A hand clasped around her mouth and instantly Valerie was transported back in time. The television station vanished. She was in her home at the moment of the first attack.

Soft breath caressed the hairs on the back of her neck, baiting them to stand on end.

“Valerie,” the raspy voice purred in her ear, no longer distorted by static.

The familiar touch against her skin shot memories dancing to the forefront of her mind, blotting out her surroundings. The police station, the interview, and now this. She was there.

Again.

Her body was paralytic, but her mind roiled with fear. She had tried so hard to shove the events of the first attack from her mind. Had fought to stay in the present, to live this new damaged life a day at a time. But it took so little outside effort to relive the moment when she first lost her feeling of safety and security, forever.

She did not want to admit it, even to herself, but she could not escape what had happened. Trying only added emphasis, a refresher course in the basics of personal terror.

She was reliving the attack.

Again.

How many more times?

Only this time, it was her mind playing tricks. Despite every fleeting electrical impulse recollecting the emotional state first experienced days ago, she was not at home. It was a reflection of the events of her past, triggering identical feelings of powerlessness.

She stood on a matrix of catwalk thirty feet above the studio floor, a grid structure allowing easy access to the rigging and lighting equipment aimed at the stage below. At her feet, cables ran the gauntlet of twisting catwalks, wrapping around support beams and hanging in lazy loops. Overhead, a web of nylon ropes ran to a pulley system mounted on a rail slider. Sandbags were attached at either end as counterweights.

Below, dozens scurried. Valerie felt their collective panic rising like steam.

Part of her wished Christian was here.

To protect her.

Why hadn’t he come?

Why had he gone to work instead of staying with his wife? His wife who had recently been left for dead by an intruder that broke into their home.

Why wasn’t he here?

The assailant wore a dark cloak with a hood that shadowed his face. She stepped away from him, but he grabbed her forearm and yanked her back like a child’s snap-toy.

She clawed at his face, fingers hitting something hard. Metallic. With ridges of plastic and glass. She clenched the hood, pulling it taut. As she twisted the synthetic material in her hand, the cords in his neck turned to stone. He shoved her, and she recoiled, fired from his grasp like a pebble from a slingshot. Struggling for footing, she bounced off the railing and collapsed against the metal trellis.

The twisted hood sat on his left shoulder in a matted clump. For the first time, she could see his face. He wore something like a gas mask, eyes hidden behind black domed glass, and a rebreather of slatted chrome where his mouth should have been.

He held out a square vidscreen, showing her the display. On it, the image was partitioned into quadrants, displaying various POVs of the studio. In grainy black and white, she saw herself.

“Don’t worry. They can still see you. Struggle all you like.”

She covered her upper lip with a trembling hand. “You… You want them to see.”

From his pocket, he removed a silvered handle. With practiced ease, he flicked open the blade. It snapped straight, glinting in the studio lights.

“Ready?”

She growled, “Like I have a choice.”

He set the device on the railing, angling it toward her.

She watched herself trembling in fear. Watched a man in a dark cloak, face obscured by a mask, approaching the video version of herself.

“Feel free to call out for help,” he said. “It’ll play well on the cameras.”

She stiffened.

Even if it took every ounce of willpower, she would not show anyone that she was afraid.

The clanking approach of his boots stopped inches from her. His entire visage was shadowed, backlit by the studio lights. In his hand, the blade appeared as if formed from light.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

“From you?” He delicately scratched his chin with the blade, contemplating the question. “Nothing.”

He hoisted her to her feet and wrapped his arm around her waist. The embrace was almost intimate.

She felt it slip into her, a sharp pain radiating from the origin of touch. It was inside. She felt it moving, drawing a line across her belly.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please stop.”

Over his shoulder, she watched the scene play out on the splitscreen monitor with strange detachment. This wasn’t happening to her. It was a fiction happening to someone else, someone who happened to look a lot like her, who played the role on the vidscreen. But it wasn’t her, she tried to convince herself.

Every muscle fiber in her body drew taut. A sound, barely a squeak, tried to escape her throat and she forced it down. Instinct cried for her to lash out, to fight, but she would not give him the satisfaction. Not in front of the cameras. Not with so many watching.

That was another person they were watching.

Her body went rigid. She fought the pain, quietly looking past it, ignoring her surroundings, concentrating on remaining absolutely still.

Then, she felt herself falling.

She collapsed against the corrugated catwalk and remained motionless and limp. Maybe it was all over. Maybe he was done with her.

She felt his coarse leather gloves and his fingers intertwining with hers. Her hand was raised. Then her entire arm. Tension tugged at her shoulder, mounting, feeling like at any second it would be pulled from its socket. Beneath her, every corrugated ridge and undulation sandpapered her skin as he dragged her across the catwalk.

He stopped in a darkened corner and tossed her arm aside. It landed limply across her bosom. He set the vidscreen so she could see. On it, the other her was directly under the camera, a top down view of her sprawled form.

He rolled her to the right and propped her up against the railing, positioning her so the camera had the best view of her face. Every couple seconds, he glanced back at the monitor, making sure his towering presence over her did not obstruct the view.

“This time,” he said, raising the knife, putting the palm of his right hand flat against the heel. “I’ll make sure to finish the job.”

Finish the job.

If only she could believe that. She could resolve herself to eternal rest, knowing her fears were only temporary. Knowing, that in the ensuing darkness, she would find peace.

But for her, peace was impossible.

Despite anything that happened to her now, the investigators would reassemble her and interrogate her all over again. And for what? She would not provide any clues that hadn’t already been captured by the cameras.

And worse.

He would find her.

Again.

For her, there was no escape.