“I’m sorry,” he whispers, lifting me to my feet. “I had to get you out of the way.”

“It’s-it’s okay,” I stammer as he pulls me into the fresh night air. I gasp, filling my lungs with freedom. It’s only seconds later that I’m being helped into the back seat of a car. I hear Gunsyn get in the front. The car lurches as he slams on the gas, and I feel his hand clasp down on my thigh.

“Okay,” he tells me. “You can open your eyes now.”

I do.

We’re speeding down a narrow, paved road through the trees. They whizz past like blurred shadows, gnarled, twisted, skeletal...