Darkness drifted like water.
Stephanie floated inside it, weightless, numb, unable to tell whether seconds or hours had passed.
Then sound returned first.
Footsteps.
Voices.
An engine idling somewhere nearby.
Metal doors sliding.
Her mind clawed upward through the haze.
And memory struck.
Riley.
Standing in that ruined radio station.
Blood on his lip.
Eyes fixed on the tall framed man who had stepped out of death itself.
Darius.
She remembered shouting Riley's name.
Remembered Maura Kaide grabbing her from behind.
A cloth pressed over her mouth.
The bitter chemical sting.
Then nothing.
Stephanie's eyes snapped open.
Cold night air hit her face.
She was outside.
Two thickset men dragged her by the arms across a cracked parking lot overrun with weeds. Her heels scraped against broken asphalt. Her wrists were tied tightly in front of her with plastic restraints.
Ahead waited a black minivan with its side door already open.
Its engine growled impatiently.
