I did.
“I’m turned on,” I whispered into his stomach, kissing it.
“That’s good,” he said, but he clearly wasn’t in the mood for beach sex, “I fucked up, baby. I tried to give you what I thought I’d want. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Shhh,” I shook my head and gestured toward the spot between my boobs. I was wired. “We’ll talk about that later. I have to get to the slave garden. Can I go see Truly for a few minutes alone?”
“What?”
“There’s a Zen garden, a courtyard at the slave quarters and Truly ran into me in the hall and says she has to warn me about something. Says there’s a private spot in the garden.”
“Truly?”
“One of the girls. Redhead from the Townsend room the other night.”
“What could it be?”
“No idea.”
“You trust her?’
“I… I don’t know. She and I were never close. She’s close with a few girls, I heard she was really tight with Lisa back in the day, but Cleo didn’t let anyone be my friend. You know…”
“I get it. But you gonna be okay?”
I nodded, “I don’t think I have anything to worry about with her. Unless she’s overheard somehow.”
“I just had a meeting with some partners. We’ve got the cocktail party in a half an hour where I’ll meet some others. Am I gonna have you with me? They didn’t say.”
“It’s up to you.”
“I’ll go alone. You go there then and see what she says. I’ll say you’re in our room.”
“Okay.”
“You really okay?”
“No,” I told him, “But some time alone and this beach helped. Truly got me thinking, too. And what we, you and me are here doing? If that works out, that’ll help, too. A lot.”
He sat up and pulled me to straddle him. We made out for a little while.
I wasn’t over what’d happened in that punishment room, a room where I’d been punished in my first few months here. But I had to count my blessings. I had Dare. This place wasn’t my home. I had a home, friends, family, and hopefully once this was over, we’d have helped that task force in their efforts to take Kruna down.
Back in our room, Dare texted Lisa.
“Can Angel trust Truly?”
Lisa had replied instantly.
“Absolutely. Yes. 200%”
***
The slave quarters were just the same, a connected maze of several dorm rooms that housed two hundred slaves, twenty per room. It was weird. I’d only been gone a couple months so of course nothing was really different. I was the one who was different.
There was a girl sitting on the mat that used to be mine and I was right. She was Mr. Delgado’s slave the night before and so she’d obviously replaced me.