All Chapters of Forbidden never felt this good : Chapter 151 - Chapter 159

The air between us thickened.No words came, not because there was nothing left to say, but because silence had become the loudest thing in the room. The system had expected something. It had expected reaction. It had expected conflict, hesitation, fear.It hadn’t expected choice.I felt the weight of that shift deep in my chest. The way my body responded was more than just instinct. It was the space between me and him, the understanding of proximity, the pull of something neither of us had fully acknowledged before.“I’m not a subject,” I said, though the words barely felt like mine anymore. The system wanted compliance, and yet, here I was, daring to do the one thing it could never anticipate.I wasn’t following the script.He didn’t speak immediately. He didn’t need to. His presence was enough, more than enough. Every fiber of my being was attuned to the shift, to the way the system itself recoiled as we stood in that shared silence.“I know,” he said finally. His voice was low, co

The room hummed louder this time, its energy shifting, thickening like smoke in the air. The presence of Elliot, the silent tension between Adrian and me, it wasn’t just desire anymore. It was weight.It was control.And the system? It had no idea how to adjust for the things that didn’t fit into its neat little equations.I could feel it. Feel it in the pit of my stomach, the way everything I had just chosen rippled outward into the world I could no longer escape.“You’re not part of this,” Adrian said, his voice sharp with something unspoken. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t anger. But it was something close, something that stirred in the space between us like a live wire. "This isn’t a place for you."Elliot’s gaze flickered briefly to Adrian, then back to me. He didn’t speak immediately, which told me everything I needed to know. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t intimidated. He was calculating. The room wasn’t big enough to hide in anymore, not with all of us here, so close to one another

I knew the moment I stepped into the unknown that it would come to this.I could feel the weight of the system’s pulse against my skin, pressing in from every corner, as if it had been waiting for me to take the wrong step. I’d felt the walls close around me before, but this was different. This time, I wasn’t running from them. I wasn’t hiding behind walls or silence. I was facing them head on.The man before me, his presence wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t calculating, cold, or clinical. No, this one had weight. He had the kind of power that didn’t just come from the system, but from understanding what it could break, and how much more it could control by simply existing.“I warned you,” he repeated, stepping closer. His eyes weren’t soft. They were sharp, assessing, like a predator sizing up its prey. “You’ve been allowed to make choices, Cassie, but there’s a limit. You’ve crossed it.”His words didn’t faze me. They only pushed me further into resolve. Because they had always bel

They didn’t bind my hands.That was the first sign this was different.No restraints.No force.No cold efficiency meant to remind me I was owned.Instead, they stood back and let the room speak for them.The chamber was circular, walls layered with shifting data that never quite settled into stillness. It felt less like a courtroom and more like a mirror, every surface designed to reflect consequence rather than judgment.Adrian stayed near the entrance. Elliot was nowhere in sight.That absence hurt more than any restraint ever could.Mary’s presence was steady inside me, not overwhelming, not distant. Present in the way only someone who had already died once could be.“This is the end of their patience,” she said quietly.I swallowed. “And the beginning of mine.”The figures stepped forward at last. Three this time. Not guards. Not observers.Architects.“We will not correct you,” one of them said. “We will not erase you.”My pulse ticked faster.“You will decide,” another continue

I still wake up sometimes expecting the hum.That low, constant vibration under the world, like something watching from behind the walls. It takes me a few seconds to remember where I am, to register the quiet, the open window, the way morning light spills across the floor without permission from any system.Then I breathe.And I remember I am free.The house is small. Intentionally so. No hidden rooms, no reinforced walls, no places designed for surveillance or control. Just wood that creaks when it settles and glass that lets the outside in.Elliot is already awake.I know because the kettle is on, because the faint scent of coffee drifts down the hallway, because some part of me has learned the rhythm of him the way I once learned danger.I pad into the kitchen barefoot.He looks up from the counter and smiles not surprised, not searching. Just… present.“Morning,” he says.“Morning,” I reply.Some days, that’s all we need.The city we chose is quieter than the one we left behind.