The evanescence of a light beam constructed inside Emilia's longing, desolate eyes as she searched her room for the pounding rhythm of a distance drum. The succinct stirring shot a severe ache into her eardrums, and she cradled her head inside her lanky forearms, comfortable in their cataclysm.

She had been stolen, and her arms were her only comfort. As she watched onward in the tiny, centipede-infested room she had been thrown into, the beating drums continued, and she could hear the unclear voices of large Ukrainian men prattling about "the beginning."

The beginning, she felt, had begun, whatever it was, and as she listened, the only thing she could think about was cutting those ropes loose and taking control again over these infuriating defectors as her birthright had dictated.