She felt so sick. Mixed with the fear that beat through her was the strange, thundering heat that was unabated, the fever that left her in torment. It was all such a blur of sensation and sound, washing over her and then receding. The only thing real was the dagger in her hand and the perception of danger.

Then it all grew loud at once, with men shouting and gunfire racketing in the room, deafening explosions, spurts of orange flame and the smell of sulphur a terrifying blur. A man lurched forward, his uniform identifying him as the enemy, and grabbed her, hand digging painfully into her flesh as he spun her around and in front of him.

“Halt!” he shouted. “Or you will hit the woman!”

He held her against him, one hand clamped down on her breast, his fingers squeezing cruelly so that a wave of nausea shot through her, cutting through the haze with swift clarity. Ginny had brought up one hand instinctively to grab at his arm, fingers plucking at his sleeve in a futile effort to remove it. He only squeezed tighter, until she cried out. He laughed.

She remembered him then, the hot-eyed man named Rameriz who had watched her earlier, one of the Rurales….

Rameriz was saying in a reasonable tone, “See? You will only kill her if you do not put down your weapons.”

Vaguely, through her red mist of pain and outrage, she saw a man who looked familiar standing in the doorway, but her mind would not identify him. She lifted her other arm to push at her tormentor, but there was something in her hand.

As Rameriz started to move forward, Ginny shoved hard at him with one hand, and heard his grunt of shocked pain. She pushed him again and again, the heat inside her building with each blow as he released her and fell away, collapsing into the shadows that spread around her, shadows tinged red and black and yellow-orange, encroaching on her field of vision.

Half sobbing, wet and sticky with something on her hands and arms, Ginny waited until she could see again, then looked up, pushing her hair from her eyes.

Panting, with blood streaming into his eyes from a cut on his forehead, Steve came to kneel down beside her, his voice soft.

“Ginny, it’s over.”

He sounded so faraway, the words drifting to her through the heavy layers of fever that raged through her body.

When she said nothing, Steve reached down for her and pulled her to her feet, reaching at the same time for a blanket to pull around her, his hands swiftly efficient.

“Christ, Ginny, are you all right?”