To Butterfly: Actually, this chapter will answer any Lynchpin connection with Mind-Wipe…

To yellow 14: So many times that's how trauma works.

"I'm not sure what you want from me…"

Élodie suppressed a yawn. They had been at this for three hours now, with every subsequent interview leaving her feeling more drained than the last. She had managed to get through the first few interviews without showing her exhaustion, propelled onward by the adrenaline rush of their success: the girls were all safe! But an hour into the marathon her strength had begun to flag. She had given in and bought coffee for herself and de Gouges from the hospital café an hour ago, but it hadn't helped at all.

And if she was tired, she could only imagine what the girls were feeling after everything they had been through. She had been meeting with Marie Calment while her mother waited in the hallway, when a nurse had interrupted to take another blood sample – evidently Vernant had requested a second round to test out a theory. That was when Élodie had gone out to the front desk to find Prefect Raincomprix, still deep in conversation with the night charge nurse. When he had acknowledged her, she had asked that they wait to finish the interviews. The Prefect, however, had told her that they needed to get what they could while the experience was still fresh, even though it might stress them out in the moment. Élodie had frowned – Oréane Boucharin's reaction to the picture had been heartbreaking to watch – but in the end she had acquiesced.

At the moment, however, she wished she could have waited.

Each of the girls had needed some consoling, and several had been in need of further medical care that had delayed their interviews. In three cases, Élodie had decided to cut the interviews short because those girls were in too much distress. And after three hours, this was the last interview, at least for this round. Then they would need to swing back around and meet with the first few girls as they woke up, just to find out if they had remembered anything after getting a little sleep. Mathieu had been busy making phone calls all night, notifying the girls' parents so they could come and pick them up once the hospital discharged them. She had passed Robert Boucharin, Oréane's father, in the hall while moving from one room to the next. On recognizing her sweatshirt and realizing she was with the police, he had pulled her aside, taken her hand, and thanked her profusely for finding his daughter. Élodie had simply told him to thank the Heroes of Paris. That had been the highlight of the night: watching father and daughter reunited.

The girl in front of her, however, was proving to be far more difficult.

She knitted her brows together, deep in thought. Nothing seemed to add up with this one. No one had actually reported her missing. That in itself didn't make her unique: a couple of the other girls hadn't been reported missing either. However, from her meetings with them she had discovered other factors at play: one girl came from a divorced family and her parents weren't on speaking terms, the other claimed to have run away from an abusive father. Lieutenant Ramus and Officer Moreau had interviewed their families to confirm the stories, and the first girl's parents had both been shocked to find out she wasn't with the other – only to turn around and blame each other for losing their daughter. And yet, their stories had been resolved easily enough. And both of them had immediately given their names – after Élodie had promised the second girl, Sophie, that she would protect her.

But not this girl.

"What are all these questions about?" the girl repeated, discomfort clear in her face. "Why do you care my name? I thought you said I'm the victim here."

"You are; I simply want to know who misses you," Élodie told her calmly. "Surely your parents will want to know that you are safe, after you've been missing for so long."

The girl folded her arms and frowned. "I live with my grandmother, but she's so busy, I hate to bother her."

Élodie shared a look with de Gouges, who frowned. "You don't have anyone else who would miss you?"

She shook her head.

Élodie sighed sadly. "Let's leave that aside for now, then," she decided. "Let's talk about what happened to you."

The girl shrugged. "I was walking home at night when my mind went blank. The next thing I knew I was waking up in that box." She shuddered. "I was in that box for weeks. Every few days that man would come in and… touch… me again."

"How awful!"

"Where would he touch you?" asked de Gouges, her eyes narrowing.

Élodie frowned: none of the other girls had remembered a physical assault, but that didn't mean one hadn't taken place.

The girl's eyes widened. "Not–not like that! God, not like that! But he would run his finger along my arm. Or he would touch my face… Skin-to-skin contact every time. But not–not–" She swallowed hard.

"I'm glad to hear that," Élodie told her. "But all the same, he had no right to touch you without your permission. You were strong just to survive this experience."

De Gouges stepped closer. "What else can you tell us?"

The girl tensed. "Right after he touched me, my mind would go blank," she replied. "I never had any idea how long it lasted…"

Élodie nodded slowly. That corresponded with what the other victims had reported, also. She had reported that to Vernant as soon as the second victim repeated it; he had been very interested.

"Do you recognize any of these pictures?" De Gouges flipped her tablet around to show the girl the photo array.

The girl scanned them quickly and pointed at one of them. "That one right there." She shivered. "I will never forget those eyes…"

De Gouges nodded and made a notation on her tablet. "That's good," she told her. "You've answered every question we've asked about your abduction." She pursed her lips, eyeing the girl carefully. "The only problem is: I can tell your not really telling us everything you know."

