My breath hitched and she let out little fluttery moans that made my balls tighten. I slowly edged myself into her, feeling the heat and the impossible tightness, the taboo, the dirtiness. The wonderful, mouth-gaping dirtiness. We both cried out as I thrust in deep, my cock being squeezed until I couldn’t handle it anymore.

Then something changed. A wave of cold came out from the darkness and along with it, the shadowy silhouette of a man. There was only shape to him and thick substance, like a figure had been sculpted out of black tar and clay. The chill he brought made me stop dead, my fingers resting softly on the cheeks of her ass.

The man came closer and still he had no features. Ellie’s head was up and watching him, like a playful cat, while I remained lodged inside her. He stopped right in front of her face and she reached for him with one hand, taking his black erect appendage into her mouth and crying out with pleasure.

I shut my eyes tight, willing myself to be the one she was sucking off. My dreams could be somewhat lucid when I wanted them to.

When I opened them, it had worked. My cock was in Ellie’s mouth, her tongue running and up and down the underside. But now, the black shape was where I had been, pounding her hard from behind. I watched, unable to stop Ellie from sucking me off, not wanting the pleasure to end, while watching the blackness as it spread over her. I came loudly, spurting into her mouth, which she swallowed happily. Then she came, the pounding coming to a climax.

The man of black matter smiled. A flash of white teeth against the abyss.

Then he was gone.

And she was gone.

I woke up on Gus’s couch in the middle of the night, my dick in my hands, pumping myself until I was coming all over my stomach with sticky bursts. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, from waking up Gus, and once the sensation faded, I noticed with embarrassment that I’d pulled my shirt up in my sleep, avoiding a mess.

I lay back, breathing hard, staring up at the ceiling. As far as sex dreams went, that one took the cake. I didn’t feel a sense of relief and peace as I normally did after climaxing. I felt empty. I felt dirty – and not the good kind of dirty.

I wiped up the mess with a few tissues and threw them in the trash. The door to his room was closed and I could hear him snoring loudly. There was no way I’d be going back to sleep now, even though the microwave clock said it was 4AM. The dream had thrilled then scared me and I didn’t want to give it thought, to give it power, to think what it had meant. I had to find Ellie first, then I’d deal with my subconscious.

Yesterday, after Gus had put it in my head that Ellie could be suffering from “Stockholm syndrome on steroids”, I could tell he was half-expecting me to pull out. To give up, to let Gus carry on the plan. It was probably what he wanted anyway, better off him than some bumbling puppy who was wanted by the police.

But I couldn’t. I was invested, as deep as I could be and as emotionally connected to Ellie than I’d ever been to anyone. In some ways, even Ben. I didn’t quite know why but that was the thing about love sometimes. It gave you few reasons and the rest was out of your hands.

Last night, I had told Gus that I was going to find her no matter what. If he wanted to help, then great. But if he didn’t, it wouldn’t stop me. Now that I knew exactly what was at stake – Ellie’s life, Ellie’s heart – I was all in.

“Even if Ellie doesn’t want to leave and Javier dies by my own bloody hands, I’m in it to the end,” I had said.

I don’t know if it’s because my veins were bulging out of my forehead or that I felt like a thousand suns were burning through my body and out of my eyes, but Gus finally nodded and said “alright.” He would help me get Ellie back.

To be honest, I think the idea of killing Javier put a little motivation in him, like a drop of blood in a shark tank. It wasn’t something I was banking on but I was prepared to do it. To know that Gus would be there to back me up helped, and also it made me realize the lengths I was prepared to go to save her, even on my own. It made me realize that in saving her, I might lose myself, lose any morals or convictions I once had. Camden McQueen might end up a stranger to even me when it was all said and done.

And I was going to have to be okay with that.

In fact, from the way I watched Gus go through his collection of firearms and give me the lowdown on each one, the tiny visceral thrill that shot through me, I was probably going to be more than okay with that. I was probably going to welcome it with open arms.

I never did end up falling back asleep, the memory of the dream and the real memory of Ellie clashing violently with each other. I did what I could to hold it all together, the same way I’d been doing it for the last few days, ever since she left with him. When I’d feel rage creeping on up, saturating my limbs from the inside out, I mentally quarantined the feeling. I imagined taking the anger, the panic, the injustice, and funneled it into a compartment in my head. I took it out of my heart and my lungs and the muscles that wanted to curl my hands into fists and have me explode. It was the only way I was able to think clearly, to do what needed to be done.

Each minute I spent with Gus I realized I needed to become more like him, cool and distant. Somehow it worked for him and as time went on, it began to work for me. I even applied it to Sophia and Ben and my fucking father who wouldn’t stop ringing me until Gus destroyed my cell with a quick stomp of his boot. I filed it away, until I felt smooth and snag-free inside, like a machine.

