The sweet, suffocating smell of chloroform filled my lungs.

My vision began to blur, the green lamp spinning into a streak of light.

“Take her to the terminal,” Derek’s voice sounded distant, as if he were speaking underwater. “The old shipping docks on the east side.”

The world turned black.

*

When I opened my eyes, the smell of damp salt and rotting wood filled my nose.

My head throbbed with a dull, pulsing pain.

I was sitting in a rusted metal chair, my hands tied tightly behind my back with coarse rope.

The space was massive and dark, illuminated only by a few bare bulbs hanging from high metal rafters.

Rain hammered loudly against the corrugated tin roof above.

I tried to move my wrists, but the rough hemp bit deeply into my skin.

“She’s awake,” a voice shouted over the sound of the rain.

Footsteps echoed on the concrete floor.

Derek walked into the circle of light, his suit jacket gone, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

He carried a heavy metal toolbox and set it down on a wooden crate next to me.