silverusagi

Word Count: 11,000
Genre: Gen, outsider POV
Rating: PG-13
Contains: violence, discussion of rape, domestic violence

A/N: Beta'd by dreamerinsilico!
A/N: I wrote one fic where Will saved the OC from a traumatic experience. I wanted to write another where he was the traumatic experience.

Summary: A study of the violence Will and Hannibal bring, and the chaos they leave behind them.

Graham was utterly calm as he stared down at her. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said, his voice even. “And I’m not going to hurt you any more than I already have.”

He was so strangely matter-of-fact that she didn’t know what to do. She desperately wanted to believe him, but she absolutely couldn’t. “You’re Will Graham,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Mild amusement flickered over his face. “My reputation precedes me. It’s somewhat prone to exaggeration.”

----------


Wreckage


It had been a good day until her soon-to-be ex-husband had called asking for a favor.

Annie had fumed and snapped at him, beyond irritated that he had the nerve to ask her for anything when he’d been nothing but difficult. He needed her to come over and feed the dog while he was gone, and she had grudgingly agreed, because of course she wasn’t going to let the dog starve.

Now she was stuck in rush hour traffic, and was mentally cursing Richard over the fact that she had to go to the house at all. She hadn’t been back there since the day she’d left. When she finally arrived, she let herself in through the garage’s side door. She was here to feed the dog, not to see how Richard had been getting along without her. Everything she needed was in the garage or the utility room; there was no reason to go into the rest of the house.

Buddy all but bowled her over when she stepped into the backyard, ecstatic to see her for the first time in three months. He was a tornado of energy, nearly knocking her over several times as she played and chased with him for fifteen minutes. When she finally got him to settle down, she gave him fresh water and then took his food bowl and filled it in the utility room. Returning it, she stood in the yard a moment watching him eat, before she slowly went back inside. It would be easier if she left while he was distracted. She missed him, but he was Richard’s dog, too, and it had been a matter of finding an apartment she could afford on short notice. There hadn’t been another way.

Annie turned to go out through the garage, but then hesitated, temptation getting the better of her. Why shouldn’t she look at the house?

Pulled by curiosity, she walked from the utility room into the kitchen. She didn’t know what she had expected to find, but a room that looked as it always had wasn’t it. There were a few more dirty dishes in the sink, perhaps, but that was it. The living room was much the same, looking for all the world like it had every day she’d lived here. Richard had always been tidy, so she hadn’t expected a mess, but she’d thought something would be different—that there would be some sign, some indication that things had changed—some piece of furniture moved, or maybe a new purchase. But there was nothing.

It was odd to be back in the house; she felt like a ghost, even though the rooms still contained her things. This was supposed to be her life; she wasn’t supposed to be thirty-four and starting over.

She thought about getting some of her things while she was here, but she knew if she removed anything, it would be something for Richard to bring up and fight about via their attorneys. Anything of value needed to stay, and anything noticeable needed to stay. She decided, however, that getting some of her winter clothes was fair game. They were stored in the extra bedroom, a room that in fact had no bed, that they had simply called ‘the extra,’ because everything extra in the house ended up there.

Annie left the master bedroom, which she had aimlessly drifted into, and walked the short distance down the hall to the extra.

When she entered the room, her blood froze.

Two men were standing against the wall, both wearing dark clothing and blue nitrile gloves.

She nearly tripped over her own feet as she ran, moving faster than she had ever moved in her life. The dark-haired man was already just behind her. Adrenaline consumed her, her mind jumping to the quickest way out—master bedroom, lock the door, get out the patio—

He caught her from behind in the hallway, throwing both of them into the wall with a thud that rattled the fixtures. Annie flailed, kicking and hitting for any part of him she could reach. He countered, shoving her against the wall face first, the length of his body pressed against hers as he immobilized her with his weight. She screamed, and his hand wrapped around her throat.

She froze, the fight leaving her body as her airway compacted.

He turned her around roughly, his hand never leaving her neck. Once he had flipped her to face him, he moved back, simply holding her at arm’s length with an iron grip. She desperately tried to look anywhere but him, and desperately tried to fill her lungs, but failed at both. Her head began to swim at the pressure building in her skull.

He studied her with a cool gaze.

Just as Annie thought she was going to pass out, his grip on her loosened, enough for blood to get to her brain again, enough for her to take gasping, wheezing breaths. For several seconds, she concentrated on doing just that, blinking her eyes as if to clear the blackness that had almost enveloped her.

The second man was lingering in the doorway, and now he slowly made his way toward them.

Her heart almost stopped when she got a good look at his face.

She choked on her own fear. “Oh my God.”

There must have been something of recognition mixed with the horror in her expression, because Hannibal Lecter smiled at his companion and said, “It seems we’ve been recognized. What shall we do about that?”

The identity of the other man snapped into place. She was face-to-face with wanted serial killers; Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham were in her house. They were going to kill her. They were going to kill her, and then they were going to eat her.

“You already know my answer,” Graham said, not taking his eyes off her as he spoke.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t believe she was here.

“Do you not think that someday circumstance will force your hand?” Lecter continued, conversational. “Perhaps that day has come.”

Graham chuckled. “You won’t force my hand.”

“I simply offer another perspective.” He paused, before adding in a more serious tone, “She’s a problem, Will.”

“She’s irrelevant,” Graham said. Then his eyes narrowed fractionally at her as his expression became distant. “Two problems in one day. One may solve the other.”

Lecter looked intrigued, which only increased her building dread.

“What do you see, Will?”

Graham didn’t answer directly. He simply eyed her with calculation, and said, “I’ll take care of it.”

The two of them exchanged a glance, and then Lecter stepped to the side.

She realized belatedly that she was the “it.”

Graham pulled her away from the wall, his hand still around her throat. He manhandled her through the nearest doorway, into the only guest bedroom. As he kicked the door shut behind him, Lecter was still standing in the hallway, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Graham pushed her backwards until her legs hit the side of the bed. Before she knew what was happening, her back was to the mattress.

“No,” she gasped. “No, please, no—”

He ignored her, still standing and dragging her until her feet left the floor as he walked around the end of the bed. When she was sideways across the bed, he casually took a seat at the foot. His hip pressed into her side, and his right hand stayed loosely wrapped around her neck. The glove felt tacky against her skin as he readjusted his leverage on her.

