The agony thrummed and rang through every nerve fiber, burned through the marrow of each bone. Her head pounded with it, her stomach and bowels twisted with it. Sometimes it was formless. Other times it had a shape— trolls gang-raping her, tearing at her body; surgical instruments in the hands of a demented artist; fire consuming her from within; rats consuming her from without . . . Each time she thought she had reached the boundaries of pain, thought she understood its limits, the form changed—so fast she couldn’t adapt.