Chapter 6
The Girl
The bar smelled like whiskey and secrets.
I didn't remember driving to this city. I didn't remember crossing state lines or checking into a motel or deciding that this particular bar, on this particular street, at this particular hour, was where I needed to be.
But here I was. Sitting on a cracked vinyl stool with my hands wrapped around a glass of something amber, watching the door, waiting for someone I didn't know I was supposed to meet.
How did I get here?
The question surfaced and sank, surfaced and sank, like a body too tired to stay afloat. I'd stopped trying to answer it. The gaps in my memory were widening, and the more I struggled against them, the faster they swallowed me.
Phone.
I pulled it out. The screen glowed. A message I didn't remember reading, from a number I didn't recognize, with an address that matched the bar's neon sign.
Be there at midnight. She'll find you.
She.
Who was she?
I didn't know. But I was here, and she was coming, and my body was already preparing itself—heart rate steady, breathing shallow, knife within easy reach.
"You're ready."
Gabriel's voice.
Or maybe my own.
Or maybe something I'd read once, in a file I shouldn't have opened.
"Batch 39 was a failure, but you—you're perfect."
The memory came without warning, sharp and clear as broken glass.
Gabriel was standing in front of me, his hand on my face, his thumb tracing my lower lip. The pink room was pink. The collar was warm against my throat. His eyes were the color of winter storms.
"There were others before you. Subjects who didn't take. Minds that couldn't bend the way I needed them to."
"What happened to them?"
My voice, small and soft. The voice he'd trained me to use.
"They were... discontinued."
"Discontinued."
"Removed. Recycled. Forgotten."
His thumb pressed against my lip, and I opened my mouth, and he pushed inside.
"But you're different. You're perfect. You're the only one who matters."
The only one.
The only.
The memory shifted.
I was in a different room now. White walls. No windows. A woman sat across from me—blonde, hollow-eyed, her hands wrapped around a cup of something that steamed.
"He never talked about the others. He said I was the only one. He said I was perfect."
"You're lying."
"Maybe."
She smiled, and it was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.
"Maybe I'm not real at all. Maybe you made me up."
I blinked.
The bar came back.
The whiskey was still in my glass. The stool was still cracked. The door was still closed, and the woman I was waiting for hadn't arrived.
Batch 39.
Had Gabriel mentioned her?
Had he said she was a failure? A subject who didn't take? A mind that couldn't bend?
Or had I imagined the whole conversation—invented it to fill the silence, to give myself context, to make sense of the blonde who kept appearing in my dreams?
I didn't know.
I couldn't know.
The memories were water, and my hands were sieves.
The door opened.
I looked up, and she was there.
Young. Pretty. Blonde—not the blonde from my dreams, or maybe the same blonde, or maybe a different one entirely. Her hair was lighter, longer, pulled back in a ponytail that swung when she walked. Her eyes were hollow in a way I recognized, a way that made my chest ache.
She'd been broken too.
By someone like Gabriel.
Or by Gabriel himself.
She crossed the room and sat on the stool beside me. Didn't ask permission. Didn't introduce herself. Just sat, her hands folded on the bar, her eyes fixed on the bottles behind the counter.
"You're Bunny."
Not a question.
"Who's asking?"
"Someone who knows what you're looking for."
She turned to face me, and her face shifted—or maybe it didn't, maybe my eyes were playing tricks, maybe I was so exhausted that I couldn't trust anything I saw.
One version: young. Scared. The hollow eyes of someone who'd survived something terrible.
Another version: older. Harder. The calculating gaze of someone who'd learned to use her trauma as a weapon.
Both looked real.
Both looked like lies.
"I knew Gabriel."
The name hit me like a blade between the ribs.
"You're lying."
"I'm not. I was with him before you. Before the Institute. Before he started the program."
"There was no program. There was just me."
"That's what he told you."
She smiled, and the expression didn't reach her eyes.
"He told me the same thing. That I was the only one. That I was perfect. That I was his greatest creation."
"You're lying."
"Ask him. If you ever find him. Ask him how many of us there were. Ask him how many he named. Ask him how many he threw away."
"You're lying."
"Maybe."
She leaned closer, and I caught the scent of her perfume—something floral, something sweet, something that reminded me of the pink room.
"But I know where he is. He talked about you."
The words came out flat, almost bored. Like she was reciting a script she'd memorized long ago.
"When?"
"Before. After he left the Institute. He said you were special. Different from the others."
"He said I was the only one."
"He said you were a project. An investment. Something he'd spent years perfecting."
"That's not the same thing."
"No."
Her smile was sharp now. A blade wrapped in silk.
"It's not."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I think you deserve to know the truth. Before you waste any more time hunting for someone who doesn't want to be found."
"He wants to be found. He's waiting for me."
"Is he?"
"He said he'd come back."
"He said a lot of things."