He wasn’t holding her anywhere else, but the steady pressure of his fingers was a warning against future movement. Her arms were by her sides where they had fallen, but if she fought him, he could cut off her air again in less than a second. Every breath she took felt like it passed through his hand first, narrowing her entire world to this man and what he was going to do to her.

“Please,” she said again, unable to stop the words. “Please.”

Graham was utterly calm as he stared down at her. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said, his voice even. “I’m not going to rape you. I’m not going to hurt you any more than I already have.”

He was so strangely matter-of-fact that she didn’t know what to do. Annie desperately wanted to believe him, but she absolutely couldn’t.

Her head shook involuntarily, but she stilled almost at once, as the movement only made her more aware of the hand at her throat. “You’re Will Graham,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Mild amusement flickered over his face. “My reputation precedes me. It’s somewhat prone to exaggeration.”

Her eyes darted toward the door, before they landed back on him. “Hannibal Lecter…” The rest of the thought failed to materialize; she only managed to get his name out.

“Hannibal wouldn’t bat an eye at cutting your throat and taking your liver to go. His reputation is richly deserved.”

Her heart was racing; she knew he had to be able to feel it. She again glanced at the door, which remained firmly shut.

“He’s not relevant to this discussion,” Graham said, like he knew exactly what she was thinking. “You’re not dealing with him; you’re dealing with me.”

She was terrified of how helpless she was, but she took strange comfort in the fact that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Graham was a serial killer, but at least he wasn’t Lecter.

“What do you want?” Annie asked. She still couldn’t see that this had any other ending besides her death, but he had to be here for a reason. If she could only find out what it was, she might have a chance. “I’ll do anything, please.”

He chuckled to himself, his lips twisting in a smirk. “When people say they’ll do anything, they really should be prepared to follow through.”

She swallowed. “I will,” she said, forcing herself not to have a physical reaction at the idea of what she could most likely do. “I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt me.”

He raised his brows. “That wasn’t what I was referring to,” he said simply. Graham tapped his index finger against her pulse point. “And you’re bargaining for something I’ve already given you.”

His expression was once again neutral, and he looked almost bored.

Her breath caught at the offhanded way he’d said she didn’t need to beg for her life. The idea that he could actually be telling the truth struck her as hard as a physical blow. It seemed so impossible she was at a loss.

She took a shaky breath, staring up at him. “If you’re not going to hurt me, why did you drag me in here?”

“There are a fixed number of ways this plays out, and this is your best ending. I don’t need you compliant to restrain you.” His fingers flexed and then he released her neck, bringing his hand to idly rest against her collarbone. “But compliance alleviates the struggle.”

Graham had only moved his hand by inches, but it felt like a revelation. Maybe he really wasn’t going to kill her.

Relief flooded her, but it didn’t wash away the low-level panic that remained from being trapped by him. She was now entirely unsure of what happened next. The only things she knew to say she had already said. But he had to have something else to say, or he would have tied her up already and been done with it.

“What do you want?” Annie repeated.

Graham studied her for a moment, before he tilted his head. “When I grabbed your neck in the hallway, you froze. While freezing is a common response to a threat during panic, you froze in a very particular way.” He arched a brow, then said, “I’d lay odds that I’m not the first man to strangle you.”

The words knocked her completely off balance, and she’d already been faltering. Their struggle in the hallway had been over in seconds; under a minute later, he had dragged her in here. The fact that Graham had analyzed her reactions when he’d also been occupied with subduing her made her remember what he was famous for besides being a serial killer—he had a bizarre level of insight and was unlikely to be outsmarted.

She was willing to bet that part of his reputation hadn’t been exaggerated.

Graham was looking down at her, his expression impossible to read. His hand was still on her, but more than anything, she felt pinned by his gaze.

When he didn’t say anything further, she nodded shallowly. “You’re—you’re not. My husband used to grab my neck when we fought.”

He inclined his head, like he had already guessed as much. Then he said, “Should we be expecting his company today?”

“No,” Annie said softly, resigned to the fact that she was on her own. “He went fishing.”

“And you stayed behind.”

“No. I—we’re getting divorced. I haven’t been here in months. I only came today because he asked me to feed the dog.”

Graham looked thoughtful. “Does your husband usually take the dog with him when he goes on fishing trips?”

She was thrown by the oddness of the question, but the answer was easy enough. Buddy loved being at the lake. They used to take him together all the time. “Yes.”

He nodded, like that had solidified something for him, even though she couldn’t see anything important in what she’d just said. Then he removed his hand from her entirely as he shifted his position, bending a leg to bring it up on the bed as he turned toward her more fully. He rested one elbow on his knee as he loosely brought his hands together.

It suddenly struck her that her position allowed him to control her with limited physical contact, giving him leverage and the advantage of higher ground, so to speak. But Annie didn’t think for a second that his now relaxed pose meant anything other than that he had determined he no longer needed to hold her down to keep her still. Even if she was inclined to try, she suspected she’d never make it to the door. She wasn’t inclined; she would rather take her chances with him than be stopped by Hannibal Lecter.

After a moment, Graham said, “Have you read about the Freshman Killings?”

Her eyes widened in horror at his mention of the murdered high school girls.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “It wasn’t me,” he said, his lips twisting in a dry smile. “But it caught my attention.” He paused. “You recognized us. Do you know what I used to do?”

“You were with the FBI,” she said slowly, hoping it wasn’t the wrong thing to say. “You caught serial killers.”

He nodded. “I still have a particular interest, now and then.”

She frowned, trying to figure out why he was telling her any of this. “You want to find the killer?”

There was a breath of silence.

“I want to kill the killer,” he said. Graham tilted his head, his expression shifting to something almost kind as he held her gaze. “But I’m here, in this house, because I was hoping he would come home.”

At first, his words didn’t even register. He might as well have been speaking another language, for all the sense he was making. But as Annie realized what he meant, she felt like the world around her contracted, even as she remained exactly as she was.

She distantly wondered if this was what shock felt like.

