ROMAN
Victor finishes working at the knots with hands that are far gentler than they have any right to be and the rope falls away from her wrists in a loose coil at his knee.
The marks left behind are deep and angry on her fragile skin.
Riggs shrugs off his jacket and drapes it around her shoulders without a word.
The fabric swallows her small frame whole as she clutches at it like she’s not entirely convinced it won’t be taken back. I force myself to move closer.
“What’s your name?” Victor asks softly.
Her gaze darts between us before she slowly drops her eyes to the floorboards as her shoulders tremble in exhausted waves.
She seems to fold inward as if making herself smaller might make the room less dangerous.
We don’t rush her or crowd her and the only sound is the steady rain hammering against the roof.
“Emily,” the girl whispers at last.
“Emily,” Riggs repeats carefully. “Alright. That’s good…. That’s good.”
“Did someone hurt you?” I ask.
“Roman…” Riggs looks at me and I frown back, am I not meant to ask that? “Ignore Roman he doesn’t hang around humans very often; he doesn’t know how to talk to them.” Riggs says in a stage whisper and Emily’s lips twitch.
“That’s okay,” she looks over his shoulder at me, “I don’t either. I understand.”
“Why don’t you?” I demand and again and this time I feel a thud in my shoulder and I glare at Victor.
“What is wrong with you?” he hisses in my ear
“Why am I not allowed to ask these questions?” I hiss back through gritted teeth.
“Erm...” Emily interrupts us, “I’m not sure I’m meant to be speaking with you.”
Her eyes glaze back at Riggs who gifts her a soft smile and moves back slightly to give her space, “We are here to help you Emily okay? We just need to try and find some information to keep you safe, would you like that?”
Emily’s shoulders lift in a small, uncertain shrug before she glances up at me briefly and then drops her gaze straight back to the floor like eye contact itself is something forbidden. Her fingers move restlessly, picking at a loose thread on the blanket draped over her lap.
“He never…” she mumbles. “He would sometimes hit me for correction but he never, you know… touched my privates.”
Felix lets out a low, feral sound over the comms and Victor swears quietly under his breath.
“Who is he?” Riggs asks softly.
“My daddy, Colin Fisher,” Emily responds quicker this time.
Emily straightens her spine after she says it, her small shoulders pulling back like she’s bracing for impact. I’ve seen that move before. I saw it the night Fae finally let the truth spill out of her on that cold stretch of beach.
“Can you tell us anything more, Emily? You’re being very brave,” Riggs says gently.
She draws in a careful breath.
“He goes for days at a time,” she begins quietly, “and then he’d come home and train me.”
Her fingers twist deeper into Victor’s jacket as if the fabric might anchor her.
“I had to wear these tight dresses and skirts that I didn’t like. They were scratchy and hard to sit in,” her voice thins slightly. “I would be made to sit on the floor whilst he ate dinner and it made my knees hurt.”
A small hiccup escapes her and my jaw tightens so hard I feel the pressure behind my temples as I force myself not to move or interrupt.
“He said I had to practise,” she continues. “He said I had to get it right.”
“Practise what?” Riggs asks.
“Everything, I guess,” she murmurs. “My posture. My make-up. The way I sat. The way I looked at people.” She swallows as her eyes drop to the floor again, “He said it was for daddy’s friends. If it wasn’t perfect, I would get corrected. Sometimes lots of times.”
The pieces align in my head with a clarity that makes my stomach churn. The make-up laid out across the bathroom sink wasn’t evidence of an adult woman living here. It was the residue of a child being moulded into something she was too young to understand.
“And perfume,” she adds quietly, like it’s something minor compared to the rest. “I had to wear perfume.”
“What kind?” Victor asks, in a deceptively neutral tone
Only his eyes flick briefly in my direction, and a slow and heavy understanding settles in my gut before she even speaks. Emily wrinkles her nose faintly.
“Vanilla,” she says. “I don’t like it. It makes me feel sick. But daddy likes it.” She hesitates, “he said I had to smell like her if I wanted to be successful.”
The air in the attic suddenly feels thinner.
Vanilla wasn’t random; it was a preference born from memory.
Fisher wasn’t training her for strangers.
He was shaping her into something he enjoyed.
Fae smells like vanilla threaded through with honey.
