“Would it make it easier if you knew that Sophia wasn’t a good mother?” I asked, probing him for a hint.

He shook his head and leaned back into the pillows “No. Not really. Because Ben is just a boy and a boy loves his mom. It doesn’t matter how wicked the mother is, that’s the only mother he knows. Ben will be crushed when we do this.”

“And he’ll eventually be crushed if you don’t,” I reminded him. “As will all of us.”

I snuggled into him, kissing down his face, wanting to distract him. “Tell me about our dream life. Where we are. What we’re doing. What you will be doing?”

He smiled and sighed and held me close. He knew I was trying to take his mind off of things and he didn’t care. “Well, if we could I’d still like to go to Gualala. Though in reality we’d probably end up in Canada or something, because Sophia and her brothers will not take this lying down.”

“It’s a dream life, Camden. Gualala it is.”

“Okay then. Gualala. I don’t know if I’d be doing tattoos, maybe I’d try my hand at painting or sculpture. I’ve always loved carving things out of driftwood. I could have an art shop. We’d have Ben and a boy or girl of our own, four years younger. Gus would be there too with some lady love of his.”

“And what am I doing?”

“You?” he eyed me appreciatively. “You’d just stand around and look pretty.”

“And?”

“Give me blow jobs.”

I punched him in the arm.

“What?” he laughed. “I know you love the cock.”

“Shut up.”

“Well then, you tell me,” he said, looking serious and wiping a strand of hair from my face. “What do you want to be doing? If you could do anything.”

The thing was, I’d never really thought about that. I was always just trying to survive and keep going, from one place to the next. I never had goals. I never had dreams. Not really.

I thought back to something I did enjoy once. Something that had put a rift between Camden and I all those years ago.

“I think I’d be a photographer,” I told him. He raised his brows and I continued, “Of course you were always better at that than I was.” He bit his lip sheepishly and I knew he remembered the photos he had taken of me back in art class, for a project he called “Justification.” It had humiliated me at the time, but now I realized that he was only telling the truth. And sometimes the truth fucking hurt.

“I think you would be good at that,” he said. “You have a way of seeing people.”

I traced my fingers across his chest, making swirls and waves. “I like the idea of giving hope. That you can capture the world in such a way that even the ugly things look beautiful.”

The beauty in what was real.

He kissed my head and cleared his throat. “Now. About that blow job?”

I punched him again.

Then I gave him one.

Of course.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a light headache and my stomach grumbling. I hadn’t really eaten anything for the last few days. I had been basically fasting when I was in the jungle, only eating when I had the chance and coasting by on adrenaline the rest of the time, so now that I was back in California and still a pile of nerves, my appetite was slow to come back.

But when it did come back, it was back with a vengeance. As I rolled out of bed, careful not to wake Camden who was snoring lightly, I put my hand to my rumbling stomach and had a silly yet hopeful thought that perhaps I was already pregnant and this was my body telling me so.

I grabbed my robe and slipped it on, a cool, ocean breeze coming in through the open windows smelling of night-blooming Jasmine, and made my way downstairs to the kitchen. I popped two pieces of toast in the toaster, poured myself a glass of water and opened the drawer where I had stashed a bottle of Ibuprofen earlier in the day.

I shook two orange pills into my hand and raised it up to my mouth.

My eyes went to the kitchen window.

There was a man in the reflection.

Grinning.

Behind me.

Javier.

I opened my mouth to scream but he was fast and he grabbed me around the waist with one arm, his hand going over my mouth with the other. I dropped the pills to the floor where they clattered, praying that Camden could hear that but I didn’t think he could from where our bedroom was.

Javier pressed his hand hard into me and started bringing me backward, his hot breath at my neck. There was only one second where I felt a slice of relief that he was still alive. But that quickly vanished. Now I wanted him dead. I wanted Travis to have finished him off. I wanted my gun to have had one more bullet in it. Because, no matter what I thought of Javier before, I knew now that he was here for a terrible reason.

All bets were off.

No more promises.

I struggled, trying to kick out with my legs, to knock over a jar full of cooking spoons, hoping to cause more noise but it was impossible. Javier pulled me out of the kitchen, practically dragging me into the next room, the one-car garage we had.