“No.” She was surprised to hear herself speaking, as she hadn’t intended to. “No,” she said again, her voice shaking. “You’re wrong. Richard is—is an asshole, and yes, he was abusive, but that doesn’t—he’s not a murderer.”

Graham didn’t immediately respond. He just stared down at her, the same patient expression on his face. “He is,” he said simply.

Images of Richard were flickering through her mind like home movies, both crystal clear and clouded all at the same time. She didn’t know what she was looking for, or if she even wanted to find it. Doubt was scratching at the back of her mind, threatening to disrupt everything she thought she knew.

“No,” she said again.

He was stoic in the face of her denial. “I know what monsters are. You might say I have a unique perspective on the matter.”

“You’re insane,” she said, shocking herself with her own stupidity in talking back to him. “What do you know?”

Her heart jumped in the silence afterward, but Graham didn’t seem inclined to hold her outburst against her. He simply answered her question as if it had been genuine.

“I know how people think,” he said. “I know how your husband thinks. I saw the killer behind my eyes, and when I opened them I saw him.” He steepled his fingers. “Three girls, all fifteen years old. Raped, strangled, and killed, their hair braided and then cut off, their bodies left by walking trails in the woods. The first murder was fourteen months ago, the next two were three months ago, mere days apart.”

Nausea overwhelmed Annie, and she knew. It was all she could do to keep the bile in her stomach. She pressed her lips together to keep from gagging.

“I left him three months ago,” she finally said. “He did it because of me.”

Graham shook his head, once. “He did it because he craved control. He had already tasted the power of it, and he would have chased that feeling again regardless. The ones who take trophies their first time never stop.”

It was poor consolation that if she hadn’t left, Richard still would have killed some other girl later. Two girls were dead, and he had done it because he’d lost the only other thing he had control over—her.

“The first girl, she lived at the end of the cul-de-sac,” she said blankly.

He nodded.

She thought back to fourteen months ago, trying to find the trigger that set Richard off to begin with, but she came up with nothing.

“Her death was hasty, hurried,” Graham said. “He killed her out of opportunity, out of desire, or some combination of the two. Likely he didn’t decide to do it until he was in the act. It wasn’t premeditated, but it satisfied something in him enough for him to want a memento.”

Her braid. The girl had always worn her hair in a braid.

Annie hadn’t known the girl’s family, but she had seen her on the street, spoken to her once or twice. Her murder had cast a shadow over the neighborhood, but no one had ever suspected that it had been one of their own. She tried to think of anything Richard had said or done in the weeks afterward that struck her as strange now, but there was nothing. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

“He followed the same pattern with the other two girls,” Graham said. “Those were planned—done in a secluded area, with victims selected to be physically similar to the first girl so as best to recreate the experience. It’s likely he braided their hair.”

She felt like she was going to be sick again. “Is that what he’s doing right now?” she asked. “Killing another girl in some secluded place?”

“No.” He sounded certain.

In the silence afterward, she remembered what else he had said, the words that hadn’t quite registered during the revelation about Richard.

“You’re here to kill him,” she said, a chill running down her spine. “Because he killed those girls?”

One corner of his mouth twitched. “Something like that.” He tilted his head, still staring down at her. “You asked me what I wanted,” he said slowly, smoothly. “I want you to tell me where he is.”

A peculiar sort of dread settled over her. “What?” she whispered.

“Tell me where he is, and all this ends.”

“What? No, I—I can’t,” Annie stammered, new horror rising at the idea of being complicit in a murder. “I can’t help you kill someone.”

He smirked, his expression wry. “You’ll remember what I said about following through on offers to do anything.”

Her throat tightened, her heart once again pounding in her ears. “Is that what I have to do?” she asked, barely able to get the words out. “Tell you, or else?”

“I already told you I wasn’t going to kill you,” he said, still looking perfectly composed. “If I have to leave without what I came for, then so be it. I’ll tie you up and gag you, and then Hannibal and I will be on our way.”

She couldn’t believe it would be that simple. “So you’re—just going to… leave?”

“I’m just going to leave,” he said easily.

She swallowed. “I don’t understand.”

Graham stared at her in the silence that followed, once more clasping his hands over his knee. Then he asked, “How’s the divorce been going?”

“Not well,” she said. Annie bit her lip, unsure why they were talking about this. But she was in no position not to answer.

“Lots of animosity on his part, I imagine,” he said, hitting the nail directly on the head. “Refusal to cooperate as the only form of revenge available to him.”

“Yes.”

“Yet he asked you to feed the dog.” He wet his lips and raised a brow. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that he would ask for a last minute favor, after he’s been so disagreeable?”

“It was just another way for him to fight without fighting,” she said. Having to cross town to feed Buddy was incredibly inconvenient for her, yet it was something Richard had known she wouldn’t have been able to say no to.

Graham shook his head. “It was a way to get you out of the way.”

She still didn’t understand. But she frowned as something else registered. “How did you know it was last minute?”

“A regrettable incident occurred earlier today,” he said, his tone measured. “A mistake on my part. Hence his sudden urge to disappear.”

“But he can’t stay gone forever.”

“He hasn’t thought that far ahead. Leaving town was panic and instinct. He knew someone was after him, so he went where no one could find him,” Graham said simply. “He couldn’t involve the police—that might draw unwanted attention to himself.”

“You’re a serial killer,” she said, stating the obvious. “Richard wouldn’t have to tell the police anything about himself to report a sighting of a known serial killer, let alone of Hannibal Lecter.”

A look of dry amusement passed over Graham’s face. “Fortunately for us, your husband never realized exactly who had found him, only that he was pursued by someone who meant to do him harm.” His gaze turned inward and his voice distant as he said, “He slipped through my grasp through sheer dumb luck, but not before my intentions and reasons became clear. I saw the possibilities of what he might do in his flight, but the picture didn’t complete itself until I saw you.” His eyes rested back on her, and after a moment, he said, “He has a near miss and he knows someone means to kill him. He doesn’t go home—he imagines they’ll look for him there, too, so he leaves.” Graham stared at her with a pointed look. “He leaves. And then, then he sends you over.”

She stopped breathing.

