If they knew I was awake, they didn’t care. I was practically part of the scenery. They just walked around me like I was the most non-threatening thing to ever walk this earth. They were right. I felt it. Logically, there was no way out. They would do whatever they wanted to me, and I could either cry about it like I did as I belatedly ran away from the gunfire, or I could go down trying to at least fight, however pathetic that fight might be.

“Borden is going to kill every last one of you,” I weakly said. I sounded quiet, but I knew they heard me the second the last word fell out of my mouth.

They ignored me, and I felt this strange hysteria bubble within me. I laughed, and it sounded crazy. What came out of my mouth next was even crazier.

“He’s going to hunt you down like he hunted those brothers down. You know what he did to them, right? He tortured them and cut them up. He said they begged for their lives to end, and he didn’t give them a shred of mercy. He just tore them apart, piece by piece, until they were a pile of white bones in a pit of fire.”

I’d made most of that up, but what the hell did it matter? All it took was one to fear the wrath of Borden because, at the end of the day, my death would make him unstoppable. He would hunt them all down and probably do far worse than I could ever imagine. Even the deepest and darkest parts of hell would cringe at his capabilities. If I died, Borden would burn alive every soul that stood in his way.

This time, heads turned to look at me. The four of the men stopped what they were doing, which I couldn’t see. If I’d unnerved them, I didn’t know, but they looked to the bald man obviously in control. He glanced my way, and I waited for him to come bounding to me to deliver more kicks to my nearly broken spine. Instead, he scoffed and said, “Ignore her. She’s literally going to her funeral. She’ll say anything to scare you.”

The men resumed what they were doing, and I continued to fight the rope around my arms. The posture I was forced into made my shoulders ache, and with my hands behind my back my spine curved unnaturally. I remained on my side, grasping at the sticks on the ground, hoping one might be sharp enough to cut through the rope. It was an impossible hope, but I clung to my last shred of it with everything inside of me. I would not die. I couldn’t die. I didn’t live this long to get put out by a bunch of money hungry men who were digging a fucking hole to stick me in.

No, I couldn’t go out this way. I had too much left to live. There were too many oxygen thieves in this world. Goddammit, I deserved a chance to make something out of myself! To nurture my relationship with Borden. To change him before he became a true monster. To prove to Granny there was more to him than meets the eye.

I didn’t want to cry, but every second that passed, I felt this debilitating kind of horror run through me. I was full on panicking. This was an official countdown to the end of my life, and I didn’t want to face it with tears in my eyes. I wanted to fucking fight.

They grumbled something about being done, and then the bald man came for me. I rolled away from him, flailing whatever part of my body I could. I must have looked like a caterpillar, slithering away, jerking my body upwards, going absolutely nowhere anytime soon. I heard their laughter, and as I made another roll, a heavy foot crashed down on my back, pinning me breathlessly to the cold earth. I dropped my head to the ground, my lips brushing against damp soil, breathing through the pain in my bruised back.

“You’re not going anywhere,” the bald man said, the smile alive in his voice.

“Fuck you!” I spat.

“I’d definitely fuck you, but we’re pressed for time, and it’s a fucking shame too, because I’d have liked to have been the last person to put my seed in Borden’s little slut as a giant fuck you to that prick.”

He turned me around and bent over, his arms grasping my shoulders. I glared at him, leaned forward, and spit at his face with the last of the saliva in my mouth. He responded swiftly with a punch against my right eye. My head snapped back, and more stars clouded my vision. My already aching head intensified with bolts of pain running through my skull like a lightning storm inside my head.

“That’s for being a bitch,” he grunted to me.

He picked me up and I tried thrashing in his grip, but every move made me nauseous. I dry heaved over his shoulder, throwing up bile from my stomach.

“Get the fucking casket ready,” I heard him say, completely unfazed by my vomit.

Casket?

Uncaring of the nausea, I jerked again, screaming as loud as possible into the night. Nothing could silence me. I would scream until my vocal cords gave out, until I took my last breath. My hair fell over my face, more vomit spilled between my lips, and still I struggled no matter how hopeless I felt.

Roughly, he threw me off his shoulder and into a hard box. I hurled my legs up and one of the men grabbed at them, forcing them down. Screaming with hysteria, I stared around the wooden casket they put me in. It was shaped in a long rectangle, longer than my own body, and it smelled of pine wood and dust. I screamed over and over again, gibberish flooding out of my mouth. I may have begged them to stop, or I may have cursed them to hell. I didn’t know. My mental state was slipping. I was losing my sanity the closer to death I was getting.

“Keep her shoulders still,” the man ordered.

I felt another pair of hands on my shoulders, and I stared wide eyed into a stranger’s face. Vapid eyes looked back me. A soulless gaze for a soulless murder. I saw something flash, and I blinked back at the bald man, who held a phone in his hand. He aimed it in my direction and another flash went off.

“Picture is done,” he declared. “Nail the top on.”

Two other men moved toward us, carrying the top of the lid to the casket. I screamed again at the top of my lungs as they lowered it over me. The hands around my shoulders and legs disappeared, and by reflex, I raised my legs and kicked with the front of my feet at the top that was suddenly shrouding me in a film of black darkness. The pressure of the lid was too hard to kick away. The sounds of the night dulled. Their voices were muffled, and moments later, I heard something pounding along the box.

They were nailing me in.

Panic swarmed my insides. I shrieked, but nothing happened. I tried to kick my legs up, but it hit the top of the box and again nothing happened. I never even had the opportunity to fight. I crumbled and sobbed. I couldn’t help it. I let the tears run freely because it truly was over. I was going to suffocate and die. There was no doubt about it.