Disclaimers : Everything belongs to Joss, except for one character of my creation

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**Mousing over the Chinese should reveal the English translations on most browsers. If not, translations follow the story.

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When she first opened her eyes, Alexandra Morgan didn’t know where she was. Then the smell of smoke brought reality rushing back.

She lifted herself up on one elbow, and pain ripped through her hard enough to make the world gray out again. With the room spinning around her, she willed herself onto her hands and knees. The motion of doing so caused a wave of nausea to hit her. She hung her head and vomited on the floor between her hands.

Wiping her mouth, she tried to rise again. This time, she managed to lift herself up on one knee, holding onto the leg of the chair beside her for support.

She was alone in the room now, the room that was quickly filling with smoke. The men were all gone. The fire had been her unlikely ally, causing her attackers to flee when it neared. But now it would be her undoing if she didn’t get to her feet and get out of there in one big hurry.

Her pants were around her ankles, and Alex fumbled with shaking hands to pull them up and close them, before realizing the button was gone and the zipper was torn beyond repair. She buckled her belt, hoping it would keep them up.

How many of them had there been? She didn’t even know. A bunch of them, that was for sure. She had fought them at first, and fought them hard. Her torn fingernails and bloodied hands were the souvenirs of that battle. But after awhile, they had hit her about the head and face so many times she began blacking out. At that point the fight was over, and they had won, having their way with her.

They had stabbed her first—stabbed her with her own prison-issue knife. The blade that was still in her was her souvenir of that. When they’d cornered her and she had begun t