Dark.

Small.

Practically soundproof.

Not good.

He managed to quietly close the door behind him, shutting us in the garage together, the smell of oil and dust assaulting me, as well as Javier’s distinctive musk which made the whole thing that much more terrifying. I breathed hard against his hand and he leaned back against the door, his arm around my stomach and legs growing tighter and tighter.

“Shhh,” he whispered in my ear, lips touching my lobe. “Shhhh, angel. Keep quiet. Calm down. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

That meant nothing anymore.

I could hear his lips against teeth, smiling. “So you think you could just leave me alone to die, yes?”

You left me, you sick son of a bitch. I wished there was light in the garage so I could see the closest weapon but there was nothing. It was completely pitch black. Dark as sin. And the only sound was my heart pounding and Javier’s breathing in my ear.

“This was after, of course, you pulled the trigger.” He sucked in his breath. “You know, angel, that really hurt me. That really changed … everything. You were the one person I thought wouldn’t betray me. And yet you tried to kill me. How do you think that made me feel? I lost my sister. And then I lost you.”

He suddenly took his hand away and put it at my neck, wrapping it around until I could feel the grooves he was creating. I gasped for air, to scream, but only pitiful sounds came out.

“To think I wasted …” I eked out, my face turning red, “tears on you.”

His grip tightened and he lifted me slightly off the ground, just for a moment, just to let me know he could hang me if he wanted. I couldn’t speak anymore. I couldn’t even get in one breath.

“And to think I wasted tears on you,” he snarled, suddenly malicious. He breathed sharply through his nose and I could tell he was pulling himself together. Trying to be calm. In control. Always in control. “But this is for the best. I can see that. We were never meant to be. You were never as strong as I thought you were. Such a shame though. You had such dirty wings. Such promise. Power makes the world go around, angel. It keeps you alive when you should be dead. Don’t you want that immortality? Or are you so happy with a boring, ordinary life? With a boring, ordinary man?”

I felt my heart slowing, the veins in my head about to burst. Then he slowly released his hand and gave me two seconds to wheeze and try and get the air back in before he covered up my mouth with his hand again. I fought against his palm but he held me hard while his other hand began to ease my robe aside.

I froze like a deer in headlights as his palm slid down my bare middle.

“You know I can give you what you need,” he murmured. “You know I always have. I can make you come just by touching you, even now.”

My eyes widened and his hand moved down between my legs, fingers going over my clit.

“Not very wet,” he remarked in a low, careful voice. “You must have missed me. Missed my touch.”

And he knew all the right places to touch, the right places to tease. Still, I felt nothing in my heart. And my body, my body only wanted to run and flee. I wanted to tear off my skin and burn it. He felt like a monster, a wicked reptile of cold leathery scales, a creature from my darkest dreams. He would not win me over here.

Perhaps if I let him think he did …

I relaxed into his touch, hoping I could feed his delusion. Not too much that he’d catch on. But just enough. I willed my breathing and my heart to slow and leaned slightly into him.

“That’s my angel,” he said, and I could feel his erection growing against my ass. His hand loosened on my mouth and I took the opportunity. I bit down hard on his hand and he yelped, letting go of me. I went for the door but he was at my side knocking me hard to the ground, my head banging against the cold concrete. Everything began to spin, stars and streams went around my head, and I lost precious seconds trying to get up.

By the time I struggled to get to my feet, my bad leg collapsing under me, I heard the shake of metal, the rip of duct tape. I screamed for Camden before Javier grabbed me by the hair at the top of my head and yanked me toward him, spinning me around and slamming my head against the door, his fingers finding my mouth. He stuck the duct tape across my lips.

“Camden can’t hear you now,” he whispered in the dark.

My heart sank at that. Had I been a fool to think that Javier was the only one in the house?

The light in the garage went on. Javier had one hand against it, the other gripped around my elbow. I eyed the shelves in the garage, spying a hammer and went for it but he dived into me and I went flying into them. Just before they toppled onto me he yanked me backward and out of the way and stuck a handcuff around one wrist.