Chapter 95

After a short, suffocating walk, they reached the Professor’s office.

Adeline paused, drew in a breath she did not feel, then knocked.

Inside, Miss Kai sat rigid beside Ralph, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles were white. When her eyes landed on Esther, on the bandages, the bruises, and the hauntingly familiar shape of her face, she surged to her feet.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was a serrated blade. “Your parents filed a complaint against us today. They are trying to bury my daughter just as they silenced me years ago. Have you come to watch the end?”

“Please, Madam Kai,” Adeline stepped forward, her voice steady despite the thunder in her chest. “You need to hear her. This concerns Williams.”

“I am her lawyer,” Yada added, stepping into the line of fire. “We are not part of the Dara family’s crusade. Esther is here of her own will.”

Ralph reached out, his hand heavy on his wife’s arm. “Listen to her, please.”

Esther stepped into the light, her voice trembling but clear. “I was told what happened to Williams,” she said. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t. I never met Dr. Marz before that incident. I never wanted to harm her.”

She hesitated. “But I did change my identity. And I searched for Williams.”

Miss Kai’s jaw tightened. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to be Esther Dara anymore,” Esther whispered. “I hated my name. I hated my family. And I hated the girl Williams wrote to, because she loved her so purely.”

Miss Kai turned away. “It’s too late. The damage is done.”

“I regret it!” Esther cried out, the sound raw and guttural. “I regret every breath I took while she was suffocating.”

To everyone’s shock, it was Ralph who moved first. He stood and walked to Esther, placing a steadying hand on her arm.

“It isn’t your fault, my daughter,” he said gently. “You were a teenager. The failure belongs to the adults who should have known better.”

He guided her to a chair as if she were his own kin. “I think you have suffered as much as our Niran.”

Miss Kai covered her mouth, tears slipping down despite her resistance. The hatred she wanted to feel for Esther was being drowned by the girl’s shattered, pitiful state.

Madam Roger, sensing the shift in power, turned a cold eye on Adeline. “So, what is your ‘precious method,’ Dr. Adeline?”

“I think,” Adeline began, but the Professor cut her off.

“We can get the real Williams back,” Vane declared.

He stood with an authority that sucked the oxygen from the room. He did not look at Adeline. He looked directly at Miss Kai, claiming the stage.

“Williams is suffering from Structural Dissociation of the Personality.”

Adeline felt a cold shiver of frustration. He had let her do the heavy lifting, the late-night theorizing, and now he was stepping over her. Roger felt it too. Something was wrong.

“How?” Miss Kai gasped, leaning toward him.

“Sit down, please,” Vane commanded.

He walked toward the anatomical chart of the brain, his cane tapping with predatory precision.

“We have all been misled. We treated Williams as a victim of rejection. But we missed one detail. She was assaulted by the external world, by those who rejected her orientation, while the one she loved,” his head tilting a moment toward Esther, “Loved her back. Williams did not suffer for a letter alone. She suffered to protect the girl she loved. A romantic tragedy where the hero bore the fire alone so her lover would not burn.”

Miss Kai stared at Esther, stunned.

“It means,” Vane continued smoothly, “that there were never two personalities. There was never a Doctor and an Original living in separate rooms.”

Adeline stared at him, her heart sinking. He was presenting her theory with severe alterations.

Madam Roger caught the flicker of agony on Adeline’s face. She looked from the Professor to Adeline, her eyes narrowing.

“Wait,” Roger interrupted. “Adeline is the primary psychiatrist. Perhaps we should let her finish her hypothesis.”

“No,” Miss Kai snapped, desperation overriding etiquette. “He is her professor. He understands the complexity better. Let him finish.”

Adeline swallowed bile. She felt erased.

“Williams is suffering from Structural Dissociation of the Personality,” Vane continued. “Her brain did not split into alters. It fragmented functionally. She divided into the ANP, the apparently normal part, the social Doctor, and the EP, the emotional part, the traumatic Original. Her mind functioned as a circuit, not a switch. Both parts are active, but disconnected.”

“But she didn’t remember me,” Esther protested weakly.

“Selective dissociative amnesia with identity avoidance,” Roger replied coolly. “That is what you are reaching for, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Vane continued with a condescending smile. “Your method did not create a new person, Roger. You helped her build a thicker wall. You mistook a functional mask for a cure.”

“That’s impossible. She was my patient,” Roger said sharply.

“You made a mistake,” Vane replied coldly.

Roger went pale. The accusation struck like a physical blow. She looked at Adeline, suddenly understanding the tension between them.

Vane had not come to help Adeline. He had come to harvest her.

“How did you reach that conclusion?” Adeline asked, her voice tight with restrained fury.

“Because she never forgot her mother,” Vane said warmly, smiling at Miss Kai. “She preserved the love for the one who protected her and erased the memory of the one who caused the pain. It was a surgical act of survival.”

Miss Kai sobbed, a sound of release.

For Esther, it was a fresh wound. She was the one Niran had erased to survive.

“So, you’re saying my entire protocol….,” Roger whispered.

“May have helped her self-esteem,” Vane replied dismissively. “But not dissociation.”

Roger flushed with humiliation.

“Do you agree, Dr. Adeline?” Roger asked.

“No,” Adeline said flatly.

“Enough,” Miss Kai said. “You all helped my daughter. Let him proceed.”

Vane turned to Esther.

“I’m fairly certain remorse is not the only reason you are here,” he said, taking her hand. “You want to know whether she still loves you.”

“Come,” he added. “I am convinced she will not harm you. And if she tries, we will intervene.”

He pulled Esther to her feet and led her out, followed by those intoxicated by the psychiatric spectacle.

Adeline remained frozen, her chest tight, watching the shadow of her mentor disappear.

The betrayal was not sharp. It was cold. It seeped into her bones.

She turned slowly and met Madam Roger’s gaze.

The elder psychiatrist looked diminished, her pride bruised by Vane’s arrogance, but in her eyes was a flicker of tragic recognition. She saw in Adeline what she had likely once seen in herself, a woman used as a stepping stone.

Everything was clear now. The late-night debates. The pressure to go deeper. The sharpening of theories until they bled. It had never been mentorship. It was an extraction.

Vane had not helped her save a patient. He had waited for her to finish the blueprint so he could claim the house.

Whether it was the immense wealth of the Niran Kai name, the whispered invitations to elite circles, or the intoxicating promise of global recognition, Vane had played his hand perfectly.

He had seized the most publicized psychiatric case of the decade and erased Adeline from the narrative of her own discovery.

He had not just stolen her logic. He had stolen her voice.

Adeline’s hands curled into trembling fists.

The man she had revered was nothing more than a scavenger in a bespoke suit.

Damn Vane.

The thought echoed like a curse.

He was not walking toward a patient in need.

He was walking toward a trophy.

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