by B. B. Hamel
There’s only one obvious choice, but it’s not a good one. I pull back and look at Riley, anger coming and going in waves.
“What?” she whispers.
“Do you want to go home?” I ask her.
“Not if that means going back to my father,” she says.
I smile. “Good. I’m glad you said that.”
“Is that what they’re going to do with me?”
“Probably,” I say. “They’ll release the other girls. But you’ll go right to your father.”
“I can’t,” she says, shaking her head. “Logan, I can’t go back to him. I won’t.”
“I won’t let you,” I say. “I promise. No matter what happens now, I won’t let your father have you. I won’t let Anton have you.” I pull her against me again. “You’re mine, Riley.”
She nods against my chest. “I trust you,” she says.
“Good.” I pull her back and take her hand. “Come on.”
We step back out of her cell and into the hallway. I look both ways and it’s mercifully empty. We head back the way I came but only make it down to the next door before four men turn the corner down at the far end.
We stop short as they see us and raise their weapons. “Riley, run,” I say, turning back toward her.
But there’s nowhere to run. At the other end of the hall, three more men, rifles raised, are walking slowly toward us.
And then I hear him, his fucking laughter ringing through the space, somehow coming through atop the deafening gunshots coming from the firefight outside.
“Anton,” I say, and we turn around to face him.
He cackles like a witch and steps between the three guards, their rifles still pointing at me.
“Caught you, sneaky bitch,” he says, grinning huge. “Put down the gun, Logan. It’s over now.”
Slowly I put the rifle on the floor and raise my hands high over my head. I nod at Riley and she does the same.
The guards close in on us from behind and in front. This time, we’re trapped, and I have no clue how we’re going to get out of it.
Riley looks at me, fear on her face, and suddenly horror strikes through me. The fear isn’t of dying, but of letting Riley down. They’ll kill me and then they’ll take her, and if they escape with her, they’ll abuse her until she’s used up and finished.
I can’t let that happen. No matter what, I have to resist them. I have to fight back. In the end, I’m the only thing that’s standing between Riley and certain torture, abuse, and doom.
Anton’s laughter breaks through the silence again and I’m stuck, rooted in place, with no clue how to move.
29
Riley
I knew it was too good to be true. I knew I couldn’t have what I really wanted.
When Logan walked into the room, at first I thought I was dreaming. The dust spread up around him and I thought maybe I finally broke, maybe I’m finally dead. But no, it was him, the real him, and he kissed me. And he loves me.
It was the best moment of my life. Maybe that’s sad, but it’s the truth. Before that, I’d never been loved, not really, not truly. My father used me like everyone else in my life. I had friends, of course, and maybe they loved me, but not like Logan does. They wouldn’t sacrifice like Logan would.
It felt good, so good, to finally hear the words. At some level, I knew it from the beginning that I loved him, but I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way. It started to become clear, but he never actually spoke it, which somehow makes it more real. Hearing the words brings it all into reality.
But he didn’t say it, and then I thought he was dead. Seeing him again, feeling him again, and hearing those words, well, they brought me back.
I was ready to die. I was ready to destroy myself and move on to whatever’s next. Now though, my hope is returned and life continues.
At least for a minute or two.
Anton’s laugh tears through my chest like a knife. The guards slowly come toward me and Logan drops his gun and puts his hands up. I glare at him, not sure why he’s giving up, but I follow his lead. He knows what he’s doing, and I don’t think he’s going to give in so easily.
“I caught you, sneaky bitch.” Anton steps between the guards at the far end of the hall and claps his hands as machine guns go off nearby.
“Well done, Logan,” he says. “You sneaky bastard. You almost got away with it.”
Logan grins at him. “I still might.”
“Doesn’t look that way.”
“From the sound of it, I don’t think you’re going to last very long.”
“Oh, that’s true, for sure. But you’re not going to get through this, either.”
“So what, you’re going to kill us?” Logan laughs. “Hollow victory. You’ll be gunned down soon enough.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Can’t deny it.” Anton walks toward us, still grinning like a maniac. The guards behind him exchange glances, like they’re not so keen on what they’re hearing from their leader. “So maybe we’ll all die in a blaze of glory. But you won’t survive it, either.”
“What makes you keep going, Anton?” Logan asks. “If you surrender, I know my people will spare your life.”
“Your people.” Anton spits on the ground. “Who are you?”
“Navy SEAL. Badass. Lady slayer.” Logan grins and I can’t help but smile. “I’m the guy that’s going to kill you.”
I know what he’s doing. It’s pretty clear that he wants to keep Anton talking, which makes sense. The more Anton talks, the closer he gets to us and the longer we live. I’m guessing Logan hopes that his people can get to us in time.
More than that, it’s clear that Anton’s soldiers aren’t as keen on dying as he is. They’re already looking at each other like it’s time to drop their weapons, and I know Logan is going to exploit that.
