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“No No I’ll just ht”

“Okay That’s all I wanted to say”

“All right, Luke Thanks”

Thanks? For what? Fora complete idiot out of myself?

I’ like I’ve never spoken to a woman before, when in fact…

Except all of that was then

All of this is now

“Bye, Katelyn”

“Bye”

I cover my head with the Yankees cap I don’t even follow baseball

My shirt is long-sleeved It’s fall, of course, and I haven’t yet begun the tattoo laser renizes the ink? Until I can find someone I trust to do the job, I need to coversleeves

It sucks

But it is what it is

I drop to the floor and rattle off a hundred pushups

Then I shove my phone and my wallet into the pocket of my sweatpants, and I’m off

13

Katelyn

I spend the rest of the day onfor work I’ The escort lie that I told Luke came off the top of my head I was hardly an escort on the island I was property

Growing up in LA, I learned all about escort services My mother even worked as an escort for a few years That’s how she met my father

She clai time, I believed her

Now? I’m not so sure

My phone buzzes

So strange It’sabout her Kismet? Or just bad-ass luck?

“Hi, Mom,” I say into the phone

“Hi, honey I’ in”

“You checked in two days ago,” I say dryly

I don’t one for nearly a decade They stopped looking for me They assumed I was dead

I shouldn’t blame them They never could have found me anyway The only reason the island was exposed was because the owner, Derek Wolfe, was ht hard to prove their innocence, leaving no stones unturned One of those stones turned out to be Treasure Island

Derek Wolfe was an interesting man He helped train the women before they came to the island, but he never hunted us or violated us at the actual island Yet he facilitated others to do so

He had two soft spots Diahter, Riley Wolfe

Riley came to the island sometimes Every once in a while I or one of the other woht of her

All that ti unspeakable things to his own daughter

Acid pools in my mouth

“Baby, Dad and I really want you to come home”

“We’ve been through this, Mom”

“But we missed so much of your life And you need to be with people who love you”