What Prek had seen through the window was Neri with his pants off lying on top of Pia—there was no other conclusion, he was raping her. When Prek smashed the window and fired the gun, it was with the intention of scaring Neri, but the shot had been too close, passing barely three inches above the young man’s head and slamming through a cheap wardrobe into the brick wall behind. But it had the desired effect. The shot awoke Genti, who let the apoplectic Prek in the front door. Prek immediately went to Neri and hit him in the face as he stood there, his pants around his ankles.

Neri was thoroughly humiliated and more than a little scared. He was telling the truth, he didn’t rape the girl, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d found he had the same issue with a sleeping beauty as he did with any hooker—he couldn’t get an erection. He’d wanted to prove something to himself, but he’d failed. And right now, that wasn’t the worst of it. The girl had squirmed pretty good underneath him. He was worried that she wasn’t nearly as out of it as she looked.

Pia gradually felt more and more awake. Her head was pounding, but she remembered a few things. She remembered being at the subway station near the hospital and she remembered George was coming to get her. And Will was there. Something had happened to Will. She remembered that the street was wet, because it was raining. She’d hurt her knee a little when she’d fallen. Why had she fallen?

The room she was in was a mess of shapes she was having trouble deciphering. She was lying on a bed, she could feel that. She could hear voices from a room nearby. Who did the voices belong to? She shook her head. That’s right, she was in a car. No, a van. And someone stuck a needle in her thigh. Ouch. She listened. The voices belonged to the men who had stuck her with a needle. They were the voices of the men who had attacked her in her dorm room. They were the men who had done something to Will. And one of them was just doing something to me. I have to get out of here, she thought to herself.