She reached out and touched my hand. Her fingers were cold. Cold and dry and papery, like something that had been dead for a long time.
"He said he loved me. He said I was perfect. He said I was the only one who understood him. And then he left. Just like he left you."
"He didn't leave. He was taken."
"Is that what you tell yourself?"
"It's what I know."
"Do you know it? Or do you just need to believe it?"
I pulled my hand away.
"Why are you here?"
"I told you. I know where he is."
"Then take me to him."
"Are you sure you want to go?"
"I've been hunting him for weeks. I've killed people for him. I've—"
"I know what you've done."
Her eyes were hollow, but something flickered in them. Something that might have been sympathy. Or pity. Or hunger.
"I've been watching you. Following you. Waiting for the right moment."
"You're the shadow."
"One of them."
"There are others?"
"There are always others."
She stood up. Her stool scraped against the floor, a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.
"Come with me. I'll take you to him."
"I don't trust you."
"You don't have to trust me. You just have to follow me."
"And if it's a trap?"
"Then you'll kill me. The way you've killed everyone else who got in your way."
She walked toward the door.
I followed.
The street was dark.
The bar's neon sign flickered behind us, casting her shadow in red and blue and purple. She walked quickly, her heels clicking against the pavement, her ponytail swinging with each step.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere quiet. Somewhere we can talk without being overheard."
"You could have talked at the bar."
"The bar has ears. The bar has eyes. The bar belongs to someone who doesn't want Gabriel found."
"Who?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
She turned down an alley, and I followed. The walls were close here—brick and grime and the smell of rotting garbage. A cat hissed at us from a dumpster, and I saw its eyes glow green in the darkness.
"How do you know Gabriel?"
"I told you. I was with him before you."
"Before the Institute?"
"Before everything. Before he became what he is."
"What was he like?"
"Kind. Gentle. Broken."
She stopped walking and turned to face me.
"He was broken long before he broke you. His father saw to that. His brother. His family. They made him into something he never wanted to be."
"His family?"
"You didn't know? Gabriel Mire wasn't born in a vacuum. He was raised in a empire. An empire built on the bones of women like us."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"He would have told me."
"Would he? He never told you about me. He never told you about Batch 39. He never told you about any of the others."
She stepped closer, and I caught the scent of her perfume again. Floral. Sweet. Rotting.
"He kept you in the dark because the dark was easier to control. The dark was safer. The dark let him pretend you were the only one."
"You don't know him."
"I know him better than you ever will."
"Then why won't you take me to him?"
"I am. I'm taking you to someone who knows where he is. Someone who can help you find him."
"Who?"
"You'll see."
She turned and kept walking.
I followed.
The building was abandoned.
Boarded windows. A chain on the door. Graffiti on the walls—names and dates and messages I couldn't read. She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the padlock, and the chain fell to the ground with a sound like a body hitting concrete.
"After you."
"Ladies first."
"I insist."
I stepped inside.
The hallway was dark. The air was thick with dust and decay and something else—something metallic, something that reminded me of blood. I could hear her behind me, her heels clicking against the floor, her breath soft and steady.
"Where are we?"
"A safe house. A place Gabriel used before the Institute."
"He never mentioned it."
"There's a lot he never mentioned."
We walked deeper into the building. The walls were covered in mold. The floor was covered in debris. The ceiling was covered in water stains that looked like maps of countries I'd never visited.
"He's not here."
"I know."
"Then why did you bring me here?"
"Because I wanted to show you something."
She stopped in front of a door. It was different from the others—newer, sturdier, with a lock that gleamed in the darkness.
"Open it."
"Why?"
"Because the truth is inside."
I reached for the handle.
The lock was warm.
The room was empty.
White walls. No windows. A single chair in the center of the floor, facing away from me.
"What is this?"
"This is where he kept us. Before you. Before the Institute. Before he decided we weren't worth keeping."
"There's no one here."
"There was. Once. Before he disposed of them."
"Disposed of them?"
"Recycled. Removed. Forgotten."
She walked around me and stood in front of the chair.
"This is where Batch 39 died. Where she stopped being useful. Where he decided she was more trouble than she was worth."
"You're lying."
"Am I?"
She smiled, and her face shifted again—young, old, hollow, hungry.
"Ask yourself, Bunny. Ask yourself why you can't remember. Why your memories keep changing. Why the girl who wasn't there keeps appearing in your dreams."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do."
She stepped closer, and her hand found my face, and her thumb traced my lower lip—the way Gabriel used to.
"You're not hunting for Gabriel. You're hunting for yourself. For the pieces of yourself you lost when he broke you."
"You don't know me."
"I know you better than you know yourself."
She pulled away and walked toward the door.
"I can take you to him. But first, you have to prove you're ready."
"Ready for what?"
"Ready to see the truth."
She walked out of the room, and I followed.
I didn't trust her.
I didn't believe her.
But I followed.
Because following was the only thing I knew how to do.