Diego notices...of course, Chase wants him to

At first it was just a gut feeling. His mother no longer corrected him when he called her mamá—she simply smiled faintly, as if tolerating a childish nickname. She wasn’t cold exactly, but she wasn’t herself. And she always seemed to light up when Chase’s name came up, or when she thought about visiting the mansion for work.

Diego kept replaying those little moments in his head: the way she blushed at a passing comment from Chase, how her voice softened when she talked about him. It didn’t fit. None of it fit.

He started keeping a notebook. Not of schoolwork, but of changes. He recorded dates and behaviors for the last few months:

• "Quit her job and became a maid."

• "Called herself Valerie."

• “Stopped correcting me in English—only Spanish now.”

• "Sold our house, car, and most of our stuff. Moved to a shitty place in a poor neighborhood."

• "Looked over 10 years younger when I got back from trip. Has documents showing she's a 33 year old immigrant with a green card instead of an American citizen.

• “Scolded me for ‘talking back’ when I questioned Chase.”

• “Smiled when Chase touched her shoulder.”

• “Didn’t say she was my mother. Said she was ‘responsible for me.’”

• "Talks about memories of childhood poverty and suffering in Mexico"

By the end of the week, the notebook pages were cramped with hurried scribbles, arrows connecting his observations like a detective’s board.

Then he went back to his research: “personality change sudden,” “memory alteration,” “identity erosion psychology,” “brainwashing real.”

He had found many stories of cults, survivors who described how leaders could break down selfhood through repetition, isolation, humiliation and reward. It made him shiver: wasn’t that exactly what Chase had engineered? Moving them to the immigrant neighborhood, cutting them off from friends, rewarding Mamá with gifts and praise…

But when he tried to map it onto hypnosis, he couldn’t make the pieces fit. Hypnosis felt too theatrical, too fake. Chase was smarter than that. It had to be something more subtle—psychology, technology, **** maybe.

Still, no article explained how to reverse it. Every case ended the same: the subject only broke free when ripped away from the manipulator’s influence.

Diego began thinking strategically. He couldn’t just shout accusations at Chase—it only made Mamá angry. He had to be clever. Careful. He began saving articles about cult deprogramming, printing them at the library so they wouldn’t show up on his browsing history. He even considered talking to one of his teachers—but what could he say without sounding insane?

At night, lying awake in their cramped little house, he made himself a vow: If Chase could remake her mind, then I’ll find a way to undo it.

He didn’t know how yet, but he would. He had to.