"Daddy."
Another whisper. Another prayer.
"Daddy, where are you?"
The basement didn't answer.
The dead man didn't answer.
The only sound was my breathing, ragged and wet, and the distant hum of the city waking up above me.
I needed to move.
I needed to clean the knife, wash my hands, find the next lead, the next name, the next body.
But I stayed sitting against the wall, with my face pressed to my knees, and I let myself cry for the girl I'd been before the Institute, before Gabriel, before I learned that love meant bleeding.
"Daddy."
"I'm still your good girl."
"I'm still hunting for you."
"I'm still killing for you."
"Please."
"Please come back."
The sun rose higher outside. The basement grew warmer. The blood dried on my hands and flaked off in red-brown pieces that scattered across the concrete like confetti.
The count.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
I stopped.
I would never know the number.
I would never know if the woman was real or a dream or a memory I'd stolen from someone else.
I would never know anything for certain, ever again.
But I knew Gabriel.
Or I thought I did.
Or I needed to believe I did, because if I didn't know him—if I'd never known him—then I was just a woman sitting in a basement with blood on her hands and no reason for any of it.
"Daddy."
The word was barely a breath.
