I hear the first gunshots, and for a moment, I'm not even sure what they are. Firing a handgun at a target in a clearing sounds different than this crackle snap snap pop coming from above ground. Standing there in the middle of the room, my heart starts to pound, and I let myself hope, just for a moment, that it's them.

Jogging up the steps, I jiggle the doorknob, banging and clawing at the thick, scarred wood. Each time my shoe hits the kick-plate, it's hard enough to make my teeth rattle. I'm stepping back to throw myself at it one more futile time when it suddenly swings open and I'm herded back down the steps by a gun barrel and a broad chest.

I look up, up, up and it's the same guy that brought me the food, tall and light-haired, with a craggy, scarred face and a mean grin.

"Where the fuck you think you're goin'?" he laughs, clamping a hand around the back of my neck and shoving me toward the back wall. Hovering in the open doorway, there's another guy with a gun -- wiry and nervous and really, really young. I only see him for a moment before I'm shoved face forward into the bricks.