Concrete walls.
A drain in the floor.
Old pipes running along the ceiling, wrapped in insulation that was falling apart.
And at the far end of the room, a door.
Metal. Rusted. Locked.
I walked toward it.
The lock was old—a padlock, the kind you could buy at any hardware store, the kind that opened with a key or a strong enough pair of bolt cutters.
I didn't have either.
But I had Matt.
And Matt had asked not to know what happened down here.
"Every good hunter needs a place to process her kills."
The memory came without warning.
Gabriel's voice, soft and sure.
"A place where no one will find you. A place where no one will ask questions. A place where you can be alone with what you've done."
He was standing in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, his eyes the color of winter storms.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Good girl."
I blinked.
The basement came back.
The drain. The pipes. The locked door.
Had Gabriel really said that?
Or had I invented it—pulled it from the fog of my fractured memory, woven it from fragments of other conversations, other rooms, other men who'd tried to shape me?
I didn't know.
I couldn't know.
But the words felt right.
The same way the dresses felt right.
The same way the bear felt right.
The same way Matt's silence felt right.
I walked back to the stairs and looked up. Matt was still standing in the doorway, watching.
