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“Well, my last boyfriend also gives himself a hard time when he shouldn’t.

” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“I’m happy, Alex. Ted’s contract with Tyler finishes around the same time as mine, so we’re talking about starting a new life together when all this is over.

We’ll collect our completion fees and pool them and hopefully find a flat together.

Ted’s still got family back in the Quarterlands who he wants to get out, so we’d work towards that. ”

“That happened fast.”

“Not really.” She shrugged. “We’ve spent months together cooped up in this place, so we’ve had plenty of time to discuss it.

Ted comes into my room when he’s on a night shift and I’m not working, and we talk for hours.

He was so kind to me after Drummond beat me that I decided to get to know him better, and I like him. I really like him.”

“Do you love him?” Alex asked softly.

She blushed. “You know, I think maybe I do. For a long time I wondered how I’d ever get you out of my system, but Ted is very different to you, and I think that’s what I need.”

“Good for you.” He caught hold of her hand and kissed the palm. “Is Scar… I mean, is Ted okay with watching what you do here, given how he feels about you?”

“Ted knows what we have to do to get out of the Quarterlands. For the guys it’s often security or manual labour, and for the women it’s usually…

this.” She gave a resigned shrug. “Ted’s a realist. He understands that I belong to Tyler, and therefore to all the men and the oc casional woman Tyler gives me to.

He has to suck it up for now, but it won’t last forever. ”

“Do you think Tyler will cause any problems for either of you because of this?” Alex jerked his head at the smartwall, which recorded every single thing they did and said.

“I don’t see why.” She flung back her head defiantly, making her curls dance and shimmer in the sunlight streaming through the window. “He doesn’t care how I feel as long as I do my job. Nobody’s said anything so far, anyway. If he wanted to stop it, he could have done by now.”

Alex smiled, feeling genuinely pleased for her. “Then I wish the pair of you every happiness.”

She lifted up the blanket and snuggled in beside him. He rested his head on her shoulder.

“Do you ever miss the croc, Solange?” he asked. “And the drinking, and the drugs, and the clubs?”

“Not really. It was more your scene than mine. I did croc because Tyler told me to, because it was a way of being part of your world. Why, do you?” She combed her fingers through his hair again.

“Yeah. I mean, I was never an addict, despite what the press said – I could always take it or leave it, but…”

“But?” she prompted, still stroking.

“It was an escape.” He closed his eyes, remembering that mellow feeling of being on croc – how everything seemed a little bit out of focus and nothing really hurt.

“I can see now that I used it to avoid feelings I didn’t want to feel and situations I hated.

The irony is, being here is the worst situation of all, and the feelings are worse than anything I’ve ever experienced, but I have no croc to get me through.

I wish I’d appreciated how good life was back then, compared to how bloody awful it was going to become. ”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.” She smoothed his hair gently away from his forehead.

“Do you believe what Ted said, that there’s no way of escaping from here?” He turned his head to look at her.

She looked away sharply, gesturing with her head at the smartwall. “Don’t even think about it, Alex. ”

“There’s no drink, no drugs, and the sex isn’t exactly the kind I can use as a form of escape,” he said.

“There are no pills I can overdose on, and I’m watched twenty-four hours a day, so I can’t hang myself with one of Lorenzo’s expensive belts.

Chef makes sure there are no knives left unattended, so I can’t slit my wrists, and the windows don’t open, so I can’t throw myself out.

There are no ways out, Solange, and that’s what I don’t think I can stand. ”

“Those aren’t ways out – they’re permanent exits,” she said firmly. “You have to find a way of living with it, Alex.”

“I can’t help it. Every time I close my eyes, I dream of being free. Do you know what I miss most?”

Solange shook her head.

“I miss being able to drive about in a duck, just me and my thoughts. I miss driving through a lost zone, with water all around, and then being out on the open road and stopping for lunch in a village somewhere. When I was a kid, after I’d been suspended or expelled from one of those god-awful schools my parents sent me to, I’d have a few precious weeks at home before they sent me somewhere else.

I’d get on my motorbike and go off, all alone. I miss that.”

“Well, maybe you’ll have that again, one day,” she told him. “You don’t know what the future will bring – it might be a lot better than it seems right now.”

“How do you handle it?” he asked. “You’ve been here, doing this, for years. How do you keep going?”

“Hope, partly,” she replied, tangling one finger in her glorious hair and twisting it around and around. “Hope for the future, and for the day I’ll eventually be free.”

“I don’t have that. I could be here for the rest of my life,” he said bleakly.

“I know, which is why you have to find something else – something inside yourself, Alex. You have to dig deep and find some kind of inner strength, or Tyler will destroy you.”

“Do you think he’ll succeed?” he questioned anxiously.

She smiled down on him sadly. “I don’t know.

But what I do know is you have to find something to keep you going, or you’ll fall apart.

For me, it’s hope. For you, it has to be something else.

I hope you find it – and if you do, promise me you’ll cling on to it and let it see you through the dark days. ”

Alex looked up at her glumly. “I don’t know what I can find that will help me do that.”

She wrapped her arms around him and held him close. “Neither do I, but find something, Alex – find something, hold on to it tightly, and never let it go.”