The fire dancing around my fingertips seemed to be fading, and the roaring in my head was getting louder and louder, but it wasn’t flame. My knees buckled, but before I could slump to the floor, someone grabbed me. They ripped my purse from my shoulder, but everything after that became hazy. I wasn’t knocked out, not entirely, but what I heard and saw seemed to be coming from a very great distance and didn’t have a whole lot of impact. Something was thrown over my body; then I was carried like a sack out of the house. Wind. Sunlight. Darkness and metal vibrating underneath me. Then nothing for a long period of time. Rising to full consciousness seemed to take forever. My head was back to throbbing with an intensity that suggested it was about to tear apart, and there was a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth. My shoulders burned, and there was something tight around my wrists and ankles. It took a few minutes to register it was rope.
