The man with his knee on my chest takes my chin in his hands, turning my face into the light. I bare my teeth. “She’s got a good fight in her,” he says. “And I’m sure we can find someone who’ll want to add to those scars.”

I turn my head fast and catch the man’s thumb in my mouth, sinking my teeth into his flesh as hard as I can. Tasting blood. He rears back, the pressure on my chest lessening as he yanks his hand free.

I roll away just as he swings and his fist brushes my cheek before slamming into the roof below us. He’s about to lunge for me when we both hear something that doesn’t fit in with our desperate surroundings.

Singing. Three figures, a man with a woman under each arm, stumble toward us over one of the bridges that creaks and sways under their combined weight. The man’s belting out an off-key tune, his words interrupted by hiccups, and the women move their lips, trying to sing along, but their words are nothing more than slurred mumblings.

I open my mouth to scream for help but one of my attackers clamps his hand over my face before I can get the words out. He pulls a dagger from his side and pushes it against my ribs and I stop struggling. Slowly, he drags me back from the edge of the roof, toward the darker shadows cast by the storage shed.

The threesome lurches across the bridge from the neighboring building, the women almost falling and the man having to pull them up, laughing loudly at their uncoordination as they weave toward us. I’m desperate to catch his eye, hoping that he isn’t too drunk to understand what’s going on. Isn’t too out of sorts to help me. Or to care.

But his gaze only lands briefly on each of the men, not even noticing me standing here enraged and in desperate pain. The women hardly glance up, stringy hair covering their faces. The large man who pinned me down steps toward the group, blood glistening on his fingertips.

The drunk women both stumble again, and the man holds them tight against him, pressing their faces to his shoulders as his voice booms over us. “Don’t suppose one of you’s looking for a woman tonight?”

The women tug at him and he careens across the roof, closer to the men blocking me. He laughs, head thrown back and neck exposed to the bare light of the moon. When he’s done catching his breath, he leers at the thugs. “I seem to have more than I can handle here,” he says with a wink. “I’m only one man, and I’ve perhaps celebrated a bit too much tonight, if you catch my drift.” He laughs again, swaying as the women tug at him.

The thugs glance at each other and I feel the one holding me hesitate, feel him pull his blade away from my ribs ever so slightly, and at just that moment, the drunk man’s eyes hit mine so sharp and clear that I have to keep myself from catching my breath in surprise.