
To recognize captivity, you have to know you’ve been captured. I didn’t. The first time he snuck into my bed, I was only seven. I had a knife. Father shouldn’t have craved me as he did, so I sunk the blade into him… I was a child of many demons, all of whom they had created. No one missed the child that disappeared from sight because they knew where I was—where I’d been hidden away—for when they wanted the girl with no hands. To understand you’ve been freed, you have to learn what freedom even is. Could I learn? This is a dark story that I wish I hadn’t lived, but had I not, I never would have known the Angel of Death.