Graham continued. “It must have seemed ideal once he was away, once he had time to think. I’m a problem for him; you’re a problem for him. Wouldn’t it be convenient if we inadvertently took care of each other? Or at least, if I inadvertently took care of you?” He spread his hands, as if gesturing to how close they were to that scenario playing out. “An easy way to get rid of an unwanted wife, throwing her in the path of a killer. Maybe he believed I would like that, taking something from him as he possibly assumes he took something from me. Or maybe he thought I would simply kill you because you were here. He understands crimes of opportunity. Either way, it would distract me, and likely give me cause to leave, at least for the time being, as it’s generally unwise to remain at the scene of a crime.”

Annie didn’t realize she was crying until her face was already wet. Something in her had shattered, not because she’d thought there was good left in Richard, but because of the ease with which her life could be thrown away.

“But you’re not going to kill me.” Her voice was a whisper.

He stared down at her. “No. I’m going to leave. And I’m going to leave you here.” His expression was completely indifferent. “It’s up to you whether or not he comes back to find you.”

She choked, the reality of it hitting her.

Richard would return at some point, find her tied up and gagged, and he would kill her. He had always been able to read her too well; he’d take one look into her eyes would know she knew. He would panic and do anything to prevent her from going to the police. Richard wasn’t good in the heat of the moment; he was impulsive and reckless. He would only see one option, and he would kill her.

At that moment, there was a knock on the bedroom door.

There was only one person it could be, and the knock seemed out of place to the point of absurdity. Graham, however, didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual in the action. He turned his head in the direction of the door.

“Come in,” he said.

Lecter opened the door, stepping into the room. His gaze slipped back and forth between her and Graham. “We should be going, Will, one way or the other.”

Graham’s lips quirked. “We’ll be going the other.” Then, “We’ve been discussing our mutual friend.”

“You glimpsed a change in his design.” Lecter looked at Graham, seeming darkly amused. “Why not you adjust yours, Will?”

She realized Lecter was hinting at killing her.

“I’ve adjusted, but only in particulars,” Graham said, unbothered. “In fact, that’s what we were just getting to.”

“Indeed?”

Graham and Lecter turned their heads in unison, their eyes falling squarely on her. Graham arched a brow at her, a silent repetition of his question.

She didn’t know what to do.

“R-Richard could be anywhere,” Annie stuttered. “Any motel between here and the next state over.”

“That’s true,” Graham said. “But I don’t think he is. I think he went fishing, or near enough. People are creatures of habit. He would go somewhere familiar, somewhere he felt in control.” He brought his index fingers together. “So where might that be?”

The pointed silence dragged on, for long seconds, then what seemed like minutes.

She was still crying, tears silently sliding down her face as the consequences of not speaking settled on her like a block of ice. Both of them were staring at her, the weight of their combined gazes becoming increasingly unbearable, and suddenly she couldn’t stand it. Something in her broke, and she didn’t care about anything but being able to leave this room.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die here, least of all at Richard’s hand.

“There’s a cabin,” she said, her voice cracking. “At the lake. That’s where we always went.” She choked again, before saying, “There’s a deed in the third drawer of the tall filing cabinet. It has the address.”

Annie couldn’t bring herself to say the words themselves, couldn’t give them the address and send them there. The filing cabinet drawer was a literal pile of paperwork, the deed buried somewhere within. It was the only compromise with herself she could make, even though it was a poor one.

Lecter broke the silence afterwards. “I’ll not deny your talents, Will, though I await the day you employ them to another end.” A smile curved over his lips as he looked at Graham. Graham returned the gaze, and then Lecter nodded and left the room. She heard him walking down the hall toward the office.

Staring at the spot he’d vacated, she started to cry in earnest, sobs racking her frame.

Graham stood. He handed her the box of tissues from the nightstand. “You can sit up,” he said.

She did so, taking the tissues two at a time and blowing her nose. She wiped her face next and desperately tried to will herself to stop crying. If she was still crying when he tied her up, she was only going to be more miserable.

He sat on the foot of the bed once more. Annie stared at her lap, her hands, the tissues—anything but him.

A few minutes later, Lecter returned. She assumed he had found the paperwork, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up, to look at either one of them. Neither he nor Graham spoke, and after a moment, Lecter turned and left again.

She pulled another tissue from the box, wiping her eyes. “I wish I’d never answered my phone,” she said softly. “I wish I’d never come here.”

There was a beat of silence, then Graham spoke. “You didn’t meet me because you came here. You met me because you walked into the bedroom.”

She glanced up at that. He was watching her evenly, seeming both somber and at ease.

“You were already in the house,” she said, not understanding. “It’s not like I was going to get to leave.”

He raised a brow, his expression wry. “Weren’t you?”

She couldn’t imagine what he meant, until she mentally retraced her steps. She had taken care of Buddy, going between the utility room and the backyard. After that was done, she had slowly wandered around the house without purpose. It would have been easy for them to grab her during any of that, she realized. But the first time she had encountered them had been in the extra bedroom, them standing with their backs to the wall shared by the hallway. They had been in the least used room in the house, in a position that made them impossible to see from anywhere but within the room itself.

She swallowed. “If I hadn’t walked in there, I never would have seen you, would I?”

His face twisted into something like a smile. “Ignorance is preferable. It wasn’t my intention to encounter you.”

Annie felt hollow at the idea that that such a small action had turned her world. But her world had already been turned, though she hadn’t known it. Richard had seen to that when he’d started killing. She wiped her eyes again, wadding the final tissue she held and adding it to the pile in her lap.

Graham stood, this time moving to pass her the trash can. She dumped the discarded tissues in it, and he set the can back by the dresser. Then he pulled something out of his pocket. It was a bundle of zip ties.

“Put your arms behind your back.”

Numbly, Annie did as he said.

He slipped a zip tie around her wrists and tightened it. Then he gestured to the top of the bed. “Lie on your side, with your back to the headboard.”

She moved as he said, realizing that he meant to leave her exactly here, secured to the metalwork of the bed. He tossed the pillows aside, and she woodenly settled along the length of the headboard, her body on autopilot.

Graham looped another zip tie around her ankles, before he put a knee on the bed and leaned over her, reaching to fasten a tie to her wrists that would keep her in place.

She bit her lip to keep from bursting into tears again.

Once she was immobilized, he moved back, but his weight didn’t shift from the bed.

