The first thing I felt was the taste of blood on my tongue.

My head throbbed—deep, dull pulses that made it hard to tell whether I was dreaming or dead. I opened my eyes to darkness, a sack suffocating the air around my mouth. Rope cut into my wrists. The floor beneath me was cold concrete, and my legs were numb from how long they'd been bent.

Panic didn’t arrive all at once. It crept in slowly, like ink seeping into water—blotting out every rational thought.

Where the hell was I?

The ...