Page 83 of Borrowed Pain
Rowan scanned the data, his expression shifting from curiosity to sharp assessment. "She sent this during a crisis. That doesn't strike you as strategically timed?"
"Everything is strategically timed when you're looking for manipulation." My words came out defensive. "But strategic timing doesn't automatically invalidate legitimate science."
My phone buzzed with an incoming email. Subject line:Professional verification as requested.
I hadn't requested verification, but I opened the message anyway. Contact information for Dr. Gwendoline Humphries from Johns Hopkins, Dr. Edward Roberts from the Mayo Clinic, and Dr. Cynthia Vance from UCLA's trauma center. They were researchers I'd cited in my own publications.
The email included something else unexpected—a brief video message from Dr. Humphries herself.
"Dr. McCabe, Celeste asked me to provide direct confirmation of our collaboration. The synaptic reintegration protocols have transformed my practice entirely. I've had to restructure my understanding of therapeutic timelines because patients are achieving lasting resolution in weeks rather than years."
She looked directly into the camera, professional but enthusiastic. "Dr. McCabe, if Celeste offers you training access, I'd strongly encourage you to consider it. These techniquesrepresent the most significant advancement in trauma therapy I've witnessed in thirty years of practice."
The video ended, leaving me staring at my phone screen.
"Fuck," I whispered.
"What is it?" Rowan moved closer, trying to see the display.
I showed him the video, watching his expression shift from skepticism to something approaching wonder. Dr. Humphries wasn't some unknown researcher making grandiose claims. She was a respected colleague whose opinion I valued, speaking directly about clinical applications she'd personally implemented.
"Either this is the most sophisticated fraud I've ever encountered," I said quietly, "or we're looking at a legitimate therapeutic revolution."
Rowan studied my face with uncomfortable intensity. "Miles, you're thinking like someone who wants to believe this is real."
The observation stung.
"What if I am?" I asked. "What if wanting to believe it doesn't automatically make it false?"
I knew I should tell him everything immediately. Show him all of Harrow's research and discuss the implications like partners. But Rowan was already calculating tactical risks, positioning his body toward the main room where my family prepared for immediate danger.
The last thing he needed was me derailing his focus with theoretical therapeutic breakthroughs that might be elaborate fraud. He deserved to concentrate on staying alive, not managing my professional crisis of faith.
My phone rang before he could respond. Harrow again, but her approach had shifted this time—less urgent, more collaborative.
"Dr. McCabe, I hope Dr. Humphries' message was helpful. She's been implementing the protocols for eight months. Her data is remarkable."
"The results look implausible," I said.
"You read them that way because we've been conditioned to expect healing to be slow and incremental. But Dr. McCabe, what if that expectation is based on flawed therapeutic models?"
In the next room, my family loaded equipment into tactical bags, focused on immediate dangers while I contemplated paradigm-shifting possibilities.
"I need to think," I said.
"Of course. But Dr. McCabe, while you're thinking, consider this: every day traditional therapy fails trauma survivors, they become more vulnerable to exploitation by the corrupted versions of these techniques." She paused. "The choice isn't between helping people and staying safe. It's between helping people effectively and helping them inadequately."
It was a subtle reframing, but it hit home.
"I'll be in touch with specific meeting arrangements," she continued. "The evidence I want to share about therapeutic precision could change how you understand cases like Iris, and how you approach every client in the future."
I should stay at the warehouse, I decided. Dorian needed someone to run a live dissociation screen on Rook over comms—an on-the-fly clinical check to determine whether talk-through or temporary sedation would keep him coherent during extraction.
It was logical, professionally appropriate, and tactically sound. It was also self-serving in ways I didn't want to examine. Staying meant I could examine Harrow's research without having to explain my growing conviction that revolutionary therapy might matter more than retrospective justice. I was protecting myself as much as providing tactical support.
An hour later, the warehouse had emptied except for Charlie and me. My family was gone, chasing justice through Seattle's industrial underbelly, while I stood surrounded by surveillance monitors showing abandoned positions.
My phone buzzed with Harrow's final approach.
