by B. B. Hamel
“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 bo
ots 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.
We have a nice life, to be honest. I know her father is still looking for us, although my company has given up. They don’t want to spend the money trying to hunt us down. That, and the friends that I still have left helped convince the board to give up. They destroyed the compound with minimal losses and saved all those girls. To them, that was the bigger victory. Anton and his scumbags are all dead and gone, and those women will never be used and destroyed.
Her father might find us eventually, but that doesn’t really matter to me. I can handle whatever he throws at us. I’m just happy all those girls made it.
My bigger concern is what comes next. We’ve fallen into a beautiful, comforting rhythm, but neither of us wants to live here forever. I know she wants to go back to the States one day, and I want to give that to her. Maybe we have to wait until her father dies, or maybe I’ll have to travel up to him and threaten him or something.
But first, there are some changes we need to make.
She sits down across the table, looking flush and beautiful. “What did you want to ask me?”
“I’m not sure how to put it,” I say, stalling as I eat my bacon.
“Come on, Logan. Spit it out.”
“Your cooking isn’t that bad, I don’t want to waste it.”
She sighs. “Be serious. You brought this up.”
“Fine.” I put my fork down. “If you could go to any country, where would you go?”
She narrows her eyes. “Why are you asking?”
“Just answer.”
“I feel like this is a trick question.”
“Riley.”
She sighs. “Okay, fine. I guess I want to visit Australia.”
I laugh, surprised. “Australia? Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. What’s so funny?”
“I mean, there’s Paris. And Munich is beautiful. St. Petersburg, Rome, Copenhagen. And you want to go to Australia?”
“I want to see a kangaroo.”
I lean back and grin at her, shaking my head. “Kangaroos.”
“Kangaroos!” She laughs, looking at me. “What’s this about, anyway?”
“I got something for you. Well, a few things.”
“Oh, no,” she says. “Is this another sweater situation?”
I groan. She’s referring to a very ugly locally made sweater that I got her for last Christmas.
“Much better,” I say.
“Anything’s better,” she grumbles.
I stand up and head into the bedroom. “Don’t be ungrateful!” I call back.
I think she mumbles something about itchiness and fleas but I don’t catch it all. The sweater was fine, just a little scratchy, but she acted like it was the worst thing in the world.
I go into our room and open the closet. I pull out an old pair of boots and carefully open the sole, spreading it apart. I pull out what’s inside and head back into the kitchen.
She looks at the papers in my hand, her head cocked. “What’s all that?”
I hand them to her. She takes them, looking carefully, before opening up the Argentinian passport. “Violet Gray?”
“And I’m Arthur Gray.”
She looks at me, her eyes wide. “What is this?”
“Papers. Passports. New identities.”
“How?” she whispers.
“My friends at the company. One last favor. Cost me all of my tips from the last few months, but it’ll be worth it.”
“Logan,” she says, shaking her head. “This is crazy.”
“This is freedom. We can travel anywhere we want to now. We can even go home, if you want.”
She stares at me for a second, her eyes wide, and then she looks away. I smile, knowing what the look means. She’s trying to hide her tears from me, but I know better. I walk around the table and pull her against me, hugging her tight.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“So, where do you want to go?” I ask her.
She pulls back, eyes wet, and smiles. “Kangaroos,” she says.
I can’t help but laugh and kiss her. “Okay, Australia it is.” I let her go then drop down to one knee in front of her. “But there’s one more thing.”
She puts her hands to her mouth as I take the ring from my pocket. It’s a simple ring, bought from a local man that makes jewelry. The diamond isn’t huge, but it’s beautifully crafted.
“Marry me,” I say.
“Logan,” she whispers.
“I spoke with some friends at the tour group. They said that there’s a priest two towns over who will marry us, no questions asked. We can have the party here, invite everyone.”
She stares at me silently then nods once, clearly unable to speak. I grin huge and take her hand then slip the ring on her finger, a perfect fit.
She stares at it and then launches herself at me, knocking me over to the ground as she hugs me as hard as she can. I laugh, hugging her back, pulling her body against mine.
“Are you sure?” she asks, her voice muffled against my chest.
“Of course. We’re already a family, Riley, but this will make it official.”
“Violet,” she says.
“What?”
She looks up at me, grinning. “My name is Violet now.”
I laugh and kiss her gently. “Good point.”
She hugs me
again and I know this is right. This is what coming home feels like.
Soon, we’ll get married. Once I save up enough money, we’ll travel to Australia. From there, maybe we’ll travel to Europe, or maybe we’ll settle down and have babies, or maybe we’ll go back to the States.
It doesn’t matter what we do. The world is infinite and the possibilities are endless. We have all the freedom we could ever possibly need, and we won’t give that up for absolutely anything.
Best of all, we have each other. It doesn’t matter where we go, because it’s always home when we’re together. I can’t get enough of her body, her voice, her mannerisms, the way she sings in the shower, the way she wrinkles her nose when coffee is too hot, everything. I love it all and need it all, always, everywhere.
I’m hers, wherever we are, whenever we are. This is all I need. I’ll never let anyone hurt her again, and we’ll always be free.
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And it turns out she’s a virgin.
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Now she’s my perfect bride.
I’m the first man to get this deep, but I’m not turning back.
When work gets crazy, I need to a nanny to help take care of my baby daughter. Erin is smart and gorgeous, and as soon as I see her perfect curves and innocent lips, I know I’m going to do more than just hire her.