Not the beat of my heart. Just the ragged, stuttered rasp as I breathe in and then the uncertainty in it as I exhale. My heart is quiet. Frozen with fear. Silenced by the unknown. I’m concentrating, trying so hard to not move—to pretend to be asleep so that whoever did this to me still thinks I still am. I’m so focused on not moving that for a moment I don’t register the pressure on my eyes¸ don’t realize I’m blindfolded. My thoughts scatter. The only one I can grab onto is about the drink from the bar. The one the brown-eyed man bought for me. Then blacking out in the alley. Now feeling completely different than a hangover. The inability to think, to grasp complete thoughts tells me my mind has been altered. That I’ve been drugged. My head is still in a haze of chemicals, but it recognizes one thing and one thing only—fear. Empty, panicked shouts ricochet around in my brain but cannot escape, cannot manifest themselves into a scream.
