LOVE AND RUIN: RHEA'S REVENGE
work.
I tried to pivot, to shield Rita with my back, but the butt of a tactical rifle connected with the base of my skull. The world didn't go black immediately; it dissolved into a sickening, swirling gray. I felt Rita being torn from my grip, her scream the last thing I heard before the floor rose up to meet me.
I woke up to the smell of ozone and rust.
I tried to stretch, but my knuckles hit cold, unforgiving metal. My knees hit the same. I was upright, pinned in a space so narrow I couldn't even draw a full breath. It was a vertical metal box, a coffin for the living, standing on end.