“Very funny,” Anton says, smiling like an insane person. “So very funny. I can see why she likes you.” Anton’s gaze turns to me and I feel like I want to vomit. “So, Riley, how does it feel to still be mine?”
“I’m not yours,” I say.
Anton walks closer and Logan steps in front of him. Anton laughs and pull a gun from his waistband.
“Move,” he says. “Let me see my property.”
“Drop the gun, Anton,” Logan says loudly, loud enough for the other guards to hear it. “You don’t have to die today. It’s all over, anyway. Drop your gun and surrender. My people aren’t the cops, so they won’t throw you in jail. You’ll get to keep living.”
“I don’t give a shit about living,” Anton says, eye wild. I can tell he’s on the edge. “I just want to kill you now, you fucking bastard.”
“You won’t hurt her,” Logan says softly.
“Watch me.”
An explosion rocks the building. The guards behind us all begin shouting and firing their rifles. Logan moves faster than I thought possible, stepping up to Anton and grabbing his wrist. I notice that Logan’s back is all bloody, but I don’t have time to wonder why, because he twists and tears the gun from Anton’s hands.
“Kill them!” Anton screams.
More gunfire erupts and Logan dives to the side, grabbing me and throwing me into a room. Anton screams again, this time in agony. I roll to my feet and look around. It’s a small room with a single chair in front of what looks like a small window.
Logan moves to the door and looks out. He fires off a few rounds then moves back to me.
“Come on, we have to run.”
“Where?” I ask him. “What happened?”
“One of my units came through, but the guards are holding them off. We can get out behind them.”
“Anton?” I ask.
“You’ll see. Come on.” He grabs my hand and pulls me along.
Out in the hall, it’s chaos. The guards are all down at the end of the hall where we were headed originally, shooting like mad. Meanwhile, Anton is on the ground, his eyes wide as blood seeps from a bullet wound in his skull. Logan grins at me
and I know it was him that finished Anton off.
I pause next to the body, staring down at him. This is the man that caused me so much pain and agony. He’s dead now and I’m still alive. I spit down on his corpse.
“Rot in hell,” I say.
“Come on,” Logan says a few feet away. “Run!”
I run toward him as more bullets begin to tear up the ground. He drops to one knee and fires back. Once I’m past him, he turns and follows.
I throw open some doors at the end of the hall just as another explosion rips through the building. This one is closer and the whole room shakes. Logan grabs my hand and pulls me along, through a room with a large projection television and a poker table. There are couches in front of the television, like people used to sit around and watch TV while girls are getting tortured.
“Here,” Logan shouts as more gunfire erupts nearby. He throws open a door and I dive inside as another explosion blasts through our room. Logan stumbles and fires his gun then gets inside the room, shoving the door closed behind him.
It takes me a second to understand what we’re looking at. It’s a bedroom, with wide, open windows and a four-poster bed. Logan walks across the room and throws open the windows, looking outside.
“Come on,” he says.
“Logan,” I say.
He stops and looks at me. “What?”
I point across the room. Crouched down next to the bed are three girls, cowering in fear, wearing nothing but lingerie.
“Shit,” he says softly and walks over to them. “Listen to me,” he says. “Anton is dead. You’re all free. Can you follow?”
The girls stare at him and start screaming. I watch in horror as they try to attack Logan, but he just dances backwards, avoiding their blows. Eventually he brings up his gun and points at them.
“Back off!” he yells.
The girls collapse together on the bed, screaming and crying, howling like wounded animals.
“Fuck,” Logan grunts. “Come on, Riley.” He pulls me toward the window. I can barely look away from those girls.
That was almost me. I can see it, almost like a vision of an alternate world. If not for Logan, I would be like those girls screaming on the bed because their rapist is dead.
“Riley,” Logan says, pulling me out of it. He takes me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes. “We’re almost away. Can you make it?”
I nod once. He turns and steps out of the window before helping me climb out behind him.
Once outside, the gunfire is louder, but more sporadic. Logan leads the way, sticking close to the wall. We stop and hide behind parked trucks and watch as a group of men wearing black and holding assault rifles comes jogging across the courtyard, heading toward the main building. There’s another explosion and more gunfire, drawing them away.
I follow Logan, skirting along the outbuildings, heading toward the gap in the wall. We’re almost there and suddenly someone starts yelling.
“Logan!” It’s a man’s voice and it’s nearby.
We freeze and Logan looks over. “Fuck,” he says under his breath.
“What?” I ask.
“That’s one of my commanders,” he says. “Fuck. Listen, Riley, I won’t let them take you. Okay? Run when I say.”
“What are you going to do?” Fear rifles through me.
“Run when I say. Okay?”
“Okay,” I answer, eyes wide.
“Ready?”
A group of men in black come trotting over from a distance as Logan squares up toward them. He raises his gun.
And suddenly the group is lit up by rifle fire. A group of compound guards comes bursting from a side building and attacks the group, which scatters and finds cover. A gun battle erupts right in front of us and Logan whirls, grabbing me by the hand, and runs.
