Rook

you overestimated me.
One of the men stepped in and slapped her hard. The pain rocked her, and she reeled in the woman’s grasp. The bitch shoved slightly against her arm, and it felt as if several bones were being pushed to their breaking point. Then the man punched her.
    “Bastards!” she shrieked. The first man limped toward her, holding the syringe. The pain was rising within her, and when the woman jerked at her arm again, the agony exploded. She closed her eyes and screamed. There was nothing in the world but that scream, drowning out everything else, even the pain. All the air was pushed out of her lungs, and she felt and heard nothing but her voice. When she opened her eyes and took a breath, she realized that there was noone holding her. Instead, the four people were lying on the ground, twitching uncontrollably.
    What the hell just happened? What did I do?
    She staggered, panting, but refused to keel over. She looked around, waiting for more people to come in, but no one appeared.
Not even the bank staff?
she thought vaguely, but the doors were apparently thick enough to muffle any sounds of fighting. Her first instinct was flight, but then she was seized with a terrible resolve. Her existence up to this point had been bizarre, admittedly, but she’d made decisions based on the facts she’d collected. Now, nothing she’d thought she understood could be trusted. Any vague suppositions she had had about who Myfanwy Thomas was or what had happened to her were clearly deeply flawed. There was far more to the world than she’d supposed, and she wanted to know everything.
    Carefully, she searched the receptionist’s pockets, doing her best to ignore the increasingly feeble twitches. Nothing. A cursory examination of the desk revealed a drawer of numbered keys, each in its own little compartment. She found the appropriate keys to match the ones she already had, and, stepping over the people lying on the floor, she walked into the room in which the boxes were kept. With a gasp, she found an unconscious woman with an ID badge indicating that she was the receptionist.
I suppose they knocked her out,
thought Myfanwy weakly.
How could they have found me? And gotten in place so fast?
    She stepped over the bank employee, scanned the rows of enormous drawers until she found the right ones, and matched the keys to the two locks. For a moment, she was tempted to change her mind, but a glance over her shoulder at the bodies on the floor decided her. She set her jaw and opened box 1011-B.
    Inside were two suitcases. She opened the first and saw a number of objects wrapped in bubble wrap. She turned to the second suitcase, opened it, and took a step back in surprise. The case was filled with stacks of envelopes, all numbered in the unmistakable handwriting of Myfanwy Thomas.

2
     
    H er initial disappointment at finding a suitcase full of paperwork rather than high-tech gadgets or gold coins gave way to intrigue. She hadn’t been certain what she would find, and she supposed that letters made about as much sense as anything else. Hopefully, Myfanwy Thomas had left instructions for a situation such as this. But was there time to peruse them? She risked a look over her shoulder and saw that the four figures had not roused themselves and were not headed toward her but in fact had ceased their twitching and were lying still. The receptionist did not seem to be in any danger of waking up. She sucked her teeth for a moment, weighing possibilities in her mind, and then reason won out over curiosity.
Fuck it, I’ll read in the car.
    She tucked the first envelope, labeled
3,
in her back pocket, then hefted the two suitcases, which were much heavier than she had anticipated, out of the drawer and onto the floor, and then precariously wheeled them out of the vault. She maneuvered carefully around the bodies and found the lift, which whisked her up to the lobby.
    Be calm,
she said to herself.
Be calm. Not everyone in the bank is going to be wearing latex gloves.
In fact, nobody was wearing gloves, and nobody appeared to pay her a blind bit of attention.
Well, that will last right until someone goes to check his lockbox,
she thought, and hurried outside. The stairs down from the bank presented some problems, but the driver noticed her struggling and obligingly toted her luggage to the car. Myfanwy thanked him and slid into the backseat.
    “Just drive,” she said. “Just go, please.” She leaned back weaklyand focused on