Once she was hidden, he took the rest of her, piece by piece.

He took her phone — “so the signal can’t be traced.” He took her license.

He padlocked the door from the outside when he left.

And whenever she begged to leave, or to see her son, he showed her forged screenshots: warrant notices, news articles about a manhunt, a dead friend’s family hiring investigators.

If she stepped outside, he told her, she’d be arrested on sight, and Percy would grow up knowing his mother was a murderer.

I will not linger on the six years, because she has lived them and does not need them described back to her.