I helped kill my first girl when I was sixteen years old.

Her name was Ellie. At the beginning of that day, she had helped me lift my baggage onto the train we took together, her arms muscled from sport and bronzed by the sun. Later that day, those same arms were severed by my father. The remnants of her probably remain, utilised by my father and scattered around my old house. There will have been a use for every part of her. There always was.

After that, the killing didn't stop. Not for me. For my father, it ended the day that Will Graham shot nine bullets into his body and his blood stained the floor of his home forever. I envy him sometimes. He took the easy way out from this world, but despite his wishes, I remained on this earth, the sole carrier of the now filthied Hobbs name. My mother wasn't saved. They tell me that her neck was cut, much like what happened to my own. I never saw my mother in her dying moments, not that that makes a difference to anything. She haunts my dreams regardless. She is always happy in my dreams, until she sees me. Then her throat splits and the scarlet river pours down her front and I wake up with a scream stuck in my mouth. I never do manage a noise after those dreams. They suffocate me. They remind me. They whisper to me that they know that this is all my fault. My father said so and they know so.

After that, I was lost. Hospitals and support groups made up the chunks of my life that remained, but they provided nothing for me other than a shield to hide behind. I did not want to talk to the FBI, but neither did I want to stay in those sessions. They drained me. I sat and I listened to long, dark stories of torture and trauma, but, much to Dr Bloom's disappointment, I found nothing to relate to in them. They were all victims, you see. And I was not a victim. I was a monster.

Eventually, I had to break. My secrets were spilling inside of my, creeping insidiously through every crack in my fragmented, broken being. They were rancid and toxic and they demanded to be heard. I could not keep quiet any longer for fear of insanity, though I no longer know where the line between lucid and unhinged lies. And that is where Hannibal Lecter came in. I loosed my secrets to him, thinking that he would keep my arcane secret. I thought he would understand, and perhaps he did. But his knowledge came at a price. My freedom for his protection. I had no choice. I fled to his house and stayed there, knowing I would not be found. Not until it was too late.

I had no delusions about Dr Lecter. I knew of his crimes, but he knew of mine and was willing to hide them, and I had no other options. I spent seven months in that house. Despite his books and his music, I found there was little to do. I wandered in my own mind for days on end with little regard for the nightmares that lurked in there. He tried to coax me out, but I did not trust his therapy. I have had too many experiences with men who take advantage of the weak and vulnerable and I had no intention of becoming the next Will Graham. The days went by. I cracked further and further.

Last night he sat me down. He told me that tonight, I would leave the house for good. When I asked him where, he did not reply. There was a cold, bitter pain in his eyes that chilled me. All he did was tell me that, whatever happened, I must protect him if I wanted to leave this house. Are you ready to kill again? He asked. I don't think I will ever be ready to kill. I don't think I will ever quite leave it behind, either. My father will always live within me, no matter how much I bury him. I am Abigail Hobbs, daughter of Garrett Jacob Hobbs, and I am a killer. But beyond that, I am a survivor.

Take this as a confession if you will. I cannot hide any longer. Even if you are to one day find me, the girl that you find will not be the same one who cowered beneath her father. I survived him, and now I will survive myself. And the first step in any recovery story is a change.

Yours,

Abigail Hobbs.