The blonde.
If she was real, what happened to her?
Was she sold? Was she buried? Was she still out there somewhere, hunting for answers, hunting for justice, hunting for the man who'd broken her?
Or was she just a dream I'd had—a story I'd told myself to feel less alone?
I couldn't remember.
I couldn't trust my memories.
Maybe I was the only one.
Maybe I'd always been the only one.
Maybe Gabriel had told me there were others to keep me compliant, to make me grateful, to make me believe I was special because I'd survived when they hadn't.
"You're the only one who mattered."
I picked up the knife. Wiped it on the dead man's shirt. Slid it back into my waistband.
The phone buzzed a third time.
I pulled it out.
New message.
Different number.
An address on the other side of the city. A name I didn't recognize. A time that was already passing.
Someone else who might know.
Another hunt.
Another body.
Another morning waking up in a motel room I didn't remember checking into, with hands I didn't remember washing, and blood I didn't remember spilling.
Gabriel.
Where are you?
Why are you making me do this?
Why can't you just come back?
I walked out of the office, into the warehouse, into the dawn. The sun was higher now, painting the grime-coated windows in shades of gold and grey. The streets were waking up—a truck in the distance, a siren somewhere, the hum of a city that didn't know or care what happened in its shadows.
I didn't know where I was going.
I didn't know why I was walking.
I just knew that I had to keep moving, keep hunting, keep killing, because if I stopped—if I sat still for too long—I might have to face the questions I'd been running from.
Who am I without Gabriel?
Who am I without my daddy?
