Page 108 of Borrowed Pain
"Who hurt you?"
"Traditional therapy, support groups, and case workers who promised everything would be fine if I processed my grief properly."
An understanding crystallized. "But it wasn't fine."
"It was bullshit. Years of talking about my feelings while sleeping in homes where foster fathers thought teenage girls were recreational opportunities. Therapists who collected their fees while I learned that survival meant never being vulnerable again."
"So you decided to prove that healing was impossible," I said.
"I decided to prove that therapists like you are predators who profit from false hope." Her voice shook with decades of buried rage. "That your precious therapeutic relationshipsare only sophisticated manipulation designed to keep victims dependent."
"And the research subjects? The people whose trauma you've been amplifying?"
"Are learning the truth about trust before it wrecks them." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing carefully applied makeup. "Better to break the illusion of safety than let them believe someone actually cares about their healing."
She was so wounded by betrayal that she'd dedicated her life to proving betrayal was universal. Instead of healing her own pain, she'd chosen to inflict it systematically on others.
"Dr. Harrow," I said with the compassion I'd learned to feel for even the most damaged clients, "your foster families were wrong. The therapists who failed you were inadequate, but destroying other trauma survivors won't heal what happened to you."
"Don't." She whispered her words. "Don't try to therapy me."
"I'm not trying to therapy you. I'm trying to help you understand that you've become the predator you learned to fear."
She stared at me with naked vulnerability, the professional mask completely abandoned. For a moment, I saw the sixteen-year-old girl who'd learned she couldn't trust adults. Then fury reasserted itself, and she straightened with renewed venom.
"Your assessment is meaningless. You're a failed therapist whose inadequate methods drove a patient to suicide."
"And you're a traumatized foster child who learned to associate vulnerability with victimization." I spoke gently. "The difference is, I'm trying to heal from my mistakes instead of using them to justify hurting others."
She turned toward me with desperate fury. "The truth is that trust destroys people. The truth is that your therapeutic compassion is a lie designed to exploit vulnerability. The truth isthat anyone who believes in healing is setting themselves up for betrayal."
"You could choose healing instead of inflicting trauma. You could use your intelligence and resources to help people instead of proving that help doesn't exist."
"SHUT UP!" The words exploded out of her.
But I'd accomplished what I'd set out to do. The predator had revealed herself as another wounded survivor, someone whose pain had metastasized into systematic cruelty. She was dangerous, criminal, and destructive—but she wasn't invulnerable.
Harrow backed toward the door, composure shattered. She was retreating from something she couldn't control—the truth about her own psychological wounds.
I was still trapped, still in immediate danger, but I'd won the psychological battle that mattered most.
I knew who I was. I knew what real therapy looked like.
And I knew precisely what she was.
Chapter twenty-two
Rowan
Agent Andrews spread building schematics across the hood of his government SUV, the corners of the paper snapping in the October wind until Marcus weighted them down with his legal pad. Andrews's jaw was set tight—a man slowly discovering his entire operation had been built on fabricated intelligence.
"Sublevel 2, medical isolation," he said, finger tracing corridors. "Hospital administration is still insisting they're protecting breakthrough PTSD research."
Michael checked his tactical vest, movements precise. "How long until they see the light?"
Andrews's earpiece buzzed with position reports from his team surrounding the medical center. "Dr. Lemon is citing participant confidentiality laws. Says family access would compromise study integrity."
I studied the basement layout, counting exit routes and chokepoints. The isolation ward sat buried beneath legitimate medical floors like a parasite feeding off institutional credibility. "Hospital staff believe the cover story," I said. "Meridianconvinced them they're shielding vital trauma research from domestic terrorist threats."
