Logan has to leave too soon after he touched me and got me off, but I can still taste him lingering on my tongue. That night, I dream about him again, but this time he’s trying to tell me something, except I can’t hear him.

I wake up with a start, still in my jail cell, trying to figure out what he was saying to me.

It bugs me all day. What’s my mind trying to tell me? I guess it doesn’t really matter, but I keep seeing his mouth moving, his face urgent, but nothing comes from his lips. I scream and try to reach for him in the dream, but nothing helps.

The morning passes. Logan comes with breakfast, and then lunch, and then dinner, but he doesn’t stay. He simply drops it off, smiles at me, and then leaves again.

I’m not sure why he’s leaving, but I feel off all day long, anyway. The dream lingers in my mind and for some reason, I’m not in the mood to play a game. Maybe he senses that and is leaving me to try and figure this out on my own.

I didn’t have to suck him off like I did. That was entirely my own choice. He didn’t ask me to, although I could see how hard his cock was the whole time. He wasn’t hiding his arousal, but he didn’t force me into anything.

I was down on my knees, completely exposed to him, and I just wanted it. I wanted to taste him. I wanted to make him feel as good as he’s made me feel. I don’t know what came over me, because I never really wanted to suck a guy off like that before, but it was incredible.

My hand between my legs, my mouth wrapped around his cock, it was something I never knew I could enjoy. But I did enjoy it, in fact, I absolutely loved it. I was dripping wet and so close by the time he finished, and it didn’t take him long to finish me off in turn.

Night comes and I’m still torn. Maybe I’m manufacturing so much of this, but I’m still a prisoner and I’m still confused. I don’t know if it’s wrong to want to give myself to him like this. He just makes me feel so good, so damn good, and that’s hard to argue with. Maybe it’s wrong, but it feels so incredibly good.

Night comes and I have to stop reading. Whenever Logan isn’t around and it’s too dark to read, I more or less just lie around in my bed and wait until it’s morning. Sometimes I count sheep to help me pass out, but tonight I feel exhausted for whatever reason.

I’m half asleep when I hear the door to my cell creak open. I sit up with a shot, sudden terror running down my spine.

This is one of the things I’m most afraid of. The guards can come into my room at any time and Logan isn’t around to protect me at all hours. They can come in here and kill me, end my life so easily, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

The person steps into my room. My eyes are adjusted to the dark but I can’t tell who it is. There are a few guards that I’ve seen in my time here, but this isn’t one of those. Maybe it’s a new guy, here to try me out. Maybe he doesn’t know that Logan promised to keep me safe.

“Riley,” he says.

I let out a breath of relief, practically crying. “Logan,” I say.

He steps into the moonlight and kneels down next to my bed. “Are you okay?” he asks, concern on his face.

“I’m okay,” I say. “You just scared me.”

He smiles. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I thought you might be a guard,” I say.

“A guard?” he asks, puzzled for a second, and then nods. “Oh. I see. Has that happened?”

“No,” I say quickly.

“Riley.” He takes my hand. “You’d tell me, right? If they touch you, I’ll kill them.”

I’m surprised at that. I know Logan promised to keep me safe, but I didn’t know he’d actually hurt his own people. They are his people, aren’t they? I can’t imagine he’d kill someone in his own group. Then again, he clearly seems like he’s reluctant about all of this. He said this is his first time. Maybe he’s not really part of the main bad guys, but got sucked into this against his will. He was vague when I asked him how he got involved.

“Okay,” I answer softly, confused, but still willing to trust him. Despite everything, he hasn’t let me down yet.

“Come on,” he says, standing. “We have to hurry.”

“What?” I ask, stomach doing flip-flops.

He grins at me. “I promised you the beach. So let’s go to the beach.”

I slowly stand up and look at him. He hands me a sweatshirt to put on overtop of my clothes. “Hood up,” he says, and I put it up. “Come on. Stay close.”

We leave my cell, and for the first time I get a look at the place where they’re keeping me.