She was surprised when Graham’s gloved fingers slid across her bare shoulder. But she knew almost immediately why he’d touched her, and a glance only confirmed it. Her shirt had slipped to the side, exposing the cigarette burn there.

“That looks recent,” he commented.

She nodded shallowly. “Richard did it, the day before I left him.”

They had been on the patio; they hadn’t even been arguing beforehand, but she’d said something he hadn’t liked. The next second, he’d turned around without a word and stabbed his cigarette into her flesh. When she had stood in the bathroom afterward, holding an ice cube in a dishtowel to her shoulder, she’d had the thought that this mark on her body was never, ever going to go away. It was far from the worst he’d ever hurt her, but something about that moment had been the tipping point. The next day, when he’d been at work, she had put as much as she could carry into her car and left.

Graham tilted his head as his gaze lingered on her shoulder, his expression unreadable as he stared down at her. His thumb brushed the spot again, before he adjusted her shirt for her, covering the burn.

Then he reached for something on the bedside table, a small case hadn’t been there earlier. Lecter must have brought it the last time he’d been in the room. Graham opened the case to reveal a needle and a vial.

Annie instantly panicked, flinching away. “What’s that?”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “A tranquilizer.”

She shook her head, thoughts furiously spinning through her mind. Lecter had brought it. Lecter would undoubtedly prefer her dead.

Graham read her face like a book and shook his head, chuckling. “Hannibal wouldn’t kill someone in such a passive way.”

“You might,” she blurted.

He looked amused by her assessment of him.

“I suppose I might,” he allowed. “If I didn’t want them to suffer. But I don’t kill people unless I want them to suffer.”

The baldness of that statement was chilling, as was the easy way he said it. Killing people was what he did, and in that moment, it was no comfort that he had no intention of killing her.

“You’ll wake up,” he said, “feeling worse than you do now, but you will wake up.”

She still shuddered at being drugged. “I thought you were going to gag me.”

He began filling the needle, slowly and precisely. “If I gag you, you’ll die here.”

It took Annie a moment to realize what he meant. If she was gagged, she wouldn’t be able to make a sound to get help, even if Richard never came back. No one else would be in the house, and no one would be looking for her here.

She stared past him. “You don’t care if I die here.”

Graham tested the needle, a few drops of liquid shooting out. “Every action has a reaction. Every step has consequence.”

He looked at her blankly, and she found herself saying, “I hope he’s not there.”

“Do you think he’s not there?” he asked, his tone mild.

“No.” She almost laughed. Richard probably was there; he was stupid that way. “But I hope he’s not.”

Graham smirked. “Fair enough.”

Then he slipped the needle into her arm, and everything fell away.

-----

Her headache was the first thing she became aware of.

Darkness was the second. The third was her inability to move.

The disorientation created by all three caused more than a few minutes of confusion as she tried to figure out where she was and what was going on. Annie finally remembered what had happened with Will Graham, and was then able to place the slightly less dark patch in front of her as the curtained window in the guest bedroom.

Once she had gotten her bearings, she tested her restraints. The tie around her wrists was firmly fixed to the headboard, though she could move her legs and her torso. But movement produced another unpleasant discovery—a large wet spot in her pants and the smell of urine. It seemed all the worse once she was aware of it, and she screamed in sheer frustration that she had wet herself while unconscious and was stuck like this.

Twisting painfully, she managed to see the digital clock that set on the bedside table. It read 2:57 a.m.

Annie took a deep breath and screamed.

She made no attempt at forming words. She simply screamed, screamed like her life depended on it. Because it did.

Only when her head and her throat couldn’t take anymore did she stop. She already knew she was going to have to scream, wait a while, and then scream again, if she wanted to have a voice at all. Her neighbors were asleep right now, in nice houses on large lots, with all of the noises of central heat and air. She was more likely to be heard by someone later in the morning, once people began to be outside.

But she couldn’t simply sit here until then. She had to try, and she had to be loud enough for someone to call the police. It was ironic that during all the years she and Richard had lived here, the police had never been called on them for a domestic dispute, and now she was trying to create one.

Annie wondered if Richard was already dead. It was incredibly likely that he had gone to the cabin—that was where he kept his guns. She had little doubt that Graham and Lecter had found him, only doubt about what had happened once they had.

Stupidly, she wanted Richard to be alive. She hated him, and now she was also disgusted by him, but she couldn’t stand being involved in his death in any way. It seemed simple to feel sick about what she’d done now that Graham gone. Yet she also knew that she would do it again because she’d wanted to live, and she felt sick about that, too. Though if Richard was somehow alive, she would have a new set of problems—an angry husband who she would have to report as a killer for her own sanity, even though there was no proof. There was no good ending.

She found it increasingly hard to remain calm as time passed. Thoughts were spinning in her head, and screaming only heightened everything that had happened to her. It was especially distressing that whenever she stopped screaming, Annie could hear Buddy barking and furiously scratching at the screen door. For some reason, the pain of her dog unable to help her was more upsetting than the fact that she actually could have been murdered and her neighbors wouldn’t have known a thing.

Gray pre-dawn light was starting to show around the edges of the curtain when the idea that no one would hear her at all began to creep into her mind. It had only been three hours, but it seemed like an eternity. Every minute that she’d been tied up was a minute she couldn’t tell the police what was happening. She again tugged and twisted at the ties on her wrists, but only succeeded in making them dig into her skin. She kicked her feet at the headboard in desperation.

The sound of a demanding knock on the front door stopped her in mid-thrash.

Her heart jumped; she screamed. She put everything she had into it, so that whoever was standing there wouldn’t have any doubt that something was wrong inside.

She was rewarded with a crash, and she knew that it was the police and that they had forced the door in. By the time they got to the bedroom she was crying with relief.

The officers quickly got her loose, but suddenly all Annie could do was shake her head and cry.

“Is there anyone else in the house?” one of them asked.

“No,” she managed to say, catching her breath.

“Ma’am, can you tell us who did this to you?”

She nodded. “Will Graham.”

-----

She was a rambling, incoherent mess at first, but the officers got the most important information out of her. One of them then suggested she might feel better if she cleaned up, before they discussed what happened next. She realized she was still wearing her urine-soaked underwear and jeans, something she hadn’t thought it possible to forget about, but something which she had, in the relief of being found.

