The tiny sting, the rush of the heroin as it sizzled through her veins like fire on fire on fire.

The light frothy aroma of almonds – or the acridly blaring stench of carbon dioxide blended in the finest noxious cocktail Detroit had to offer.

An insistent train whistle, far too close. It grew louder and louder, until reality bore down into that one shrill and obdurate tone of oblivion.

Around her neck, the angry burning fingers of fiber as they clawed their way into her skin and bones with every flail and thrash of her defiant limbs.

Her hand, damp with sweat, wrapped around the soft leather and sharp steel. Against her temple, the insistently hard and unyielding touch of death in metal finger and breath of Hell’s brimstone.

A high-pitched rasp of wind, the icy feel of its talons across her body, the vertiginous feeling deep in her head as the world pulled with fervor to reclaim its own.

Her dreams ended. She only knew that she had chosen how she would live. One day she would choose how she would die.