"In case you're ever looking for... different opportunities," he said, standing. His hand brushed my wrist, testing. "A girl with your particular qualities could do very well in my line of work."
"Oh, that's so sweet of you!" I pocketed the card next to the special phone, feeling them nestle together like conspirators. "I'm pretty happy here, but you never know when things might change!"
He left through the front, but I knew he'd circle back. They always did when they thought they'd found what they werelooking for. Matt finished his sweep and headed for the office, shooting me a look that said be careful and clean up after yourself and I don't want to know all at once.
I waited seventeen minutes. Gave Richard time to make his choice. Then I slipped out the back door into the alley that smelled like rotting vegetables and broken dreams.
He was there, of course. Leaning against the brick wall with practiced casualness, scrolling through his phone. The screen's glow lit his face from below, turning him into something from a fairytale. The kind where wolves wore human skin.
"Hi again!" I said, and he startled so beautifully. "Were you waiting for me? That's so thoughtful!"
"I thought maybe we could talk more privately." He pushed off the wall, moving closer. "About those opportunities."
"Oh, I'd love that!" I clasped my hands together like prayer or excitement. "But first, can I ask you something super important?"
"Sure."
"Do you know someone named Gabriel Mire?"
The way his face changed told me everything. The recognition. The wariness. The quick calculation of whether to lie or flee or fight. But I was already moving, already becoming what Daddy had made me. The knife came free from its thigh holster with a whisper of fabric and intent.
"Because if you do," I continued, voice still bright as birthday candles, "we definitely need to talk! Downstairs might be better though. More private. You understand, right?"
The blade pressed against his kidney, invisible in the shadows between us. He understood perfectly.
The basement door was hidden behind a false wall that Matt had installed after the third time he'd found me cleaning up. Such a good boss. So understanding. The stairs creaked under our weight—his heavy with fear, mine light as dancing—and the fluorescent bulbs flickered to life with a buzz that sounded like prayers.
"This is perfect!" I guided him to the chair in the center of the concrete floor, the one with the convenient rings for restraints. "Much better for honest conversations, don't you think?"
"Listen," he started, but I pressed a finger to his lips.
"Shh. Good boys speak when spoken to." The words came out in Daddy's rhythm, Daddy's cadence, and for a moment I could almost feel him watching. Approving. "Now, let's talk about how you know that name. And more importantly—" I secured his wrists with the efficiency of muscle memory, "—let's talk about where I can find him."
The basement had excellent acoustics. I'd tested them extensively over the past few months, mapping the way sound bounced off concrete and copper pipes. It was important to know these things. Important to understand how loud someone could be before it mattered.
"I don't know any Gabriel," Richard said, but his pulse was visible in his throat, rabbiting along like Morse code spelling out L-I-A-R.
"That's okay! We have time to remember." I pulled up the rolling stool, smoothing my dress as I sat. The special phone came out, and I scrolled through six months of carefully gathered data. "See, the funny thing about the trafficking network is how connected everyone is. Like a big, beautiful spiderweb! And every contact in this phone—the one I took from some very unfriendly people—leads to other contacts. Other houses. Other girls who need finding."
His eyes tracked the screen, recognizing numbers maybe. Or just recognizing that I wasn't what he'd thought. Wasn't the easy mark. Wasn't the product he'd hoped to acquire.
"You're one of his," he breathed. "One of the Institute girls."
"The very last one!" I confirmed happily. "Well, the last one from his direct program. Batch number 47, though he made me feel like the only one in the world. Isn't that romantic?"
"You're insane."
"Hmm, maybe!" I considered this seriously, tapping the knife against my lower lip. "But Daddy always said sanity was just a consensus reality that didn't serve growth. Do you want to grow, Richard? Do you want to become something more than a man who steals broken girls?"
The conversation continued for some time. Richard had such interesting things to share once properly motivated. Names and dates and locations that I carefully added to my mental map. He knew about the Institute. Knew about the "products" they created. Had even tried to acquire one himself through channels that led back and back and back to something larger than I'd imagined.
By the time we were done, my dress had splattered with abstract art that Jackson Pollock would have envied. But the important thing was the new lead. A facility three states over. A doctor who sometimes consulted for the Institute. A step closer to understanding the beautiful, terrible machine that had birthed me.
"Thank you so much for your help!" I told Richard's peaceful face. He looked so much better without all that tension, all that guilty knowledge weighing down his features. "This has been absolutely wonderful!"
The cleanup was meditative. Bleach and burial, erasure and evidence removal. I hummed while I worked, something Daddy used to play during our sessions. Classical, maybe. Or just the sound of contentment given form.
By 3 AM, I was home. The apartment waited like a loyal pet, all my beautiful work spread across its walls. Maps marked with red thread connecting cities where girls had vanished and reappeared changed. Photos printed from traffic cameras and social media, tracking the ghost movements of the network. And in the center, like the eye of my hurricane, the one clear photo I'd found of Gabriel Mire. Professional headshot from a psychology conference seven years ago. He looked younger but no less intense, those storm-grey eyes seeing through the camera to the future where I'd stare back at him with desperate love.