Taking a two-minute shower made her feel worlds better. It was only after she had dried off and moved in front of the mirror to get dressed in something clean that she got a good look at herself. There was an impressive set of bruises circling her neck, courtesy of Will Graham. They were black and blue, and looked as bad as anything Richard had ever done to her. Annie briefly considered the shirt she held in her hand. It had a scooped neck; she never would have worn it after Richard had marked her.

She pulled it over her head and left the bathroom.

One officer and a detective had stayed behind to talk to her. The FBI had also been called, as they had jurisdiction on Lecter and Graham.

The detective began asking her questions, getting into the details of what had happened. She answered them as best she could.

Graham and Lecter had been waiting in the house. Graham had attacked her. He’d said her husband was the Freshman Killer. She didn’t know how he knew. She didn’t know why he wanted to kill him. She and Richard were getting divorced. He had abused her, but she had never suspected anything worse than that.

She only lied once.

She said that Graham had threatened to kill her if she didn’t tell him where Richard had gone. It seemed easier somehow to say that. The result was the same in either case—she had given him the information—but Annie didn’t know how to explain the absolute terror she’d felt at what Graham had said he would actually do, which was leave her for Richard. It didn’t sound horrifying enough when she tried the words in her head, not horrifying enough to justify telling him what he wanted.

The detective, however, accepted her words at face value. He didn’t find it strange that a serial killer had threatened her life. He continued making notes, and the conversation moved on.

The questions seemed to be winding down when the detective’s phone rang. He answered it, listened for a few beats, and then concluded the call with an order to proceed. After he put his phone back in his pocket, his expression slipped to something more somber.

He addressed her directly.

Richard had been found dead at the cabin. At least, the detective explained, that was the assumption they were working under.

The body had been too mutilated to immediately identify.

-----

The next few days were horrible. She took sick leave from work, because that was the only kind of leave she had to take on such short notice. It wasn’t stretching things much, either, because she felt sick.

Annie hadn’t been able to bring herself to go back to the house, and had actually hired a pet sitting service to feed and exercise Buddy every day since she couldn’t have him at the apartment. She was free to go back to the house; the police had cleared it after the second day. She just couldn’t.

The cabin was another story. It was an active crime scene, and every inch of it was being taken apart. The FBI had found evidence of Richard’s murders. Three severed braids matching the hair colors of the dead girls had been discovered underneath a floorboard. Other DNA testing would be done to definitively match trace evidence left on the girls to Richard. A statement put out by authorities said they had every reason to believe that results would be positive, and Richard had been officially named as the prime suspect of the Freshman Killings.

Lecter and Graham had been long gone from the cabin. Three bullets from Richard’s gun had been found embedded in a wall, but all of the blood at the scene belonged to Richard. His body had been identified through dental records.

The only times Annie had left the apartment was to go to the station, and she’d been shocked by the reporters in the parking lot. The police had ushered her inside with a practiced efficiency, and she hadn’t spoken to anyone. She didn’t want to speak to anyone about her serial killer husband. She just wanted it to be over.

Unfortunately, though she had avoided the media, there was a never-ending list of people she needed to speak to, from police, to lawyers, to insurance companies, to undertakers.

Today Jack Crawford, the FBI agent in charge, was coming to talk to her.

Annie let him into her apartment when he arrived, immediately apologizing for the lack of any place to hang up his coat.

“Not a problem,” he said, simply folding it over the back of a dining room chair. “Thank you for meeting me.”

The words were a formality; it wasn’t as if she had a choice about talking to the FBI. “Thank you for coming here,” she said. “I haven’t left the apartment unless I’ve had to.” The reporters at the station had been surprising enough, but the van that lurked around her apartment complex had stunned her.

He nodded, knowing what she referred to. “They’ll get tired soon enough. If they don’t get a bite from you in the next few days, they’ll move on to the next story.”

“Shall we sit down?”

They sat at the table. Her apartment was embarrassingly empty. She had bought a simple kitchen table and chairs off of Craigslist and a recliner at a discount furniture store. That was the only furniture her combination living room/dining room contained.

He didn’t immediately speak, so she did.

“You know what everyone asks me?” Annie said. “‘How could you not know? How could you not know you were living with a killer?’ I’ve gotten it from everyone, from family to acquaintances on Facebook. It replays constantly in my head; I ask myself. How could I not have seen it?”

“It’s more common than you think,” Crawford commented. “No one wants to believe someone they’re close to is capable of things like that.”

“But it never even occurred to me as a possibility. And even now, the worst part is, I still can’t think of anything, and I’ve tried.” She had become obsessive about it, going over their years together with a mental fine-toothed comb in a desperate attempt to make sense of things. “I can’t think of anything he did that seems like a red flag in retrospect. Well, besides the obvious,” she said bitterly.

“He physically abused you.”

Annie nodded.

Crawford folded his hands on the table. “Some people are better at hiding than others. You shouldn’t blame yourself for not seeing this.”

“That’s easier to say than do.”

Logically, she knew that he was right. Domestic violence was common; serial killers weren’t. She had known that Richard had a temper and that she’d needed to leave him, but she hadn’t questioned it beyond that. Even her darkest thoughts and fears had only involved him going too far and killing her.

“I’m sure it is,” he said. “And I hope someday you’re able to find closure. It will take time, and how much it takes for everyone is different.” He spoke with the voice of experience. “But I’m not actually here to talk about your husband. We’ve concluded that he was the Freshman Killer, and are just waiting on forensics to definitively give the families closure. No, what I want to talk about is Will Graham.”

She wasn’t entirely surprised that he wanted to discuss Graham, given that he was FBI, though she was surprised that the subject of Richard wasn’t of interest to him at all.

“All right,” she said.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” he said, getting out a small notebook and a pen. “From the beginning, with as much detail as you can remember.”

She nodded, and started. She told him how they had been in the house when she’d arrived, how she hadn’t known it at the time, but how they had been waiting for Richard. She told him how Graham had attacked her in the hallway as she ran.

