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I haven’t been in here—in there—since I was ten years old.

Now that I’m back, what memories I’ve kept are more vivid, more real. The sticky feeling of blood congealing on my hands because the cops wouldn’t let me wash them, wouldn’t even let me have a drink of water. An EMT yelling at an officer for the way he was holding my arm. The elevator ride down to the lobby stretching on for what felt like hours, and me wondering if my father would be able to catch me before I reached the concierge.

It’s hard to breathe. My muscles don’t want to listen. I tap my hand against my chest, thump-thump-thump, giving my heart a steadier rhythm to mimic as if it actually works like that.

“Oh god,” Felicity whispers. They take a step forward but can’t pick up their feet enough to avoid leaving trails in the dust. Their eyes are fixed on the blood. There’s so much of it.

I don’t respond. There’s nothing for me to say. When I open the bedroom door, it rattles with the weight of a dozen dead bolts and locks and chains.

Yeah.

I’d know this room anywhere.

Fifty-one girls over twenty-one years. Not all of them here, in this room, but a lot of them. Enough of them. Enough to turn this place into a portrait of evil.

Soundproofing fastened to the walls, floors, and ceiling; windows blocked by sheets of black plastic; floor covered in the same. The bedpan and mattress in the corner, with the ankle restraint still attached to its chain. Immobilization bars and handcuffs. A doll-like mask, and a metal box that could be fastened over the head, and an iron chest big enough to fit a woman curled up knees to chest. Playboy magazines and human anatomical diagrams and an expensive camera. Metal tins of instruments: scalpels, bone cutters, scissors, retractors, speculums. A makeshift surgical table. A restraint chair. A hot plate. Operating room lights and a mannequin and a long tube I distinctly remember being used for breaking hunger strikes.

Felicity makes a noise in the back of their throat, backs up, and dry-heaves.

The reason I can’t remember so much of what happened here is my brain desperately attempting to protect itself from the reality of the situation. If I could recall every moment in perfect detail, I’d be worse off than I am now. I wouldn’t be able to function at all. By thirteen years old, I probably would’ve lain down and died.

But I remember enough, don’t I. I remember picking up scalpels, and pulling chains, and locking spider gags into place. (I was ten.) I remember being angry and taking it out on the first person who couldn’t fight back. (I was nine.) I remember Dad encouraging me to touch her. (I was eight.)

I was seven, I was six, I was five.

“In the walls,” I whisper, dragging myself to reality as Felicity coughs behind me. I have to focus, or I’ll lose it in here. “In the walls.”

Where would Dad have access to the walls?

The closet.

My body moves before I make the conscious decision to. The closet itself is hidden behind soundproofing panels, and is full of scrubs and dresses and cheap costumes from a party store. I shove them all aside, feel around in the dark, scrape the pads of my fingers across rough drywall.

“Morgan?” Felicity says.

My eyes burn and my hands shake as I find what I’m looking for: the plumbing access panel. It’s screwed into place.

“I need a screwdriver,” I say. “There should be one to your left, in the blue bin.”

There’s a hesitation, then a clatter, and a screwdriver is being passed over my shoulder. I take it and set to work. My breath comes out ragged. The first two screws come out easy. The third gets stuck. I have to force it.

It has to be here, right? Dad wouldn’t have time to patch anything, not with how fast the cops showed up. This would be the quickest way, and the easiest thing for the investigators to overlook.

I strip the last screw. Fuck it. I rip the panel off the wall and shove it to the crinkling plastic floor.

It’s even darker in the walls. An open wound gouged into the side of what was supposed to be a beautiful penthouse. I grab my phone, turn on the flashlight, and peer in.

“Anything?” Felicity says.

I barely hear them. Inside the wall, it’s all copper pipes and insulation and the curve of the bathtub in the adjoining room. I shove through the pile of high heels and fallen clothes, and grope blindly through the dust.

My fingers touch leather.

There. Tucked under the infrastructure of the floor. I fumble for it, drag it closer with the tip of my nail, fling my phone to the side so I can brace myself on the wall and reach in a little farther.

I get it.

“Here.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from another room. I pull it free of the wall and sit back, nearly falling over the pile of shoes. My hands are coated in dust, but they clutch the wallet like a lifeline. Behind me, Felicity breathes heavily. They haven’t moved. “It’s here.”