suggesting abdication of everything institutional experience taught me about survival and self-determination.
As if six years of external existence wearing someone else's identity could somehow erase what Ravenscroft carved into my bones through systematic conditioning and enhancement protocols.
"Normal?" I repeat, the question emerging with dangerous quiet that makes him pause in reloading his weapon. "Define normal. How does one become normal after what sinister madness I was put through?"
His response comes without hesitation, delivered with the same clinical detachment institutional researchers employ when discussing experimental outcomes rather than human consequences.
"Figure it out," he states with dismissive finality. "Or use the talents you acquired in there to be useful rather than dwelling on circumstances you cannot change."
Use the talents. Be useful.
The casual suggestion that I weaponize my institutional conditioning for productive purposes proves to be the final straw in a conversation already stretched beyond rational limits.
Years of suppressed rage crystallize into perfect clarity as understanding dawns with devastating force.
He doesn't see me as a daughter who survived trauma and deserves consideration for what that survival cost. He sees me as an asset whose enhanced capabilities should be leveraged for practical benefit rather than a source of ongoing complications or emotional difficulty.
Before he can raise the pistol to resume his target practice, my hand moves with fluid speed that institutional training has burned into muscle memory.
His weapon disappears from his grip so quickly he doesn't register the theft until cold metal presses against his temple with enough force to create a visible indentation in his skin.
The first shot takes out the leftmost target—perfect center mass despite my inverted grip and unconventional stance.
The second follows immediately, finding its mark with identical precision.
Third, fourth, fifth—each bullet striking dead center of successive targets with accuracy that exceeds his best performance despite years of practice and military training.
Five shots.
Five perfect hits.
Five demonstrations of exactly what those "talents" institutional conditioning provided look like when properly applied.
The smoking barrel finds its way to his temple as the echoes of gunfire fade into autumn silence. His body has gone rigid with terror—fight-or-flight response activating too late to prevent the lightning-fast disarmament that left him helpless in the hands of the weapon he helped create.
"If I wanted to use the talents they taught me in the depths of Parazodiac," I whisper against his ear, voice carrying deadly calm that contrasts sharply with the violence of the preceding demonstration, "you'd be dead before you could think to say such bullshit."
His breathing comes in shallow gasps that speak to genuine fear rather than mere surprise.
For the first time in this conversation— perhaps for the first time since my extraction —he's seeing me not as a grateful recipient of purchased freedom but as a product of institutional conditioning that turned children into weapons through systematic application of trauma and enhancement.
The gun feels natural in my hand despite years spent avoiding such implements.
Muscle memory guides finger placement and weight distribution with unconscious precision that speaks to the extensive training he was never meant to witness or acknowledge.
This is what his money purchased—not just my freedom but my transformation into something that transcends normal omega designation through methods too brutal for civilian comprehension.
I unload the remaining ammunition with practiced efficiency, cartridges falling to manicured grass with metallic chimes that mark a tempo of controlled violence.
The empty weapon hits the ground beside his feet with deliberate finality—demonstration concluded, lesson delivered with educational precision that leaves no room for misinterpretation.
"Maybe when those checks stop rolling in," I state with quiet certainty as I step back from his frozen form, "when Nyx is fucking dead and your financial incentive for continued silence ends, maybe then you'll feel an ounce of regret for what you've done."
His face remains pale as the autumn sky, eyes wide with shock that suggests genuine surprise at my capabilities despite knowing exactly where those skills were acquired.
The cognitive dissonance proves almost amusing—acknowledging institutional conditioning while somehow failing to anticipate its practical applications.
"Only time will tell," I add, turning away from him with dismissive casualness that mirrors his own treatment of my concerns throughout this entire confrontation.
My footsteps carry me across the perfectly manicured lawn toward the house that never felt like home, leaving him standing alone among scattered cartridges and shattered targets.
Behind me, I hear the sound of his knees hitting earth—delayed reaction finally overwhelming whatever shock kept him upright through the demonstration.
The memory begins dissolving at its edges as consciousness tugs me back toward present circumstance, institutional nightmare reasserting dominance over preserved recollection.
But the emotions linger—rage at parental betrayal, grief for the sister left behind, determination to end cycles of sacrifice and profit that turned children into commodities for institutional consumption.
The swaying motion returns with increasing intensity, pendulum arc carrying me between extremes of a reality I can't quite grasp through chemical fog and enforced restraint.
Below, the sounds of violence continue—grunts and roars and impacts that speak to ongoing combat designed for entertainment rather than resolution.
But my father's words echo with persistent clarity despite fading memory:
Only time will tell.
How long will it be until he truly carries that heaviness of regret?
Until financial incentive evaporates and leaves him facing the full weight of what his choices cost in human suffering?
Until the comfortable delusions constructed around his decisions crumble beneath unforgiving reality?
The checks will stop flowing eventually—either through my successful escape with retrieved pack or through Nyx's death in whatever institutional nightmare currently contains her.
The system they've both become dependent upon will collapse, leaving nothing but consequences and recrimination where once stood profitable collaboration with institutional horror.
He'll live to see that day. I'll make certain of it.
And when he does— when the last payment arrives and silence no longer carries monetary value —perhaps then he'll understand exactly what price he paid to purchase my temporary freedom with my sister's continued captivity.
The darkness deepens as memory releases its hold, pulling me back toward suspended reality where violence unfolds beneath my enforced observation.
The restraints at my wrists and ankles feel more substantial now, mechanical rather than chemical control asserting dominance over biology enhanced beyond normal parameters.
But understanding has crystallized through the haze of chemical submission and institutional manipulation.
This isn't random torture or purposeless cruelty—it's calculated staging designed to break resistance through systematic application of helplessness and forced witnessing of violence I cannot prevent.
They think suspension above combat will achieve what direct torture failed to accomplish. That watching others suffer while remaining powerless to intervene will finally shatter whatever defiance institutional conditioning couldn't eliminate through six years of dedicated effort.
They're about to discover how wrong such assumptions prove when faced with someone whose understanding of violence transcends their careful categorization. Someone who learned to weaponize helplessness itself through systematic application of patience and calculated endurance.
The pendulum continues its measured arc, marking time until opportunity presents itself for the practical application of lessons learned in shooting ranges and combat arenas alike.
Above the chaos below, I wait with predatory patience that institution conditioning refined but never fully controlled.
Only time will tell who emerges victorious from whatever game Press has orchestrated with such theatrical precision.
But I know which outcome I intend to ensure through systematic application of everything they taught me about survival, violence, and the careful deployment of enhanced capabilities when circumstances finally align for practical implementation.
The hunt continues.
And this time, I'm both predator and prey—exactly as they made me.
Table of Contents
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- Page 53 (Reading here)
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