I wake up being dragged by the ankles. Yanked from the open doors of the van, thumping heavily on the bumper and then hard on my ass in the dirt, the air knocks of of my lungs with a sharp cry and I flail helplessly, landing on my face in the mud and yanking hard at my bound wrists. The gun at my hip's gone, been gone, and I realize with part horror and part amusement that it never even occurred to me to go for it out there by the gallows.

"On your feet, sweetheart," one of them laughs, yanking me up by the hair and shoving me toward a dark, faceless building in the woods. I woke up, which means I fell asleep. We drove for a long time. The sun looks like it's gonna come up soon.

"Fuck you," I mutter, stumbling on a rock, and I get a sharp knock to the back of the head, sparks flaring up behind my eyes and my teeth snapping closed on my tongue. I groan in pain, spitting blood in the dirt, and they lead me the rest of the way by the back of the neck.

There are others inside, people scurrying around in the shadows. Women, skinny looking boys no older than me with haunted eyes, and kids. Some of them are bound and some of them are wandering free, snapping to attention as soon as me and my two blockheaded guards come through the door.

A girl, no older than fourteen, so dirty I can't even tell the color of her hair, gets up out of a chair in the corner, walks silently to a door in the back of the room and opens it.

It's a cellar, a short flight of stairs leading down -- A flight of stairs that I'm shoved down, tumbling into the dark, the door slammed and bolted behind me.