My hands were shaking like some kind of frightened animal as I dialled Joe's number. I told myself I was just buying time while I thought my way out of this. I told myself I wasn't betraying him, because he already knew that they had me.

It didn't matter what I told myself. I felt like Judas as the single ring went through to his cell-phone. He picked up quickly enough that I knew he'd been waiting with his thumb on the button.

"Helena." His voice didn't sound like him. It sounded at once harsher, and more vulnerable. It sounded like they'd already done something terrible to him before they'd even touched him.

"Joe, I'm sorry." I wanted to say it first, while I had the chance. I was sorry. Heart-achingly sorry. If I'd made it through security, he could have picked them off one by one using a power they didn't know he had. He would be safe.

"Don't say that. Are you all right?"

"Yes. Yes, but they say - they say they have Axel too. That he came back. Brandon said he needed him and..."

There wasn't a lot else to say about it. I knew he would want to smack Axel in the face as much as I did; and that he had known Brandon was a waste of space. None of it needed saying between us.

There were two hurried breaths into the mouthpiece, breaths I could almost feel on my skin, and then he said, "OK. You believe them?"

I glanced up at Mr. Jeroniri, the boy with the laptop, and then said, "Yes, I do."

"What do they want?"

"For you to go to an address." The boy drug-lord passed a piece of paper across the table, with a scratchy handwritten note. It was an industrial unit off the Interstate. Out of town, and out of the way. I could hear the fear in my voice as I read it out to him. "Mr. Jeroniri wants you to know that he will bring me and your brother there, and that we'll be free to go in exchange for you coming to talk to him."

"I guess he's heard what a good conversationalist I am," Joe-Moe said, and I gave a half-desperate laugh.

"I guess he has. He says that you have his word that he will release us if you arrive there and hand yourself over, and that his word means a great deal to him."

"I'm assuming there are lots of conditions about not bringing the cops, or anyone else."

"Yes."

I didn't need to say that it hadn't surprised me. Or that I was scared.

"It'll be ok," he said, quietly. I could feel my eyes stinging. There was none of the certainty in his voice that he'd had about us, and our future together. He was as scared as I was.

"Of course it will," I said, lying as hard in return. And then, quickly, as I could see the bald guy holding his hand out for my cell-phone, "I did miss you. I do miss you. You can have a million texts by way of apology. Just..."

I broke off, because I couldn't say in front of the listening men, Just live. Please, please, just live.

He gave a gentle but hoarse laugh into my ear.

"I'll take that. Tell them I'm on my way."

"I will."

After I hung up, I had to close my eyes and squeeze my hands into fists for a moment just to stop the fear and the sadness taking over. I felt the phone being tugged out of my hand by the bald guy, and fought the urge to clutch onto it, just because it was my one contact with Joe.

"Has he agreed?" Jeroniri asked.

I nodded, and with an effort opened my eyes again. "He says he's on his way."

"Thank you," the drug-lord said. He reached for his laptop and typed rapidly for a moment, before pushing it away again. "You may as well have a seat. This will take a little while."

I looked at him blankly, my brain not computing. "What will?"

"All of this... business. You'll be released once it's over. I meant it when I gave my word."

"But... Shouldn't we get going? To the warehouse or wherever it is?"

"We aren't going," Jeroniri explained, quite gently. "It's too complex setting up a hostage situation, and too likely to end in disaster. Much safer and simpler to arrange for the men he has angered to... clear things up."

The blankness became an awful understanding.

"You're just going to let them pick him off?" I whispered. "You aren't even going to talk to him?"

Jeroniri sighed. "I told you I don't like this way of doing things. But Joseph has angered the wrong people, and in so doing has become a threat to me. What has complicated the issue is that he seems to have an extraordinary ability to cover his tracks. We've spent most of our resources since the nightclub incident trying to find him, and haven't sniffed even a trace. So it became imperative that he be forced into the open."

I shook my head at him, mutely for a few seconds, before I broke out with, "Please. Please don't. You can reason with him. He wants a quiet life, you just threatened his brother. Lucas and your associates were a danger to Axel. If you can sort that out, he won't bother you again."

"The situation with Axel can be regarded as closed," he said, turned to face his laptop and frowning briefly before typing again. His interest in me was gone, I could see. He was moving on to other business, no longer willing to talk. I could have grabbed him by the throat right then and squeezed until he choked. It was a terrifyingly strong emotion.

The bald guy grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the sofa. I fought for a moment but then realised that I wasn't going to be able to resist them using physical force. I needed another way.

I was shaking convulsively as I sat down, my mind spinning in circles. I had to force myself to breathe in and out just to begin thinking.

Come on. Come on! What can you do? What can you do?

If I could just warn Joe somehow. But although I knew I could be aware of him if I needed to, there was no way I could make him aware of me. I felt powerless, and wished intensely that I had his ability to create revenge instead of my own. It would have done so much more good.

But even thinking that produced a light in my mind.

You know what you can do.

I looked up, slowly, at Jeroniri. At his impassive face as he waited for them to kill Joe. That anger was still in me, but I pushed it away and focused on his slightly floppy hair for a moment.

He's just a boy. Just a boy playing games. A boy who is too smart for his own good, and has set up an empire he can't control.

And suddenly I saw the kid who had ended up here: the child who had no friends his own age; who spent hours on his computer, and began to realise that he could have power and influence in a virtual world; who began exchanging and trading and making contacts; who happened upon the most lucrative market of all, and began to become a drug-lord little by little.

And in spite of all this, I thought, he's still alone.

I could read the loneliness in him. I could read that the people he surrounded himself with were no more friends than a pack of hungry wolves. I could read the ache to find someone to really talk to; someone who was smart and empathetic. Someone who might save him from himself.

And it was there. That magnetic pull. The feeling of two points moving together. It was extraordinarily strong in only a matter of moments, fuelled I guess by the urgency of my need for it to happen. I put nothing in its way - I drew the feeling into me and felt the other point in this binary system moving towards us rapidly. They were close, and drawing closer all the time.

Quickly, I thought. Quickly, quickly. Please. Joe doesn't have much time.

There was suddenly a curious frown on Jeroniri's face, as if he could feel something. He glanced up at me, and gave me a speculative look.

I remembered, suddenly, Joe-Moe telling me he could feel what I'd done.

Oh god, please don't stop me doing this. They're so close. You'll be happy.

I looked back at him, unable to look away if I was going to keep that intense, magnetic draw going. I tried to tell him with my eyes that what I was doing was good. I tried to give him a sense that it would all be all right, now, and he wouldn't have to be lonely any more.

It's so close.

That other point was almost on us. They must have been in the building already, and coming up to this floor.

Come on! Come on!

Jeroniri's frown deepened, and he began to say, "Cooper, would you-"

A sharp tap came at the door.

Jeroniri pressed a button on his computer, distractedly, bothered by what was happening. He began again, "Perhaps we should take Ms Morgan..."

But then the door opened, and into a glorious sliver of sunlight walked Jeroniri's soul-mate; the person he had been waiting all his life to find; a beautiful, slight, dark-haired adonis.

I could feel my own mouth hanging open even while Jeroniri gaped at him.

Oh holy shit. Not Axel. 

*** I hope you're really enjoying the climactic part of the book!! Only a few more chapters to go. Can I ask you all to go back and vote on all the chapters you enjoyed, and to comment below on what you think of this chapter?! I'd love to get the book into the top 10 and also I'd love to hear your feedback!! Thanks a million for reading. Gytha xx ***