Annie struggled to describe it. “He tackled me, and he strangled me, and—” she broke off. “At the time, I thought he was going to kill me. But he was still—distant about it, about all of it.” She sighed, then said, “I know what it looks like when someone is holding you against a wall and they like it. And it wasn’t that.” She gestured to the bruises that still ran around her neck. “He hurt me, and he didn’t think twice about it. But he didn’t enjoy it.”

“His violence was goal-oriented,” Crawford said.

“Yes,” she said, relieved to have a word that so succinctly summed up something she hadn’t been able to pin down. Graham’s actions had been brutal but mechanical, calculated to do what he needed—to stop her from getting outside.

“That’s when I saw Lecter and I realized who they were,” she continued. She told him how Lecter and Graham had spoken to each other while Graham kept her pinned to the wall.

“They argued?”

“It was more like a discussion. And it was over so fast. I remember that Lecter said I was a problem, but Graham said he’d take care of it.”

“And that’s when he took you into the bedroom.”

“Yes.”

“Did Lecter object?”

“He didn’t really object to anything Graham did, even when he wanted to do it differently.”

Crawford nodded to himself. “Then what happened?”

Annie related everything she could remember of what Graham had said to her: all the seemingly unrelated things he’d asked her about, how he had led a disjointed conversation to a terrifying conclusion about Richard, and what he had told her about Richard and even himself.

Crawford interrupted her rarely. Unlike the police, he didn’t seem curious why Graham would want to kill Richard, and he didn’t seem surprised that Graham had been able to identify Richard as a killer when no one else had.

Unlike the police, he was interested in the one lie she’d told.

“And Will Graham said he would kill you if you didn’t tell him where you thought your husband was?”

“Yes.”

Crawford’s brows rose slightly. “Even though he didn’t agree with Lecter when Lecter wanted to kill you?”

Annie suddenly didn’t know what to say. She knew she’d made a mistake; she had been concentrating so hard on remembering everything she and Graham had said that she’d forgotten it wasn’t going to match up with what had come out of her mouth that first night.

Crawford continued. “You said that when Graham first took you into the bedroom, he told you that he wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“Serial killers are liars, surprise surprise.” It was the first thing that came to mind, and it sounded stupid the second it was out of her mouth.

“Some are,” he agreed. “Most are. But I don’t think Will is.”

She was thrown by him referring to Graham familiarly, but more than that, she was panicking. She had lied to law enforcement and had been caught. She wasn’t even sure what she expected to happen, but visions of being handcuffed and interrogated flew through her mind.

“I—” Annie started. She didn’t know how to finish.

“Yes?”

“I—everything else happened—it did.” she said, her voice catching. “But I—I didn’t know what to do.”

Crawford was watching her. “What did Will Graham actually say?”

She swallowed, suddenly about to cry. “He said that if I didn’t tell him where Richard was, he would leave me tied up there for Richard to find. And I know Richard would have killed me—he’s come so close before—and now that I knew about him, he would have to,” she rambled. “I didn’t want to die, and I just wanted to leave that room, and I just wanted it to be over, so I told him.” She actually was crying now, and she wiped away the tears falling down her face. “That’s why I told him.”

“And why didn’t you tell the police that?” Crawford asked, his tone soft.

“Because I didn’t think anyone would believe that I was that scared of… of a threat that wasn’t immediate.” She wiped her cheek again. “I didn’t want to die, but being killed by Richard is the worst thing I can imagine.”

She had told the police the lie that night at the house. It had never been questioned by anyone else at the station. They hadn’t asked her many questions about Lecter and Graham, except as they pertained to Richard. The police’s focus had been her husband’s murders; once they had determined that she’d had no knowledge of Richard’s activities, they had been more or less done with her. The rest, they left to the FBI.

Annie sniffled. “Am I going to jail?”

“Now why would you go to jail?”

“I don’t know,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Because I’m an accessory or—or something?”

Crawford capped his pen, bringing her attention to it. He laid it down across his notepad—his blank notepad—and folded his hands on the table.

For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Then he said, “Will Graham gave you an ultimatum disguised as a choice.”

She looked up in surprise. He caught her gaze and continued.

“You’re framing it as if your decision mattered,” he said slowly. “It didn’t. Will was going to get exactly what he wanted from you no matter what you did. He has a particular way of taking a person apart, of looking at someone and seeing everything that they fear. He might have presented you with two options, but he only gave them to you because he had already determined the outcome.”

For the second time, she didn’t know what to say.

“So no,” he said, “You’re not going to be charged as an accessory, and you’re not going to jail.”

Annie again looked at the notepad that Crawford hadn’t even written on.

“Why did you want to meet here?” she asked suddenly. “Instead of the station?”

Crawford briefly smiled, though it was a tired smile. “Because I thought there might be more to the story. There usually is, with Hannibal and Will.” He spread his hands. “This is both an official and an unofficial visit.”

“So what happens now?”

“I’ll write up my report with the pertinent information. We’ve got law enforcement setting up traffic stops in nearby states, on the routes we think they might have traveled by. If they’re caught, I wouldn’t be surprised if you have to eventually testify in court about what you witnessed.”

She shuddered at the idea of going to court, even if it did meaning putting away serial killers. She just wanted this to be over. “Do you think you’ll get them?”

Something else passed over his face, so quickly she almost missed it. “We’re setting up traffic stops,” he repeated. “Unless we get another sighting, it’s all we can do.”

Annie read between the lines. He didn’t think the traffic stops were going to do a thing, but the FBI had to make some sort of visible effort. Hannibal Lecter was notorious both for being a cannibal and for evading the authorities again and again.

“There was no forensic evidence of them at the cabin,” Crawford said, almost as if he were following her train of thought. “Or on the body.” He paused, and then cleared his throat. “On the subject of your husband’s body, I need to warn you that the crime scene photos were leaked online. If you’re ever searching for something regarding him or Will Graham, you may see things that you would rather have never seen.”

She nodded. “Thank you for telling me.” She’d had no intention of searching online, and now she certainly didn’t.

The police hadn’t volunteered anything that had been done to Richard other than that he’d been mutilated, and she hadn’t asked. She had actually thrown up at the station when she’d accidentally overheard that the flesh of Richard’s shoulder had been burned away to the bone with a blowtorch while he was still alive. Her mind had instantly flashed to Graham tracing over her cigarette burn, and she had barely managed to grab the nearest trashcan before she retched.

