They found her. It was a corrugated farm, barren and dusty-dry one side and green on the other, rows upon rows of rustling corn. Shading the place, there stood one impossibly large tree. They cut the chains and stormed the doors. In the basement they found the huge tank. Someone shot out the thick glass, one two three four bullets, and the water broke. It came rushing out, flooding girl and cameras and FBI agents alike.

Two days later, Rossi went to Rhiannon’s apartment building. He stood outside of it for a long moment, the slanting rays of the setting sun blazing at his back, and he looked up at the stucco façade. A plant that he didn’t know grew along the sides of the building near the sidewalks that edged the parking lot, green-feather leaves and flaming blossoms bright against the pale flanks of the three-story building. There was a tiled fountain that smelled strongly of chlorine. Lantana twined around the bases of decorative lampposts. Multicolored roses bloomed and ranged with deceptive ease along the iron fencing. It interested him, the lengths people went to believe that they weren’t living in a desert. Shower flowers upon the sand, and even so the character of the land will remain the same. He found the stairs up to her door and climbed them. The stairs and the door were painted sage green.

She answered on his second knock. He thought he would say we found her, or we’re transferring Carl to the prison hospital, or maybe I’m flying out of town in a couple of days. Instead, he said:

“I want to come in.”

She grinned. “I know.”

Rhiannon offered him a beer. He said no thank you, and he took hold of her hands as he said it, his fingers flexing on her fingers. He pulled on her arms, holding them straight down, and this bit of restraint sharpened the sweetness, the instant his mouth came to hers.

This needs to happen on a bed, she said.

Oh yes, he replied. It does.

She unwrapped him a button at a time. It was slow because she needed slow. He inhaled, savoring the reaction of his blood to the touch of her fingers, neither hesitant nor unsure, but soft just the same. Her mouth landed on him like a sunrise. He filled with heat, broke out in shivering droplets of dew. She called him once by his first name and the sound of it tore through him, wreckage like ash spinning in its wake. She caught those tiny whirling bits on her tongue and gave them back, spreading them on his tongue. He moaned into the humid pocket of her mouth.

He closed his eyes and read the textures of her skin, ran his fingers over all of those places where the needles had been. He got her onto her back and used his mouth on the sweet places, the secret spaces where the tiny hairs grew in the direction they wanted his tongue to go. She rose up, arching over the rumpled bed, her belly an ivory arc. He unzipped her jeans and spread the flies apart, resting his forehead on her navel, breathing into the rise and fall of her skin. He slid a hand across her chest, scooping up a breast and holding it for a moment, letting the nipple trail between his thumb and index finger.

How do you want it?

This is fine.

No…how do you want me to fuck you? He curled his hands over the waistband of her jeans and tugged them down over her hips.

I don’t know.

He pulled the jeans off her legs. He moved over her, kneeling between her thighs, and dropped down enough to kiss her neck. She ran her fingers through his hair, turning her head so her throat lifted into his lips. She felt the friction of his beard and imagined the flush rising into her skin.

Just this way, she said.

He brought one of her narrow calves up to his shoulder and kissed the plump curve below the knee. His cock pushed down into her like a long slick hungry creature returning to the place from which it came. The breath rushed out of her, then slid back into her lungs. He put his face on hers and thrust with slow hips. Her fingertips traced the length of his spine.

Is that good?

Yes.

His mouth hovered over hers. She kissed him, her teeth pressing back and forth into her lips. He steadied her head with one hand. He licked her tongue.

Dave?

Yes.

More.

He quickened the pace and she dug her heels into the bed, pushing back against him. His breath sharpened. She stroked the back of his head, her fingers loose, the way she would to soothe him. He propped up on his hands, working the angle. She put her hands on his hips, her back getting tight and her neck getting loose. Her head rolled to one side.

It’s gonna happen, isn’t it?

Yeah…oh…yeah.

Her jaw tightened and tried to hold it back as her hips galloped away from her.

That’s it, he said. Good girl.

Her neck bent into a tight arch and her thighs spread apart. Her cunt loosened up, the soft walls fluttering. As he slid out her muscles squeezed. He made a noise of pleasure. He pushed forward, sinking into her grasp. She gripped his shoulders, moaning through her thicket of sweet spasms.

Aw yeah, he said.

In the seconds before he came, he closed his eyes and thought this is how it feels to drown.