As Cassie tried to fight her way back to consciousness, she forced herself to open her eyes.  When she did a shooting pain griped the left side of her head.  She moaned in agony and writhed in pain in the chair.  Taking a deep breath, she found it hard to inhale because of a broken nose.  Tilting her head just a bit made her see stars from the concussion she received when she hit the concrete floor of the basement.  It took a long while for her to get her bearings, but when she did she recognized exactly where she was.  Cassie also remembered who was responsible for her current predicament.  Even in her weakened state, her first thought was revenge.  At least the beatdown didn’t kill her spirit even though it was slowly killing her body.  She forced herself to not focus on the pain, instead, throwing all her mental energy into figuring out an escape.  Things didn’t look good for her, they had zip tied both arms and legs to a chair and duct tape was fixed across her mouth.  She couldn’t make a sound, let alone move, which was going to make escaping difficult at best.  The only thing she could hope for right now was for Amato and the Feds to swoop in and rescue her but that was unlikely.  Law enforcement was always a day late and a dollar short when it came to these sorts of things.  She never thought in a million years that she would prefer jail to a bullet in the head but she had something to live for.  Now it was up to her mentally challenged heroes in blue to find her and save her.

The more she thought about it, the more hopeless it felt.  Her arms were beginning to feel numb from the lack of circulation and a part of her wanted this to all be over with.  As her thoughts turned dark, Cassie wondered was there a special prayer you were supposed to say before you were murdered?  The Catholics always had a saint for everything stemming from; illness, employment, and even betrayal.  She remembered her father having a medallion of St. John of the Cross, who was the patron saint of betrayals.  Though he rarely went to church, he took the whole saints and angels thing seriously.  He had medallions and even prayer books all dedicated to the saints.  What was the point, Cassie asked her brain which brought up the memory? None of this brought any comfort to Cassandra who felt like the clock was ticking away.  What if this was her time?  Well she thought. at least she went down fighting like a soldier in a war where the enemies and battlefield were always changing.  It was a miracle she lasted this long.  Yet there was still a piece of her that wanted to live just to stick it to her enemies.