"Where is she?" The voice slammed into the dark and cut off like a snapped wire. I open my eyes to a sky I don't recognize. Cold concrete presses against my cheek. My throat tastes like metal. I push up on my elbows and everything tilts wrong. "Move," I hiss. "Move, Ainsley." I taste blood. My hands fumble for the cheap belt they'd shoved into my hair. Fingers, clumsy and numb, find the knot. I yank and my hair comes loose in a mess I don't bother to tame. A lump of fabric covers my legs. I kick it off and find jeans that are not mine, a T-shirt too big, and a jacket with a corporate pin I can't read in the dark. "Think," I whisper. "Think and run." A flash snaps through my head like a camera: the hallway carpet, a low table, a hand resting on a glass ashtray, a cologne that punched the back of my throat—pepper and something sharp and clean. The image stabs away before I can hold it. "Not him. Not him," I tell myself. The words are barely air. I scramble to my feet and knock my knee on a dumpster. Pain spikes, hot and real. I curse and keep moving. There are footsteps on the other side of the alley—a metal door opens and closes somewhere up the block. "Hey! You okay?" a voice calls from the street. "Yeah!" I call back too loud