Annie resisted the urge to touch her shoulder as the memory hit her again. Instead, her hand went to her neck, ghosting over the bruises.

“Why didn’t Graham kill me?” she asked.

Crawford slowly exhaled. “I believe Will Graham chooses his targets with care. His patterns suggest that he dislikes killing bystanders, even when that leaves witnesses. In that particular way, he’s reckless. In many others, he’s not.”

She considered that, remembering words that barely seemed significant, given everything else that had happened. “Right at the beginning,” she said, “Graham told Lecter I was irrelevant.”

At the time, she had thought that meant he was going to kill her. Instead, it had meant that she didn’t matter.

“He justified leaving you alive because he saw no consequences.” Crawford inclined his head. “It’s his blind spot. And that overconfidence is what will eventually get him caught and allow us to prosecute him.”

Annie hoped he was right. But she couldn’t help but notice that his conviction seemed practiced. She supposed that was what came of having fugitives just always out of reach.

-----

A week after her talk with Agent Crawford, Annie finally went back to the house.

It had worked out in her favor that the divorce proceedings had never gotten off the ground, since the house and the bank accounts still had her name on them. Her divorce attorney had turned her over to the partner who specialized in estate law, and the new attorney had said that things would wrap up rather easily, all things considered.

Annie went in the front door. She walked through the house, just as she had done almost two weeks ago. This was hers again. She could live here again.

But she knew that she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to walk down the hallway where Will Graham had grabbed her. She didn’t want to go into the bedroom where she thought she was going to die. She didn’t want to sit in the tub where she used to soak after Richard had hurt her. She didn’t want to pass by the spot in the master bedroom where a picture still hung to cover the hole in the drywall.

And she didn’t have to. She could sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and start over somewhere else. The idea was appealing, to go to some town, some state, where the specter of Richard wasn’t hanging over her head. She could go back to her maiden name and no one would ever realize she’d been the one married to a killer. Her job was nothing special; she could put in notice and get good references.

She had also received word this week that Richard’s life insurance was going to be paid. When she had raised the question with her attorney, saying aloud that insurance companies usually did anything to get out of paying a claim, and that surely the company had the police report with all her statements, he had remarked that the company had probably decided it was cheaper to pay her than risk the negative publicity if it got out that they had refused to pay a claim on someone who was actually murdered by Hannibal the Cannibal. She assumed he was probably right; the lump sum seemed like a lot of money to her, but Richard had had a standard policy, and it was nothing in the world of life insurance payments.

Annie tried to focus on material things. She was going to be fine financially. She was fine physically. The rest was less certain. Rationally, she knew she wouldn’t always feel this bad, but there was no question that she would carry what had happened for the rest of her life.

It would take time to work through her issues with Richard. She still hated him. Hated that he hurt her and hated that she’d loved him, but more than that, hated that he had ruined her life in a way she hadn’t even known it could be ruined. Hated that she still asked herself, “How could I not have known?” a hundred times a day. She knew she needed to talk to a professional; it wasn’t healthy to spend so much time obsessing over things that were done and couldn’t be changed.

And even though she hated him, she also hated the fact that he was dead, and hated whatever role she had played in that, however small it was. Richard had deserved to be in prison for the rest of his life, maybe he’d even deserved the death penalty—she didn’t know. But he hadn’t deserved to be tortured and butchered by cannibals. She wondered if the families of the murdered girls had looked at the leaked pictures online, if they felt vindicated or nauseated.

Annie found herself standing in the doorway of the guest bedroom.

Will Graham had also become something that too many of her thoughts were devoted to. She didn’t replay the attack itself, but rather, things he had said and things he had done. His physical treatment of her had been terrifying but straightforward. It was other things that left her trying to parse out what had really happened that day.

At first, Annie had accepted Crawford’s analysis of the situation, that Graham had presented her with options leading to a pre-determined conclusion, but now she wasn’t certain. Nothing he had done was clear-cut. She believed, for instance, what he’d said about letting her leave the house if she had never gone in the extra bedroom. He hadn’t enjoyed involving her, but once she had become involved, he hadn’t simply tied her up and left, either. He had used her in a horrible way to get what he wanted.

She wondered if it would have been better if he had done what she expected a serial killer to do. Would she feel as confused and conflicted now if he had beaten her and cut her, demanded to know where her husband was, terrorized her and said nothing else? She might never have known Richard was the Freshman Killer; the police might or might not have found the girls’ hair at the cabin if they hadn’t been looking for it. She would still be standing here, distraught and shaken, but for different reasons, and she would still be questioning what happened.

But Will Graham had told her the truth. He had certainly told her everything about Richard because it benefited him to do so, but he had told her, coolly and directly. Then he’d said that he would tie her up and gag her, that whether she died there depended on whether Richard came back to find her.

It had seemed straightforward at the time, but now she wasn’t sure. Graham hadn’t gagged her, and had instead used drugs. But he had never announced a change of plans. Lecter had simply produced the drugs as if he had known Graham would want them. Of course, she hadn’t actually seen Lecter bring them; she had been sobbing into tissues at the time. It was entirely possible Graham and Lecter had had a nonverbal conversation about what item Graham did or didn’t need.

She would never know. And the fact that she couldn’t determine what had actually happened to her haunted her.

Graham could have fully intended to leave her to die if she hadn’t told him where Richard was, and had then merely drugged her because she had obliged him. Or he could have intended to do nothing but drug her all along, and had manipulated her into thinking he would leave her to die. No matter how many times she examined it, both options seemed equally likely—and equally disturbing in different ways.

And there was something else, something that hadn’t occurred to her in the moment. Even though she had panicked about not being found when she’d been tied up, the full implications of the idea hadn’t struck her until much later. If no one had been able to hear her, or if Richard hadn’t been at the cabin after all—she would have died, no matter what Graham’s intentions were. And he had to have known it. He had to have foreseen the chance, however small, that things wouldn’t end well for her. Perhaps in his confidence, he had simply dismissed the idea, certain of the ending he intended.

Or perhaps he had calculated the odds, and left anyway.

She would never know.