The first thing Eleanor remembered was the sound of metal.

Not a gunshot.

Not a scream.

Metal.

A slow, deliberate scrape against stone, followed by the faint rattle of a chain being dragged across the floor.

She opened her eyes.

For several seconds, she could see nothing.

The darkness beneath the old slaughterhouse was so complete that she could not tell whether her eyes were open at all. The air was cold against her face. Somewhere nearby, water dripped at regular intervals.

Drop.

Silence.

Drop.

Silence.

Her wrists were tied behind her back. Her ankles were secured with iron cuffs. The chain between them was long enough to allow her to crawl but not long enough for her to stand comfortably.

She had stopped counting the days.

At first, she had scratched marks into the wall.

One.

Two.

Three.

Then the numbers became confusing.

Hunger blurred time. Fear distorted memory. Sleep came in fragments, broken by nightmares and the occasional sound of footsteps overhead.

She remembered twelve days.

Or perhaps thirteen.

It no longer mattered.

What mattered was that Victor Hale had promised he would return.

He always did.

He had a way of making promises sound like threats.

“You'll learn eventually,” he had told her the last time he came downstairs.

She had not answered.

He had smiled.

“You're still pretending you have a choice.”

Eleanor had learned not to give him the satisfaction of seeing fear.

But she was afraid.

She was terrified.

And somewhere beneath that terror was a tiny, stubborn part of her that refused to die.

That part had kept her breathing.

That part had made her sing.

On the eighth night, when the silence became unbearable, she had remembered a lullaby.

She could not remember who taught it to her.

She only remembered a woman's voice.

Soft.

Warm.

A voice from a life that felt like it belonged to someone else.

So she sang.

Barely above a whisper.

The old melody traveled through the stone walls and disappeared into the darkness.

She had expected nothing.

No rescue.

No miracle.

No one was coming.

That was what Victor had told her.

No one knows you're here.

No one remembers you.

No one is looking.

You are nobody.

She had almost believed him.

Then, sometime after midnight, she heard something above.

A sound.

A boot against wood.

She stopped singing.

Silence followed.

Then another sound.

A man's voice, faint through the floor.

“Hello?”

Eleanor's heart nearly stopped.

She did not answer.

The voice came again.

“Can you hear me?”

She pressed herself against the wall.

“Who are you?”

Nothing.

Then:

“Someone who doesn't belong here.”

She almost laughed.

That was the first time hope had hurt more than fear.

Because hope meant she could lose something.

She crawled toward the small opening where the cellar met an old drainage passage.

“Please,” she whispered.

The stranger heard her.

“I'll get you out.”

She wanted to believe him.

But she had heard promises before.

And promises had always ended with a locked door.

Hours later, the sound of the lock finally came.

The door above opened.

Light spilled down the stairs.

Eleanor covered her eyes.

A man descended.