There was a constant dripping somewhere in the room.

Alaric could not tell where – the blindfold stopped her from seeing more than faint strips of light. The air smelt stale and suffocated her, and the binds on her arms cut into her wrists until she felt trickles of blood sliding down her hand. The chair she was on was old and groaned with every move she made. The silence was deafening.

A door opened in front of her. There was a draft, and then heavy footsteps clunked on the stone floor, accompanied with the horrible stench of cigarette smoke and a man's violent coughing fit. Alaric was rigid. She could not help imagining herself as the women her parents had murdered.

"Alaric." The voice was gruff. It sounded like a threat. "Glad we've had the chance to meet."

The girl did not reply. Her lips thinned and she fought to repress the flight-or-fight reaction bubbling in her limbs.

"I'm sure you're confused. We'd all be confused, wouldn't we?"

Again she was silent, but the urge was growing with every word he said. He was circling her chair like a shark, and for one mad, awful moment, she hoped he would kill her quickly and be done with it.

"I've been watching for a while. You caught on to it, didn't you? Always with that mutt of yours. A shame your parents never did, but then again, they're not really your parents, are they?"

He stopped. Alaric's breath shallowed when she realised he was just behind her. He laid his hands on the back of her chair, anchoring it down against any fight she could put up.

"You see, Alaric, I know about you. I read all those little articles, watched all the interviews. The pretty little face of tragedy. So much pain behind those eyes."

His breath blew hot against her ear. She could smell a faint scent of alcohol – vodka, she realised, mixed with gin and whisky. A cocktail? She hoped he would forget and take pain medication for those clicking joints.

"But I knew – you see, I knew. There was no way you were innocent. I could see it, plain as day on your face. You were the one who killed her, weren't you?"

"Who?" she spoke before she could stop herself. There was a long, drawn out pause, then the man laughed until he was hacking.

"Who, she says!" he spluttered, "Who! As if you don't know. Evil never dies, does it, Alaric? And there's so much evil inside you."

The hands disappeared from the chair. There was a rustling – paper, she realised – and the man walked to stand in front of her, blocking the strips of light with his frame.

"Four victims. Lucy Harper, Heidi Monroe, Melissa Jocasta, and…"

He paused.

"And Demi."

Alaric could hear a slight crack in his voice. The papers rustled again. The man stepped closer and leaned in, until his breath was in her face again. She imagined his teeth were crooked and stained yellow.

"I saw you, before you went off air. All those reporters, all those newsrooms – they had it right the first time, then someone told them otherwise. No more heat. No more blame. Not for little Alaric Truman, right?"

"That's not my name."

"You're a Truman, and you killed my little girl."

Another pause. He knelt down in front of her; she could hear his joints groaning as he did.

"You see, Alaric, I've got a problem. Cancer. Doctors say it's terminal – got myself a few months at most. I'll be with Demi again soon."

"I'm glad."

His hand slammed down on the floor. The noise was so loud, she fell instantly silent.

"Don't you back-chat me!" he barked. "Sit there and listen; you're going to want to, trust me."

Another long pause, and then she nodded. If this was a game for her life, she would play by his rules – at least until someone found where she had been taken to.

But where is that?

"I figured, well, if Demi and I are goin' to be together again soon, it's no matter what I do here. Who's going to put a dying man on trial? Hell, I'd be gone long before they even set a date."

"Then you're going to kill me."

"No, no. Well, not yet. I've got some finer details to work out still, see. Got to make the punishment fit the crime, haven't I? I read what you did to my Demi."

"What my parents did to her."

"They were doing it for you, we all know it. There's these conspiracies – you heard about them?" She did not reply. "Come on, I'm sure you have."

"Which ones?"

"Your parents were fixin' to put your brothers' brains back together, right? Trying to make them smart. Trying to make them like you. They killed my Demi for you, so they could be smart like she was."

"I'm sorry."

He stopped. For a moment there was silence, and then he angrily responded:

"You're sorry?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry your daughter died."

"She died because of you. You killed her. You're responsible for this – for all of this! If she hadn't died, none of this would have happened!"

"I'm sorry."

Another silence. For a moment she wondered if he would hit her, but that thought was dispelled when he laughed and slapped the floor again. It sent him into another coughing fit. His joints clicked and screamed as he stood.

"Well, you're goin' to feel real sorry for what you did. I can do anything I want, I'm a dead man already. Hell, maybe I'll even livestream it, eh? Pay for my palliative care – how's that sound?"

He cackled as he turned and walked through the door again. It slammed shut and Alaric was left alone with only the strips of light and the constant drip, drip, drip for company. It was when she was certain she was alone that she finally started to sob.

Derek, Spencer, please come find me, she thought through racking cries: Please find me, please, please, please.

There was a loud flip of a switch somewhere, and suddenly Alaric was left in darkness. She continued to cry as the rays of hope died in her heaving chest.