they're hanging me tonight; Marty Robbins.
Dust.
She tastes dust in her mouth as her eyes flicker open. She winces as the distant lights stab into her eyes, before she finally manages to force them open, and gaze out over the desolate vista of the Mojave Wastes.
She can hear a crunching noise that makes her throbbing headache even worse, and people speaking in argumentative tones. When she tries to rise, she finds her hands bound, the rope digging into the skin. The talking stops and she notices the smudge shadows in front of her. Several move away and one takes a step forward, shoes disturbing the dirt, kicking up small clouds in his path. The voices argue again, and one cuts across the others, calm and measured.
A cigarette hits the floor, a small mote of gold, and the neat shoes stamp it out. She sees the gleam of silver in the air, being drawn out from beneath the neatly pressed jacket. Eyes clear enough to see an unremarkable man in front of her, smartly dressed, standing casually before the prone figure. The silver in his hands is a disc, a casino chip, oversized and gleaming in the distant light of a distant city.
“Sorry you got mixed up in this, kid. But you've just made your last delivery. I know, it seems like an eighteen-carat run of bad luck, but... Well...”
The man slips the disk away, and the flash of light, that makes the groggy girl wince, is replaced with another gleaming object.
“The game was rigged from the start.”