The girl cocked her head in confusion. "I don't–"

"Oh, not about him," she interrupted. "But about yourself." Élodie raised an eyebrow at de Gouges, who shook her head subtly. "There's more to your story than you want us to believe."

"What!?" the girl yelped, wide-eyed.

"You're hiding something about yourself."

The girl flinched, squeezing her eyes shut.

Élodie placed her hand on the girl's shoulder. "I know you're scared," she told her, keeping her voice low and soothing. "You've been through a horrible ordeal, and I don't think this is the only one you've experienced." The girl's shoulders tensed. "You don't know who to trust, do you?" The girl shook her head. Élodie sighed. "I understand that. Trust is something that takes time. But you really can trust us," she assured her. "We want only what's best for you."

"You're cops," the girl retorted. "It's your job to throw people in jail."

"Only those who need to be in jail," de Gouges replied. "We don't throw people in jail just for fun. And we don't do it because they were the victim of a crime."

The girl fell silent.

Élodie let out a resigned breath. Maybe… "Do you want to know why I decided to join the police force?" she finally asked. The girl stared at her. "When I was in collège… fifteen years ago? When I was in collège, I was walking home from a friend's house at night when I got a little too close to a dark alleyway. I didn't see the man until it was too late and I was too close to get away. Before I knew what was happening, he was right there, the knife was in my face, and his voice…" Her jaw clenched. Even after all these years, she could still hear that voice in her head. "He told me that if I didn't do what he said, he would kill me." Out of the corner of her eye she could see de Gouges' eyes widening in surprise. "First he demanded that I give him my wallet, which I did. Then he demanded that I follow him into an alleyway. I didn't know what he was going to do, but I knew if I didn't do what he said, that he would kill me. I was just about to follow him when a police officer on his regular rounds happened to walk past. The officer saw what was happening, noticed the knife, and confronted the man."

The girl stared at her with rapt attention.

Élodie's mouth set in a thin line. She didn't need to tell her about the investigation afterward, how the man had been responsible for the deaths of three other girls, how only luck had saved her from becoming his fourth victim. "I know that the only reason I'm alive is because of that police officer. That's why I decided to join the Paris Police: I wanted to help victims." That had been the best thing to come out of the experience. She allowed herself a small smile at the memory. And what a shock it had been when that summer she had been transferred to work for the same officer who had saved her life! "Not every police officer is like that, but we are," she told the girl, indicating de Gouges as she said it. "You don't have to be afraid of us. And you don't have to be afraid of him anymore, either: we are going to help you. We want you to be safe."

The girl looked down at her hands for a long minute before she sighed heavily. "My name is Sarah Confiant," she began. "I lived in the 17th Arrondissement, just across Rue de Rome from Square des Batignolles."

"Family?" Élodie asked as de Gouges started taking down the information in her tablet.

Sarah shook her head. "No family – not really. My father, he–" She swallowed, clenching her jaw. "I ran away."

De Gouges hummed contemplatively. "Was that when he took you?"

"Yeah… He said he would take care of me if I worked for him. I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I didn't think twice."

"Wait, you worked for him?" Élodie furrowed her brows in confusion.

"Well… yeah." Sarah stared at her dumbfounded. "He said he would give me a place to stay and food if I delivered some shipments for him."

"Shipments of what?" de Gouges demanded, examining the girl's face carefully.

Sarah froze, her eyes wide, looking back and forth between them, her mouth open in an O.

"Sweetheart," Élodie told her in a soothing voice, squeezing her hand, "whatever this is about, whatever you're mixed up in, whatever is going on here, we can help you. We want to help you. But we can't do that if you don't talk to us."

"O–okay…" Sarah's shoulders slumped. "Drugs. Shipments of drugs. I was taking a bag of drugs to the dealer when he got me. And after I lost the drugs, I'm sure that Andretti's going to kill me if he ever finds me…"

"Wait… Andretti?" Élodie cocked her head, blinking. "You were working for Andretti when you were abducted?"

Sarah nodded, wide-eyed.

"I can see why you would be worried," Élodie commented. "But you don't have to be. We can keep you safe from him."

"Are you sure?"

De Gouges gave Sarah a thin smile and folded her arms. "He'll have to get to you to do that. And there's no way I'm letting that happen."

"See?" Élodie smiled reassuringly. "You're in good hands with us. But what can you tell us about Andretti?"

Sarah looked around the room surreptitiously, frowning. "You can protect me, right?"

"Absolutely," de Gouges assured her, raising an eyebrow. She grabbed the metal tray on the bed and squeezed, leaving behind deep gouges in the metal.

Sarah blinked. "Well…"