Nona arched her back right up off the chair and let out a long, bellowing scream, one that went on for ever and ever and ever until her throat broke and healed and broke again and she was screaming blood as well as sound. This was her warning to everyone else. After she had done that, she gave in to the simplicity of anger. She tugged and tugged and tugged on the arm chained through the radiator until it should have hurt, but as always happened, she was beyond pain or thought. In fact everything hurt a lot. It hurt in that slippery, frightening way her body used to let her know that she had made a huge mistake, but Nona’s anger gave her the power not to listen. Her hand came free of the chain and the radiator. It made a mess. Next she had to get her ankles free of the chair, and that was harder, because everything was wet now. She had to use both hands and both her feet. For long, helpless, frantic moments she thought she was stuck, the way she used to get frightened when Camilla had put a shirt over her head and things went wrong on the way and her head tried to get through the armhole. It was with the same kind of sweating, anxious rearrangement that she got her feet free now. The plastic ties were good, like Corona had said, and they didn’t break. But Nona came through them, screaming.

Nona the Ninth - Day Four, Chapter Nineteen