Pain. The acid on her abdomen had not stopped digging. It would not halt until it ate her alive. She did not have time to untie her hands and feet. Taking aim, she blew away the rope on her left and leaned forward over the mass of tissue that had been her guts and yanked both her feet loose. Her ankles were still bound and she could not walk, but that fact would not stop her.

Kelly threw her feet onto the floor and hopped toward the bathroom. They had passed the bathroom minutes earlier on the dark road to the bedroom. Going by Banks—facedown and bleeding on the floor—she almost tripped. Her vertical position had given the acid a new direction. She felt it begin to burn into parts she needed to keep in order to live in the world as a woman.

In the shower she looked down and found her entire front soaked red. The liquid flame refused to stop. The acid had already penetrated her abdomen wall. Her intestines were on the move. She feared—when she turned on the water—that they would bulge out and spill onto the tile floor. But the water was her only hope. Tearing apart her fried blouse, she closed her eyes and turned the shower on high. The spray came out cold and hard and hit her belly like baking soda thrown into a vat of vinegar. The pain, which could not have been worse, shot up tenfold.

Kelly fainted. When she came to she was lying in the shower with the water still spraying her abdomen. Her skin had split open, and she saw organs that were never meant to see the light of day. The water chased a red river down the drain. She was bleeding to death, and perhaps it was a blessing.

Life was stubborn, though, she realized then. Using both hands to hold her guts in place, she struggled to her feet and hopped into the living room. There she saw a phone. Tearing the duct tape off her mouth, she dialed 911. A girl who sounded all of sixteen answered and asked her to state the nature of her emergency.

“My name is Kelly Fienman and I’m in the apartment of Professor Gene Banks. It is close to the University of Ohio campus—I don’t know the address. He has burnt me with acid and I shot him.” She began to weep. “Please hurry, I think I’m dying.”