It belongs to her in a way that cannot be replicated.
The thought of that fragrance being stripped down and forced onto a child as part of a rehearsal dinner forces me to swallow the bile continuing to rise in my throat and Riggs cuts me a knowing look.
“Where’s your mum?” Victor asks quietly and Emily shrugs beneath the jacket.
“I never met her,” she replies.
Atlas’ breathing shifts over comms. Felix says nothing but I know he is watching every second of this feed.
“We’re going to get you somewhere safe,” Victor tells her and there is no performance in his tone. “Somewhere warm and clean.”
She finally looks up at that like she’s measuring whether she dares believe it.
“This sounds crazy, Emily, and maybe it’s wrong for me to tell you this, but you have a sister. Her name is Hazel and I’m sure she would love to talk to you. Would you like that?” Victor asks.
Emily hesitates before a bright and unguarded look breaks across her face.
She nods and Victor breathes a sigh of relief.
My feet shift as I feel my watch buzz, a reminder we’ve been here for thirty minutes.
Atlas and Felix still have eyes on the house but the longer we stay up here the more we risk.
This girl needs doctors. She needs social services.
She needs somewhere that doesn’t smell like damp wood and fear.
Riggs must get the same buzz because he helps her to her feet carefully with one steady hand at her elbow.
She sways and he adjusts his hold as I step aside to let them pass.
Emily glances at me on the way to the stairs and I hold her gaze.
“You’re safe now,” I tell her quietly.
Riggs takes her down as Victor follows close behind.
Atlas talks them through the approach to the van; his voice is low and steady in our ears as he watches for blind spots on his drone.
I remain in the attic until the red light on my collar confirms they’re outside and secure.
I force myself to take one slow breath before I turn toward the stairs.
Footsteps approach from below and I know who it is before they even turn the corner.
Felix appears at the bottom of the attic, and his eyes are already scanning the house as if he expects Fisher to materialise out of the rafters.
His gaze then shifts to me. I can see him cataloguing the redness in my eyes but he doesn’t say a word about it.
I move toward him, intending to brush past and get back to work but he steps into my path and stops me.
His hand grips the collar of my jacket as he pulls me into him.
It’s not graceful. It’s solid and unfiltered.
It reminds me of the dungeon and of the night he was the one unravelling whilst I was the only thing holding him upright.
My skin still tightens at the contact but I don’t pull away.
I let him hold on. I suspect he needs the confirmation of me being steady more than I need the comfort of him trying to be.
Felix steps back, leaving his hands on my shoulder.
His eyes flick across my face as I take in a shuddering breath.
Half of me wants to bark at him to back off, the other is grateful someone understands my desperation.
I feel exposed.
“We’re in this together, mate. I’ve got you. Don’t carry it alone. She wouldn’t want that,” he murmurs after a while.
I nod.
“I thought it was her,” he says, swallowing hard.
“So did I,” I murmur.
He exhales through his nose and drags a hand over the back of his neck. “We’ll get her.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I turn and start down the hallway as Felix falls into step beside me without another word.
We clear the house separately. I enter the living room first, making sure no stone is left unturned.
I lift cushions, take photo frames off the walls, dig about in the fireplace before I move on to the kitchen empty handed.
This time I open cupboards, pour out jars of sauce and beans, lift floorboards that look loose.
Every drawer is pulled out; every nook and cranny is searched.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for exactly, but I know I’ll know when I find it.
I hear Felix clearing other rooms as I turn and go back upstairs. I strip the bedroom, lifting the mattress, the bed frame, the photos but still there is nothing. The spare rooms, attic and bathrooms are all the same.
Finally, Felix and I meet again and we make our way to the final room.
It looks like an office. Boxes are everywhere as a desk is positioned beneath the window.
There are also rows of filing cabinets against one wall.
The first thing I find is a small black book tucked into the back of the bottom drawer, wedged flat beneath a stack of plain envelopes.
It’s unremarkable at first glance but a gut feeling makes me open it.
Names line the pages. Rows of them. Some are crossed out, others underlined, each annotated with dates and short coded symbols that I don’t immediately recognise but every name is female.
I flip past the index and land on a random page.
Becky. The top half reads like a standard intake form.
Her height, weight and BMI are all recorded with unnerving precision.
Then the notes change.