The juice. A bolt of lightning so painful that it felt like her body had been cut in half.

When she came to she was lying face down on the ground. The man rolled her over on her back as if she were roadkill. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. No matter how hard she tried—even with all her might—she couldn’t scream. She couldn’t even remember where she was.

She looked up and thought that she saw a jet lowering its landing gear in the black sky. When she turned back, the fish hooks were still clinging to her sweater, the wires tangled up with her iPhone. She saw the man holding the gun, staring down at her with those dead eyes of his. He said something she couldn’t hear through her earbuds, but guessed from the look on his face that the news wasn’t very good. Then he pulled the trigger again and she felt the electricity making a second jagged pass through her wrecked body and charred nerves.

When her mind finally bobbed back to the surface, she could see the man throwing her purse into the Dumpster. When he picked her up and tossed her into the backseat of his SUV, she couldn’t feel anything. Not even the dread swimming through her stomach into her chest.

And then the SUV started chewing up gravel again. He was taking her away now. She looked through the window at the parking lot, but not much registered. After a moment she thought she saw someone hiding in the shadows between cars. If they were calling for help, she guessed that they were ten to fifteen minutes too late. But maybe it wasn’t anyone at all. Maybe it was just a hope or a dream or a phantom born from the electricity inside her body that deadened everything.

The man turned from the front seat and smiled at her, but didn’t say anything as he pulled out of the lot. Sensing that the truck was picking up speed, her eyes drifted back to the window. She could see that neon rooster on the roof. The Cock-a-doodle-do vanishing into the night. Another jet lowering its landing gear.

When the window went blank, she tried to turn off what was happening and concentrate on her iPhone. She tried to use the music to gather strength. If she could just pull herself together and get moving again, she’d dial 911 and call for help. Maybe even push the door open and jump the hell out.

She listened to the music and tried to focus. She knew that the singer’s legal name was Derek Williams, but he went by the number 187. His brother Bobby had changed his name to XYZ. She liked their voices. She liked them a lot. But about a mile or two down the road, 187 stopped singing, and so did XYZ.