Our plan, according to Gus was fairly straightforward and simple. We’d head out to Mississippi where Ellie had lived as a girl and where she met Javier years later. We’d poke around, he’d ask a few of his contacts and hopefully find some sort of a trail.

“I’m pretty sure Javier Bernal still lives in the state,” Gus had told me as he threw a duffel bag into the GTO. It landed in the trunk with a clatter and I knew it contained more than his clothes and toiletries. He was a bit wary about taking the car, even with the newspaper reporting it as a green Mustang but since his only vehicle was a beat-up café racer motorbike, he didn’t have much of a choice. I was relieved. As strange as it sounded, I could see why Ellie hung onto the car all those years. There was something very empowering about it, like it made you invincible. Maybe after that stunt on the Vegas highway I superstitiously believed in it.

I was about to hop in the driver’s seat when Gus waved me off with a gruff gesture of his hand. “Nope,” he said, slipping on a pair of amber aviators. “Too risky with you driving. You’re sitting in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead, never to the side.”

“Why don’t I just lie down in the back then?” I wasn’t questioning his methods but his tone of voice didn’t help.

He gave me the are-you-an-idiot look. “If someone notices it’s only going to draw more suspicion. Look, as of right now, the photo circulating on the news is a far cry from what you look like. They’re looking for a pretty boy with a dumbass smile, you look like a piece of shit.”

This was going to be a fun ride. “Thanks.”

He shrugged. “It’s true. Now get in before I change my mind.”

I almost wanted him to but I decided to suck it up and file my feelings toward Gus away too.

Once we’d cleared the streets of Pismo Beach and were heading inland toward the I-5, I asked Gus what he knew about Javier.

He pursed his rough lips as if he wasn’t sure I was worthy of the information. Then he talked.

“As I told you before, I hadn’t kept in touch with Ellie too much over the years. We’d talk on the phone around Christmas time – she was really good at calling – but other than that it was more that I would help her out when I could. Fake IDs, information on people, yadda yadda. During that time, she never once mentioned Javier. It was like the moment she left him, she erased his memory from her head. And she seemed to be doing fine. What is the point in bringing up the past anyway? So I never spoke a word about him, even though I was keeping tabs – mainly out of curiosity, mainly for her sake. No one just up and leaves a gang member, it doesn’t happen. I was so sure he’d come after her right away, but from what I could tell, he never did. He stayed put in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. And then he began to build his empire.”

A chill laced my blood. Empire?

Gus went on. “I’d heard it through my grapevine that Travis and Javier were butting heads. He started getting friendlier with their rivals, Los Zetas in particular. That was unheard of, not to mention stupid for someone like him, but Travis Raines cared more about power than loyalties. He believed that their cartel could go grow stronger if they became allies instead of enemies and thought going back to Mexico would help. Never mind the explosion of violence in the country, the fighting, the tourists who were getting caught in the middle, the fact that it turned into one big shit show and it was getting international attention. Javier did not agree. Javier thought it was too dangerous, too chaotic, and that Travis would slowly lose control. He would rather die than make peace with his rivals. It came down to Javier staying behind and Travis booting him out. Javier siphoned a few key players of his, people who still had loyalty to a cause, instead of to Travis. I still don’t know who’d win in a fight, but Javier at least has charm to mask his brutality, something Travis doesn’t have.”

I winced at the word charm. I remembered meeting Javier for the first time, in that café in Palm Valley. I wouldn’t say he had charm but he definitely had something. Mystery, if I wanted to sound quixotic about it.

“There was an incident, of course,” he continued. “Before Travis left, he’d managed to get two of Javier’s men killed. And once he made it to Mexico, he went one step further and hunted down one of Javier’s sisters. Raped her, killed her, all that big stuff. This was about three years ago, mind you, though nothing really came of it. Javier still stayed in the US and began leaching from another cartel, trying to build his own power. That was his revenge, I suppose. Who knows, maybe Javier didn’t give two shits about his sister. Nothing would surprise me with that guy.”

I cleared my throat, watching the green hills whiz by. “You knew all this stuff, all this time and you never told Ellie.”

He looked chagrined or maybe that was wishful thinking. “It didn’t concern her. And by the time it did concern her …”

“Well you obviously knew he was coming after her.”

“Actually, I didn’t. I’d stopped paying attention about a year ago. I got dragged down into some money and health problems, I just didn’t have the time. Javier seemed to be holding steady and at that point I figured he’d never come looking for her.”

“Which begs the question, why now?”

“Good question. That’s what we’re going to find out. I doubt it was something as simple as hearing a love song on the radio.”

“Perhaps it is as simple in that he’s still in love with her.”

He glanced at me, his eyes hazy behind the aviators. “Men like Javier don’t know what love is. I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”