We make it to the gap in the wall and he pushes me through first before following. We run as fast as I can toward the beach. I nearly trip over some rocks but Logan is there, steadying my body against his.
We run for a long time. When we can’t run anymore, we walk until finally we find the cave. We climb down together without another word.
Once inside, I collapse onto the ground and start panting, trying to catch my breath. He leans against the wall, breathing deep, but still steady.
There’s still some scattered gunfire, but it’s distant and sporadic. He watches me for a couple of minutes until my breathing finally calms down.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod. “I think so.”
“Not hurt?”
“No.”
Good.” He crouches down in front of me. “This is the hard part.”
“The hard part?”
He nods slowly and takes my hand. “You know how I feel about you. I don’t have to explain that.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“WE have to make a choice now.”
“What is it?”
He frowns and looks into my eyes. I reach out and touch his face, his handsome, gorgeous face and I want to laugh and cry and scream all at once. I don’t know what to feel. I’m free and I’m not free, but I’m with Logan and that’s all that matters.
“We can go back and face the consequences. Or we can start walking and never return.”
“Never return?”
“Home,” he says. “We can’t go back to the States. We’ll have to go on the run. Your father will be looking for you and my people will want me back for what happened in there. It might be a hard life, Riley.” He looks down at his feet. “I can’t ask you to do it. But I want to offer the option. I’ll do whatever you want to do, Riley.”
I stare at him and sigh. If we go back, we can go home, but I’ll be given to my father and he’ll likely get thrown out of his unit, maybe even jailed. If we run, we’ll have to go into hiding, maybe change our names.
But we’ll be together. I smile and then I laugh, because the answer is obvious, so obvious. There’s really no question of what I want.
“I don’t even like America that much,” I say.
He grins. “How dare you. America is the best country on earth.”
“Yeah, well. What’s second best?”
He shrugs. “Want to find out?”
“I do,” I say softly.
“I love you, Riley.”
“I love you too.”
We kiss and I know this is the right thing to do. I don’t care where I am or who I am, so long as I’m with Logan. He’s the only man I can love, the only person I can trust. He’ll take care of me, even if it’s hard at first. He’ll give me pleasure even when there’s no pleasure anywhere to be seen, because that’s the kind of person he is.
I’ll give up my old life willingly. I won’t go back to my father and my comforts. That was just a gilded cage, anyway.
Now, I’ll be free. Because I’m with Logan, I can be free.
We stand, climb out of the small cave, and we start walking, hand in hand.
30
Logan
Two Years Later
I look out across the field and lean up against the old wooden fence as the sun slowly crests above the mountains in the east. I breathe in the hard, cool air and let it out slowly, getting myself ready for the day.
I glance back at the house. A thin trail of smoke climbs up from the chimney and I smile to myself. Riley is up, which I didn’t expect. I head slowly back to the house and open the front door, knocking my boots on the frame.
Riley looks up at me from the kitchen. The smell of cooking bacon and eggs wafts into my nose and I grin huge.
“Morning,” I say. “This is unusual.”
She smiles back at me. “What? Me cooking or me being awake before sunrise?”
“The sun just rose, so the cooking.”
She makes a face and motions for me to come inside. “It’s cold out there,” she says.
I take off my boots and shut the door. I walk into the kitchen and come up behind her, kissing her neck.
She smiles and turns around. “Morning, asshole.”
I kiss her mouth slowly. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
“Cut it out. Breakfast is almost ready.”
She turns to go back to the eggs and I slap her ass. She laughs as I turn to the coffee pot, pouring myself a mug.
I sit down at the table and watch her cook. Even two years after everything happened in the compound, I still can’t get enough of her.
There’s just something I can’t describe about her. It makes me feel full, whole in ways I never thought was possible, not before her at least. I filled the emptiness inside of me with meaningless sex and dangerous work, but that could only do so much. It never made me feel complete.
But Riley gives that to me every single day. She doesn’t even have to do anything special to make me feel like I have a place. As I watch her, it comes to me suddenly, like a hot lightning flash in the sky: she’s home for me. That’s what this feeling means. It’s love and it’s home, all wrapped into one.
“What?” she asks and I realize I’m staring.
“Just looking at your hot ass,” I say, grinning again.
She cocks her head. “Didn’t look that way to me.”
My face softens. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?” She brings a plate of eggs and bacon over and places it down in front of me.
I hesitate, not sure where to begin. It’s been on my mind for a long time now, and she deserves it. Really, she deserves more, and I’ll give her more.
But it’s hard. We’ve been on the run since we left Mexico. We spent a few months in Brazil, another few months in Peru and Chile, before finally settling in southern Argentina. We’ve been living in this house for the past year.
It’s secluded, which is how we want it right now. We have a couple cows, a goat, some chickens, and a dog that roams around the hills and kills wild coyotes. She mostly tends to the animals while I go into town every day and work as a translator and tour guide for a local company. It’s not amazing work, but it pays the bills and there’s always a little leftover for some good wine and food.
