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lights off. The server lights were enough to see by, once their eyes adjusted. “Jesus, I can’t believe we just did that.”
    “Who is that guy?”
    “Trust me, you really don’t want to know. Is there another way out of here?” he asked.
    “Where was he taking you?”
    “Hope, is there another way out? “
    “I’m not telling you until you explain,” she said. Her wrist was starting to hurt now that the adrenaline was receding. “What the hell is going on?” She tried to move her wrist, and winced.
    Elijah took her arm in his hands and probed gently, murmuring an apology when she sucked in her breath at a glassy stab of pain. “I don’t think it’s broken, or even sprained; I don’t see any swelling” he said. “Bruised, maybe. Probably just needs some ice.” His hands moved and took her by the shoulders, and she was pinned under the weight of his stare. “What the hell were you thinking, getting in the middle of that? You really could have been hurt. It’s not your business, Hope.”
    She’d kind of expected some sort of gratitude, and that hurt. Worse, it made her angry. “Well, sorry for wanting to help! I thought he was going to hurt you!”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Well, he wouldn’t have done it right out in the open. His job is to get us back in the van and back to the motel, and then hurt us.”
    That shocked her into silence. Elijah took a step back, as if he’d surprised himself by saying that, and shook his head. “It’s not your business, like I said. I’m sorry I got you into it. Look, just show me the back way out, and I’ll go.”
    “Go where? Back to the van?”
    “I don’t have much choice,” he said. “They’ve got all my money, my clothes, everything I own. I have to go back.” He looked bleak, but braced, she thought, for what he saw as inevitable. “It’s not like they tell you in the ads. They tell you you’ll be selling magazines with lots of travel. See the country, that kind of thing. What they don’t tell you is that the second you sign up, they own your ass. They take your phone. They only give you enough money to eat, when you get to eat at all. They search you every night to make sure you haven’t hidden anything. And if you screw up—” He took in a deep breath. “I just have to go back, Hope.”
    “What? You can’t . My God, it’s slavery ! You can’t go back to that! You have to—you have to tell the police!”
    He was already shaking his head. “It’s not that simple. Just—look, is there a back way out of here? I have to go back. I’ve got my reasons.”
    “Your stuff? You can get new stuff. Elijah, I can lend you the money!” She stared at him, and for a long moment she was sure he wouldn’t answer her; a muscle clenched and unclenched in his jaw, and then he stepped very close to her and bent down. She felt the warm radiance of his skin through her shirt. He smelled like oak and sweat and tea, something that tingled all the way down through her body. It felt like he’d kiss her, and she was ready for that; she was aching for it, actually. Those soft, full lips were so close she could almost taste them.
    But he held her inches away.
    “It’s not about my stuff. Tell me how to get out,” he whispered. “Please don’t make me insist. I don’t want to hurt you, Hope. Not ever.”
    Her breath bottled up in her lungs, and she felt faint again, not from blood sugar but from sheer fear. It was the way he said it, slowly and calmly, that made her understand that he meant it. Every word.
    Especially when he reached down and lightly pressed his fingers around her injured wrist. Just enough to remind her of the ache.
    “Why are you doing this?” She didn’t mean to say it out loud because she knew he was serious about his threat, but it came out all the same. You can’t hurt me. You just helped me. But had he? Really? Maybe he’d just been using her the entire time. Maybe that open door hadn’t meant anything after all.
    “I just