After the van drive, bouncing over dirt roads riddled with potholes, jarring every bone in her body, causing her to bite her tongue more than once, the vehicle finally rolled to a halt. Once again, the two of them had been dragged out of the back and pushed into a dark room. Where, she had no idea. Fear had taken up permanent residence in her brain. Would she ever see her parents again? Was she destined to disappear in this Godforsaken country with no one the wiser? These men could do anything they wanted to her, and there wasn’t a dammed thing she could do about it.

At the moment, Declan seemed to be planning something, but she couldn’t read his mind. She tried to stay hyperalert to any signal, any look, any movement that he made that indicated his intentions, but she remained clueless. She barely knew the guy. How was she supposed to pick up on a signal to do something? Besides, how could they escape, surrounded by these rough-looking and growling men who eyed her like she was ripe for the picking? That scared her most of all. The thoughts of what they would do to her, taking turns before they decided to slit her throat.

The room she and Declan were held in was old. It smelled old and musty. Of dirt and oil and vegetable rot. A root cellar of sorts? She had been pushed onto the dirt floor on one side of the room, Declan on the other. For the moment, she was ignored, the attention of three other men on Declan.

How did she allow herself to be talked into this fiasco? How could she just sit there and wait and do nothing while their captors came in the room barking orders to one another, and then at Declan in their garbled words? Half English, half something that maybe Declan understood—Farsi or something, because he was at least nodding. Why was he nodding? He seemed to have made himself a little too agreeable and cooperative. Overly cooperative, perhaps, lulling the men into his trap. Some type of trap that Sophia was expected to watch for, and then take part in once it was sprung. Whenever and whatever it was.

They were coming for him first, Sophia watching intently behind. They walked around behind him, where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and untied his wrists. Their feet had remained unbound after they’d been taken to the van. That was good, but what was she supposed to do? Her body felt battered, her face throbbed, and her right eye felt swollen. Pain pulsed through her lower jaw in time to her heartbeat. She tried to focus on Declan, waiting for a signal, but it couldn’t possibly come now, could it? They were outnumbered again. They would always be outnumbered. Perhaps he had the skill and the balls to pull off a miracle with these guys, but what kind of miracle could she muster with tied wrists?

One of their captors hovered over Declan while the other approached her. Her heart pounded. She tried not to show fear, but was not sure if she succeeded. Fear and contempt warred with her emotions. She knew what she wanted to do, what she wanted to say, but didn’t dare. She didn’t want to die. She needed to survive.

She swallowed thickly and lifted her chin in a show of defiance. She watched as the two with Declan pulled him to his feet. The guard at the door had his AK-47 trained on both of them, first Declan, then her. Sophia repressed the whimper of terror that threatened to erupt, and furiously blinked back tears of fear, knowing that begging would get her nowhere. At that very moment, she wanted to feel her mother’s arms around her, more desperately than she’d ever wanted it before. Her heart ached with the thought of never seeing her again.

The barrel of the rifle aimed at her again, she realized that she would need a miracle with that, too, a protective force field from the spray of bullets that would undoubtedly follow any sudden attempt to do something stupid.

Then Declan glanced at her, as if to say don’t do something stupid.

Or perhaps do something, for the love of God, do something and help us. She panicked. Which was it? She frowned, tried to communicate her question with her eyes, but it was too late. Suddenly, Declan lurched up out of the chair at his captor, attacking him with everything he had. He landed a solid punch with his right hand against the man’s nose, eliciting a small explosion of blood and a cry of startled pain. He followed that with a left jab to his solar plexus. The man doubled over, and Declan viciously kneed him in the balls. He went down, retching and gasping for breath at the same time. The guy who had approached Sophia stood frozen in dismay for several seconds, then rushed forward. The man standing in the doorway reversed his rifle and slammed the butt toward Declan’s head, but he ducked just in time. It hit him on the base of his neck, a blow that took him to his knees.

Sophia, still tied, could only watch in abject horror. What the hell? Did he think he could take on three armed men by himself? He was either the bravest man she’d ever seen or—she bit back a wail of fear as the man who had approached her before returned. He roughly slashed through the rope binding her wrists with a wicked looking curved knife. She barely dared to breathe. Didn’t fight. Not now, with Declan just now rising, grabbed by the man he’d kneed in the balls. His captor reciprocated, and this time it was Declan whose face drained of blood and doubled over, grimacing in pain.

The man beside her roughly grabbed her arm, so tightly that she winced. She refused to look at him, not only because doing so would only prompt more fear, but because she tried so desperately to hide her fear from him. He growled to her, his voice low, heavy with accent.