As we walk down the hall, I’m surprised at how much like a school it seems. There are rooms lining the halls, and while I know they’re probably cells containing girls just like me, they look like classrooms. The walls are even that painted cinderblock look that public schools have, although there are no posters or lockers anywhere.

Up ahead, we come to a corner. There’s a guard down at the other end walking toward us.

“Don’t talk,” Logan says quietly to me as we approach the guard.

“What’s she doing?” the guard asks in a heavily accented English.

“Taking her for a little lesson,” Logan says.

The guard eyes us both. I keep my head down and stare at the floor, hands folded in front of me, trying to look as invisible and submissive as possible.

“Why you leave?” he asks.

Logan steps up to the guy, and while I can’t see their faces, I can hear the danger in Logan’s voice.

“Anton wants me to get results. You gonna stop me?”

There’s a pause. “No,” he guard says finally. “Go ahead.”

“That’s what I thought.” Logan takes my arm. “Come on.”

We start walking again and soon we leave a door and step out into the night.

I take a deep breath of fresh air for the first time in what feels like ages. The moon is full in the sky and we walk across a compound toward a wall at the far side. There are a few buildings, and they’re all in surprisingly good shape, though they were probably built in the fifties or the sixties. It really looks like a high school back home, just with more buildings. And more armed guards prowling the walls.

“Come on,” he whispers. “This way. Move fast now.”

We move quickly across an empty field and reach the wall in a few seconds. It’s relatively large, about eight feet tall, with barbed wire around the top. It’s made of concrete and corrugated metal all along the sides.

Logan leads us along the wall until he stops at a spot hidden behind a little shed. There’s a piece of corrugated metal, but it’s bent and warped. Logan grabs it and peels it back, making an opening just large enough to slip through.

“After you,” he says.

I shimmy my way through and pop out on the other side. A second later, Logan follows me.

I’m free. I stand there on the other side of the wall and for a second, I think that I’m free. I can do anything or go anywhere. I’m a real person again.

But I’m not, and I know it. I’m still a prisoner. Even if I did run away and managed to escape, I’d be leaving behind Logan. Worse, I’d be marooned with no money in a country that’s openly hostile to me with bad men looking for me. I can’t speak Spanish so I can’t ask for help. They’d find me and they’d hurt me.

But Logan won’t let that happen. Maybe he’s going to free me, but no, of course he’s not. He could have done that already if he was going to do it.

“Listen,” he says, almost reading my mind. “This is just for a couple hours. If I were going to help you escape ... ” He trails off, looking down, and then looks back at me. “It’s not the right time. Do you understand?”

“No,” I say honestly.

“But do you trust me?”

I pause, considering. “Yes,” I say. “I trust you.”

“Good.” He smiles and takes my hand. “Now let’s go walk along the beach.”

We head away from the wall and down a short slope. I can hear the water now that I’m listening, and we turn left, skirting a small village. We move through some scrubland, up another short rise, and there it is.

The beach stretches out in either direction.

I take a deep breath of salty ocean air and let it out. I can feel tears dripping down my cheeks but I don’t bother to wipe them away. For a second, the world is completely gone.

It’s just me out there on the dune overlooking the ocean. The water stretches on forever, the moonlight reflected off its surface like a rippled mirror, and I stare at the motion of the water. It’s such a simple thing, really, something so many people experience all the time. I’m just standing in front of the water.

But right now, in this moment, it means more than anything. It’s the first real sign of humanity that I’ve been shown since starting all of this. It fills me with a hope that I thought was gone.

Logan is going to save me. I know it in this moment. I’m surer of it than I ever have been before. I don’t know who he is or what his plan is, but I know he’s going to keep me safe and steal me away from this place. He all but said it already.

But for some reason, staring at the ocean makes that real for me. He’s risking a lot by taking me out here, I’m sure. If we’re caught, I bet he’ll get in a lot of trouble, maybe even killed. He promised me, though, and he’s keeping his promise.

