IV.

Petra’s head throbs from the blows she took earlier. They landed with the kind of force intended for a man. She barely remembers what happened, only that one moment Othmar was in the doorway and the next she was on the ground. Everything he did to her took place in piecemeal flashes viewed from behind the cross of her elbows. By the time he stopped, she could barely see.

Even now, the world seems soft and fuzzy to her, tinged at the fringes of her vision with nebulous blackness. From her head to her feet she aches. From the hours of bondage and struggle against bondage, she aches. Her sinuses are sore from the blockage of tears as are her teeth from the lock-tight clenching of her jaw. No matter how tired she becomes, there is no relief. Caution forbids her body from resting. Sometimes, in sheer exhaustion, her eyes close and the room becomes a womblike orange, only for them to fly open moments later, fresh with naked fear.