“Move, Bitch.”

She moved.

Sophia fell in line behind Declan as he stumbled out of their little mud-walled room, out of the musty darkness, another AK behind her, nudging into her back. She watched how he’d tried, but there was nothing short of screaming that she could do. There was nothing Declan could do, either, short of using telekinesis to get the gun from the guard. She wondered just what his plan was there. Did he intend for some distraction while she did God knows what? Or did he accomplish something subtle but useful like the other hand of a magician? Sleight of hand.

She hoped she would be alive long enough to know what it was.

Without any more words or failed heroics, they were again tossed them into the back of a large van—black this time. The windows were blackened, and she couldn’t see outside. Sophia had no idea what time it was, where they were—a quiet alley in the middle of a sleeping city or out in the middle of nowhere, lost in the desert. The only positive was they were together, and alive. Sitting together, by her side, Declan groaning and holding his head.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

From the front: “Shut the fuck up!”

From the other seat: “No talking, please.”

The second man said it a little too calmly. A little too civilized, as if he were one of the attendants at Mr. Abbas’s party. That seemed more and more likely now, with each twist and turn that they’d followed her. With each new abduction.

Dammit, couldn’t Declan and his guys stop any of them? Couldn’t they at least rescue him now that he’d also been taken? Did they know he was captured? Could they track him? Did he have some kind of tracking device on him at all? Were they both as good as dead? No one knew where they were or who had them. Did they?

Declan slumped down against her, resting his head in her lap. She automatically found her fingers pressing softly though his hair, massaging his scalp ever so gently and away from where been hit. She found a gash, maybe an inch long, surrounded by swelling. Sophia kept her fingers away from it. He took a deep breath.

At another time, another place, she would have liked to take advantage of such a fine specimen of a man. Ideally, they’d both be in the back of his truck back on home soil. Maybe her head in his lap, maybe doing more than resting.

Her hand tensed up, not out of horniness, but disappointment. Frustration, Sophia cursing her own stupidity for thinking this “adventure” would be a lark, something to give her otherwise dull life some excitement. She could do without any more of this type of excitement for the rest of her life.

Declan moved his head in her lap. The weight felt warm and comforting, his face turning to look up at her, his eyes open.

“What do you see?” he whispered.

At first, she was a little surprised. She didn’t know how to answer, if he was being intentionally poetic about their little moment here in the back of a captor’s van. She knew exactly what she saw. She’d seen it the moment she first laid eyes on him.

Sophia could have said something mushy. Or intentionally evasive and coy about just how attractive she’d found him. Declan, she supposed, had other ideas. Finally, he whispered again.

“Outside the van, what do you see?”

Oh.

She dared to reach for a window and slowly peeled back a corner of the black paper that had been taped over a window. At first, all she could see was darkness, but then a dark glow filled the sky. The moon, casting shadows over a desolate landscape. Her heart sank. “The desert,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut, regret overcoming any other emotion. Regret for herself. For putting Declan in this position. He was there because of her, hurt and bleeding because of her. God, she was stupid. More than stupid. She’d fucked up royally. This was all her fault.

She peeked out the window again, at the rolling wastes of the desert, and the darkness spread out around them as they left the city behind. Where were they going? She’d never been so far out in the desert before . . . this trip had been a first for a lot of things.

“How are you?” he whispered, barely making a sound.

“I’m okay.”

He mouthed the word, good.

She could almost tell more from the way his lips moved. She could read them now. She was growing quickly accustomed to him, how his face moved, what he’d meant. Everything except for that shitty attempt to escape. She still had no idea what he’d expected of her back in the holding cell. Maybe later she could ask him. Maybe they could actually plan something.

Maybe the van would suddenly pull over when they were deep enough into the wasteland, the guys coming around the back, opening the door, marching them out into the sand, then making them kneel looking away, away from each other, before blasting them to pieces with AK-47s.

Declan had raised his head off her lap. It was almost like he could tell where her thoughts had just gone, beyond the fantasies of them together somewhere. Like he could tell she’d gone morbid.

Tell me, she thought, tell me how we’re going to get out of this. Tell me we’ll be okay.

She just didn’t want it done with words.

She preferred a physical connection to hear his voice.

Or perhaps another way.

Declan finally tried the other way, his head level with hers, and leaning in to kiss her. Them together kissing quietly in the back of the van, their bodies swaying into the other at every bump along the rocky dirt road. Kissing long and deeply, until another voice from the front barked at them to stop.

They continued, just a little longer. Just a little bit more freedom. It was so good to feel alive this way, just a little longer, to connect with another soul before they both died . . .