Despite the cymbal roll of rain pattering of the window, Elise Lefevre woke to the soft ping of her phone receiving a message. She lay still for a couple moments longer, the pale skin of her cheek pressing against the rough velcro of her wrist braces. Last night, in another life, the sky had been clear.

Now it poured.

To flashes of lightening, Elise carefully unwrapped the straps on her braces. First left, then right. Her phone buzzed once more as she pulled them off. First left, then right. It buzzed a third time:

"By 5:30AM, arrive at Liverpool Street station. Failure to be punctual will be met with consequences. Bring one spare change of clothes only, sanitary essentials, and the other bare necessities such as prescribed medication. Do not disappoint us.”

The number was unfamiliar, but Elise did not for a moment doubt who had sent it. In her mind, blood welled up from beneath the phone in her hands and dribbled to the floor. [i]Drip… drip…[/i]

Elise dropped the phone to hold out her hands before her, stretching them to double check. The movements calmed her anxiety somewhat, as they usually did, so she finished the regime and hurriedly packed what she was told to, if with the small addition of her wrist braces and hand sanitizer. 

In her bathroom mirror, Elise saw the same girl who had charmed thousands with music just the night before, only now her concert makeup was smeared in swatches across her skin, a farce of what she had been. Hastily, the slight woman scrubbed off the remnants of her past life and swept out of her apartment, catching one last glimpse of the instrument standing forlornly in the hall as if it too dreaded her departure.

The taxi ride was torture. Elise’s mind replayed over and over the events of the previous night, while her hands stretched every tendon in a quest for calm. And still, the minutes on her watched creaked onwards. 5:11…5:16…5:20…

At the station, Elise tried to conceal her anxiety behind a calm demeanor. The cellist wanted—[i]no needed[/i]— to perform well before the Employer. She would do anything to go back, to wind back the clock just a few hours, to not have stepped into that taxi cab. Only now, Elise wasn’t sure what that anything was. She had arrived at the station. The time was 5:26.