Best of all, the ocean signifies something for me that I can’t really explain. It’s safety and good memories. It’s the only good thing in my life, really. One day, I want to live by the ocean, and get to feel this way every single day, forever.

“Come on,” Logan says softly. “Wipe dry those tears. Let’s go feel the sand.”

I nod at him, smiling, and wipe the tears away. He squeezes my hand and we walk down the dunes onto the beach. I take off the thin sandals I was given and laugh at the feeling of the sand between my toes.

“I never thought this would actually happen,” I say.

“I don’t tell lies,” he answers, taking off his own shoes. He holds them in one hand and holds my hand with his other. We start walking away from the compound, down along the beach.

It’s beautiful, quiet, and empty this late at night. I guess it’s around midnight, considering where the moon is, but I’m not sure. I smile to myself and for a while I embrace the fiction that we’re just two normal people out for a stroll. I love the feeling of his rough, comforting hand in mine, and I don’t try to overthink this.

“I’ve never been on a beach this late before,” I say.

“First time for everything.”

“It’s nice. Quiet. I wonder if the fish are asleep.”

“The sharks are.” He grins at me. “Want to go swimming?”

“Sharks?” I shake my head. “No thanks.”

“Your loss.” He grins and drops my hand then heads toward the water and the darker, harder sand

“Logan, wait,” I say. “Don’t go in there! It’s dangerous.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” He stops in the shallows where the water just laps at his ankles. “I’m not dumb enough to go further.”

I walk up to him and stand next to him. The water runs over my feet and I laugh. “It’s warm.”

“Pacific Ocean,” he says. “It’s gorgeous during the day.”

“I bet. Do you swim?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t leave the compound much.”

“You should. Come swim for me.”

He smiles. “Okay. I will.”

“Come on. Let’s keep going.”

“Okay. There’s something I want to show you.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a little spot. A private place, I guess you can say.”

“Private place.” I laugh. “Are you trying to get me alone?”

“Damn right I am,” he says, smirking, and takes my hand. “Come on.”

We walk along the beach and I can’t stop smiling. It’s hard to really wrap my mind around the change that I’m going through, but I’m not questioning it. I’ve gone from locked in a cell to walking along the beach, and soon I’ll be back in that cell. I know that’s the truth. But I can pretend I’m free for a little while.

Ahead in the distance, an outcropping of rocks starts to materialize in the moonlight. It’s pretty large and it looks like it’s the start of a little inlet on the other side.

“Just ahead,” he says, pointing.

“The rocks?”

“In the rocks.”

We keep walking and eventually we make it without issue. He hops up, helping me along. I’m weaker than I realized, probably because I’ve been lying around in bed all day long since this all started. I’ve been eating better for the last few days, but before that I was a little malnourished. I’m sure I lost weight, but it doesn’t matter. The rocks are cool under my bare feet and Logan has me, steadying me, and I know I won’t fall.

We pick our way through the rocks until we come to a little crack. Logan squeezes down inside of it and reaches out for me. He helps me inside, and we disappear into our own private little cave.

It’s not enormous, just enough room for us both to stand. It’s maybe ten feet wide, at most, and the ground is cool, comfortable sand. Logan leans up against the rock wall.

“I come here sometimes,” he says. “I can be alone in here.”

“What did you bring me in here for?” I ask him, smiling.

“You know why you’re here.”

He reaches forward and takes my hips, pulling me toward him. I put my hands on his muscular chest, looking up at the moonlight in his eyes. “Logan,” I say.

“We don’t have to do anything,” he says quickly. “You know that already. But goddamn, Riley, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted something before.” He takes my hair and tips my head back. I gasp and grip his shirt, wanting it, needing it.

“I’m already yours,” I say. “You know that.”

“No kneeling. No games. Just the two of us for real.”

“For a little while,” I say.

“That’s right,” he whispers, lips so close to my neck, my ear. “For a little while, for tonight. Just you and I.”

“I’m here with you. Whatever you want,” I say, desire rushing through me, my heart hammering in my chest.

He groans and then crushes my lips with his.