Alana pales. She clutches at her heart, which pounds mercilessly fast under her fingers. She opens her mouth to say something, anything, but no words come. Finally, she shuts it again, and bows her head.

"I- I don't," she says, after a reedy gasp. When she speaks again, her voice is wooden. Detached. "It was raining the night I came to confront him at his home. He'd stolen my bullets, so though I pulled the trigger, the gun was useless. He pursued me through his house with knives, and then he set them down on the flagstones of the steps..."

She swallows. "I locked myself in his office--or, rather, I tried. I ended up here."