When I woke up, my head was pounding like I'd been smacked with a sledgehammer. I was still on the cold, unforgiving ground where I'd fallen. The night clung to the sky like a heavy shroud, darkness swallowing the stars and the moon hidden behind thick clouds.
My hands trembled as I pushed myself up, the air still thick with the acrid scent of whatever smoke had knocked us out. My heart pounded in my chest, frantic and irregular, but the panic that surged through me wasn't for myself it was for Eileen.
She wasn't here. She was gone.
"Fuck!" I slammed my fist into the ground, the shock of pain shooting up my arm barely enough to clear the haze from my mind. Thalira's guards had taken her. I'd seen it before I'd gone under the sneering faces, the cruel hands yanking Eileen away like she was a rag doll. I'd been too slow, too weak.
