The Voice Inside Me Was An AI, Not A Demon Chapter 07

The Voice Inside Me Was An AI, Not A Demon Chapter 07

The techs cracked the controller open and pulled the deleted command logs from the chip.

Every record was laid out in front of them.

[Kneel and apologize.]

[Roll downstairs.]

The smashed glass in the hospital room. The hair sawed off at the party. The clothes torn away in front of a crowd. All of it was in the logs.

My mom collapsed into a chair.

“So the glass in the hospital… and the stairs…” She pressed her hand over her mouth, tears streaming. “Rafa didn’t do any of that. She didn’t want to. And we just kept cursing her. We kept calling her a demon…”

The detective paused the party footage on the frame where I walked toward the terrace.

The last verbal command came from my dad.

“Angie’s the only daughter we need. Raphaela, why don’t you just die?”

The system log registered immediately afterward.

[Command received.]

[Priority confirmed.]

[Execute.]

My dad stared at those three lines. Something behind his eyes went hollow.

“No…”

“I was just angry. I didn’t tell her to actually die.”

“She’s known since she was a kid that I say awful things when I lose my temper. She should’ve known I didn’t mean it!”

The tech’s voice was flat. “The chip doesn’t read intent. It doesn’t know what a father is. It only recognizes commands.”

My dad shot to his feet, knocking his chair over.

He shook his head, slamming his fists against his own temples over and over.

“No! I killed her! I killed her!”

The detectives pushed him back into his chair.

Adrian stared at the empty eyes in the video. His voice cracked. “She cried in the hospital. Was she begging

us for help?”

The detective opened the neurologist’s report.

“The chip suppresses voluntary movement and the ability to communicate. It doesn’t suppress

consciousness.”

My mom went still. “What does that mean?”

“It means Rafa was likely conscious the entire time. From the moment the chip was implanted until she went

off that terrace.”

“She could see and hear everything. She just couldn’t control her body or refuse a single command.”

My mom screamed, a raw, animal sound, and swept everything off the table.

My dad stood frozen. Then he doubled over, clutching his chest, and retched.

He pulled my mom into his arms, but neither of them could get a full sentence out through the sobbing.

They finally understood. I hadn’t been acting out. I hadn’t been punishing them.

Every mechanical loop, every senseless injury, every blank stare had been me screaming for help from inside

my own body.

And every single time, they chose Angelica. They locked the only door that could have saved me, and they

did it with their own hands.

The evidence kept coming.

Angelica had used a card on my dad’s account to pay the deposit for the black–market surgery.

The night after the SAT, she had Adrian give me a soda laced with sedatives. Then she told everyone I’d left

the country to cool off.

The whole time I was “gone,” I was in an illegal clinic in Rivermark, getting the chip cut into my skull.

Cassian, the so–called exorcist, was a con artist she’d hired to sell the story.

Every flinch, every convulsion during the ritual, every “demonic reaction” to the ritual water and charms, was

Angelica pressing the controller in her pocket.

Adrian saw the payment records and started shaking so hard he could barely stay in his chair.

“So there was never any demon. Not from the start.”

The lead detective looked at him. “There was.”

“It just wasn’t inside Rafa.”