Glittering golden, almost crystal sand winked from the bays of the larger atolls, while the tiny dots of land fought with the overwhelming turquoise-ness of the ocean to be seen.

The traveller’s blood inside me fizzed with amazement. The wanderer’s need to explore unseen places and walk untouched shores where others hadn’t gone before made me forget, just for a second, that I’d been brought here against my will.

A buffet of air punched the helicopter, wrenching it to the side as we hovered and continued to descend toward the capital H painted on a bamboo floating dock. Whitecaps appeared on the otherwise deathly calm sea, ferns frolicked in the updraft of the rotor blades and three men in white shorts and polo shirts waited with their hands clasped behind their backs, looking up at us.

Looking up at me.

I sat in the back of the helicopter on my own.

No ropes, no cuffs, no method of imprisonment.

The pilots paid no attention to me, concentrating entirely on delivering me and not falling out of the sky.

After the long journey I’d had—shoved in a coffin-shaped box with basic air holes, a packet of stale crackers, out-of-date fat-riddled salami, two bottles of water, and a bucket for calls of nature, this was an incomparable method of transportation.

I didn’t know how long I’d flown in that wooden coffin, but the ringing of my ears and the ice on my skin said it wasn’t with a commercial airline. I’d been cargo. Smuggled. Hidden.

I’d faded in and out of consciousness, thanks to whatever drugs they’d given me, and I’d resorted to using the bucket and nibbling on stale crackers, doing my best to stay warm in the useless wardrobe they’d dressed me in. I’d left the salami, despite the hunger pangs growing more and more insistent.

Giving up meat hadn’t been a conscious decision, more like a fundamental barrier I could no longer cross. I’d never liked the taste of cooked animal flesh, and one day, just like that, my moral compass and taste buds revolted.

That’d been four years ago.

What would happen to that personal choice now none of my choices belonged to me? Would I be fed a diet of carcass and animal products? Given the option of inedible food or starvation? Or would I be allowed to maintain my regimen?

The questions added to the thousands of others I’d had since I’d woken to the swoop of a Boeing shooting me from earth to sky and taking me to who the hell knew where.

In my wooden box, I’d had nothing to waste the time away with, so I’d latched onto questions instead of regrets. I couldn’t think about Scott or the blossoming relationship we’d shared. I couldn’t think about my friends I’d left behind or the fact I hadn’t called my parents in weeks because international roaming was so expensive.

I tried to stop thinking that my Facebook page would become one of the countless ghost accounts of people who’d died and no one had removed their profiles. I would be there, but gone. Alive, but missing. I would become an unsolved mystery, only causing heartbreak until time obscured even that and my family moved on.

That won’t happen.

You’ll escape before then.

Escape?

I hugged myself as the helicopter hummed above the bay of the largest island in the sprawling vista we’d flown over. The shores wrapped into the distance, north and south, the sand held deck chairs and beached kayaks, the palm trees hid the thatched roofs of accommodation, and the idyllic paradise that should’ve graced any glossy travel magazine as an exclusive, expensive vacation, hinted that nestled within the pretty purple orchids and manicured sandy pathways hid people.

One person in particular.

Someone who’d reduced me to a possession he thought he could own.

He’s wrong.

But…escaping?

Despite my best intentions and regardless of my resolution not to give up, I didn’t see a way free. Wherever we were, gallons and gallons of water stood between me and safety. I could swim, but I wasn’t the strongest. I could try to call for help, but would an island this far out to sea have internet and phone lines?

I didn’t have a clue where I was.

After the plane had touched down and my coffin with its many tiny holes was unloaded, I’d been driven into an aviation hangar. There, the nails had been pried off and my lid opened, only for two men with black hair and exotic eyes to hoist me unceremoniously from my little nest.

My muscles were stiff.

My body covered in bruises.

My legs useless after being bent for so long.

I’d tripped but forced feeling and fight to course through my blood as they dragged me forward.

I hadn’t spoken to them, and they hadn’t spoken to me, merely guiding me into a small office inside the hangar where the whiffs of fuel and jet planes were replaced with paper and technology.

No one occupied the space, and the desk was uncluttered from work.

They’d shoved me into a plastic chair, given me another bottle of water and a small muesli bar, allowed me to use the bathroom, then waited for something.

Someone.

When the doctor arrived, I’d expected it to be him.

The monster who’d purchased me.

But he’d been young—either straight out of medical training or still studying. He didn’t wear scrubs or have the aura of a medical professional. Instead, his hands shook a little as he pointed at my neck where the tracker had been inserted and my skin still smarted.

His black eyes stated he was from a hot country and not the west. His tanned skin and black hair best suited for long sunshine hours and humidity.

I’d noticed the muggy heat when they’d opened the plane.

I felt it in the heaviness of my hair and the slight tackiness to my skin. At least I wasn’t cold anymore. I preferred the tropics. My internal thermostat was better suited for heat than for cold.

Knowing I must be close to the equator didn’t help much. I could be in any Asian, Indonesian, or Polynesian country.

No one spoke to give away a language or accent. No one blatantly said, “Hello, Eleanor. Welcome to such and such. We’re sorry about the upheaval of your life. How about we put you on a plane and return you to your boyfriend straight away?”

Shoving away such stupid thoughts, I’d stayed frozen as he’d rested on his haunches, opened a bag with syringes, scalpels, and other sterilized equipment all wrapped in individual packets, and proceeded to localize an area of my throat, nick my skin with a wicked-looking blade, and pull the tracker free with a pair of tweezers.

I hadn’t fought him.

I didn’t make his job difficult.

I’d wanted that nasty thing removed, and he’d done it.

I even smiled in thanks as he dropped the rice-shaped deceive onto the floor and crushed it beneath his shiny black shoe.

He didn’t stitch my wound closed, just applied some sort of adhesive, pressed a small bandage over it, then turned his attention to the rope burn around my throat and wrists, the bruise on my temple, the freshly oozing tattoo, and raised his eyebrow expectantly, asking universally, even if we didn’t speak the same language, if I had any other ails.

I’d wanted to tell him to give me his cell phone. To ask him to free me. But he stood when I didn’t point at other injuries and began to pack up his tricks. The salve he’d put on my bruises and the cream he’d put on my tattoo all went back into the depths of his bag and vanished behind its zipper.