I didn't find his lair - I got drug down to it after I'd figured out what area it was in, because he'd noticed me snooping around, and I was there for two days before I had some opening to get away. There's more scars, they're just not so easily visible. It didn't help that the way things were normally, I could be out of communication for a week or two before someone would notice I was missing, so there was no help coming in time. The three other survivors? There'd been four people there when I was hauled down. If the one person with an idea what area I was in hadn't made the connection on the church bells going off at the wrong time, and hadn't managed to get one of the cops there right then - Hell, even another five minutes - I would've been dead, the blood trail I'd left would've been cleaned up, and his list of victims would probably be approaching a hundred or so by now. They found me hiding in the bell-tower scaffolding with him trying to get me down, and I only had a grip to stay there on adrenaline and fear alone.

I only deal in the usual incidental murders - jealous husbands, bitter siblings, work rivals - if they come up when I happen to be hanging around the police station. I'll often not hear from family for weeks at a time, I'm not that close with the cops, I didn't have anything like friends until last year - I never had half the safety net you did, and I dealt with complete predators as a habit. Gin has a special tier of that, I'll admit, but as brilliant, skilled, and connected as he is, he's a human predator.

Gin's the first person to actually push you into a corner, he made you half-helpless in the process, and he's kept you there for what, a year now?