He grabs my lapels and hauls me to a sitting position. From the back of the Jeep, I can see we’re parked on the shoulder at the crossroads of two well-driven highways. There’s nothing in sight but hard pan, scrub brush and a few buttes off in the distance. A vulture circles around a blazing noon sun. I’ve been out for hours. We could be anywhere.

Bennett’s my only hope. I think of Ethan and a pathetic quality seeps into my voice. “You can’t do this. Do you know what they’ll do to us?”

Bennett doesn’t meet my gaze. He offers a plastic jug of muddy water.

I shake my head, thinking of the tranquilizers.

“It’s clean,” he says and he takes a swig. A large gulp spills out of the corners of his mouth and into his dirty hair. He flings the water off with a shake of his head. He offers the jug back to me.

It’s hardly clean, but must not be drugged. I’m so thirsty I can’t turn it down. Bennett pours the musty water in my mouth. It washes away some of the stickiness in my throat, but leaves a foul aftertaste.

He starts to walk away.

“Bennett, let the boy go. Just him. He’s too young for this.”

Bennett glances at Ethan, still unconscious on the bed of the Jeep beside me. “He’s worth double what you are.” Then he walks around the Jeep and out of my view.

If only he knew what I was worth. Then it hits me.

“Bennett,” I shout as he’s walking away. I can’t think about what I’m about to do or I might not do it. “I’m a girl.”

The silence around the Jeep presses down on me until I can’t breathe. What have I done? It doesn’t matter. If it will save Ethan, nothing else matters.

He stops dead in his tracks. Then he swivels on his heel and marches back.

I’m trembling a little when he steps up and peers at my face. I bite my lip and let him look.

“Prove it,” he says slowly. The old man wanders up behind him, glaring at me with beady eyes. They both stare at me like I’m some sort of new, exotic monster.

“I’ll prove it. Just let him go,” I say, a lump forming in my throat.

Bennett reaches for me and I flinch. He runs a hand over my damp shirt. My stomach lurches at his touch. I want to bite at the hand that runs over my chest. Instead I close my eyes and wait for it to be over.

“Breasts,” he says as he fondles mine. I see his face turn up in sick glee.

He’s reaching in to pull off my shirt when his father elbows him and points to the horizon.