Her captor released her mouth and reached down to grab one of her knees. He squeezed it painfully. Molly screamed as loud as she could as he picked her up and lifted her to the cold, metal surface. She continued screaming as he held her down with one hand. There was a busy street nearby; she just needed someone to hear her.

“Shut up!” the man said through clenched teeth. He struggled to hold her down as she squirmed and continued yelling. As he leaned over to grab a set of restraints, she got her first look at the brute. Human, with a head as big as a bull’s. He chewed on his lower lip as he tried to work one of the straps together with a single hand.

Molly yanked one of her arms free and swung at his blocky, stubbled face. The man blocked the blow, and she got a slap across her own cheek for the effort, hard enough to see spots of light. While she was stunned, her cheek on fire, the brute corralled both of her hands together and held her wrists in one of his fists. He pinned them against her stomach while he leaned across her legs with his torso.

Molly resumed screaming bloody murder, as high-pitched and pierc-ing as she could. She twisted her torso back and forth, trying to break his grasp.

“Okay! A little help!” the man yelled.

The other guy lumbered over and held her legs with both hands while the first guy got a strap across her arms.

“You got this one, huh?” the second man asked, laughing.

“Let me go!” Molly yelled. She screamed at the top of her lungs.

The first guy reached to the small table nearby and grabbed a rag, covered in blood. He forced it into Molly’s mouth. She gagged immediately, her head convulsing, her throat seized by spasms as it tried to eject the foul thing. She couldn’t help but taste the coppery bitterness, feel the wetness of someone else’s blood on her tongue. One corner of the rag fell back on her gag reflex, triggering it over and over.

Coughing into her own mouth caused a corner to flap loose. It wiggled against the deep reaches of her tongue, partway down her throat. As she gagged and sucked air through her nose, she began to panic with the possibility of breathing the thing in deeper, sucking it down where the choking would become total.

Molly quickly found herself as close to death as she had ever been. She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. She forgot about the men and the restraints and the other bodies, and just concentrated on the obstruction in her mouth. She forced her tongue over—it wouldn’t obey—she finally got an edge, curled her tongue around it—that nasty taste—and pushed the rag forward just a little bit.