“It’s not all about you, babe, and trust me, you don’t have a corner on the market when it comes to second-guessing yourself.” He toyed with the end of her ponytail, tugging lightly. “Hey, where’s the Stella I know? The tough cookie who chewed me out a few minutes ago because I didn’t show up earlier?”
“That was just the hypoglycemia talking. I missed breakfast. Low blood sugar and all.” She rolled the lip balm between her palms, back and forth. “Give me a glass of OJ and I’ll be my normal chipper self again.”
“Chipper?” He snorted softly. “Not a word I would think could be found on any of your agency psych profiles.”
“Psych shmike.” Her slicked lips went tight. “It’s my job to pretend to be the person of the day. Maybe chipper wasn’t on the menu… And speaking of menus, I could really use something more to eat. I wasn’t joking about the low blood sugar.”
“Another protein bar?”
“I’m so hungry I’ll even eat that.” She extended her palm, her fingernails cracked and torn.
He passed over a peanut butter crunch bar and not for the first time wished he had more to offer her. “You still haven’t told me how you got captured.”
“I’ll talk in debrief.” She tore open the wrapper. “You don’t have a need to know.”
She bit off a quarter of the bar and chewed, making it quite clear she wasn’t saying a word more than she wanted. And that fast he saw her find that strength he’d been nudging her for, except she used it to put space between them. Shutters went up in her green eyes and she crab walked toward the lean-to with the rest of her protein bar.
What wasn’t she telling him?
His mind churned with horrors and he had no one to blame but himself that he’d given up the right to press her for answers.
***
Ajaya curled up under the floor of the compound where they’d held those American students captive.
His muscles were cramping, but he didn’t dare get up even though he’d stopped hearing American soldiers stomp around hours ago. Now the revolutionaries had come crawling in afterward, searching. If they found him, they would make him join up again. Shoot people. Get shot at. The punishment for disobeying…?
His throat burned with puke.
Sweat trickled down his head and into the mud, sticky from the perspiration pouring off his body from more than heat. A scorpion scrabbled past him fast and he didn’t so much as flinch. He was scared to death. Not of the lethal sting. He was scared to hope he could escape today.
No more beatings. No more blood.
He’d been taken from the orphan school eight months ago, forced to join their “army.” His first kill had been with a knife. Then they’d rewarded him with a gun. Every time they made him shoot, made him kill, he vowed to be the best so he could turn the weapon on them one day. He imagined what it would have been like to have this gun earlier to protect his mother, his sister, and little brother before they died, along with his father. He would have used that gun to take his family somewhere safe.
Ajaya came from a Sanskrit word, jaya, victorious. Unconquered.
What a joke.
He was cowering in this stinky cubby like a scared rabbit. The past eight months hadn’t made him stronger. They had only made him desperate to escape this kind of life. He would do anything to make that happen. Even if that meant letting them go through with their plan to murder hundreds of people at the embassy? Right now he thought yes, he could even do that.
The American soldiers that stormed the compound speaking English and shooting guards, they didn’t know what they’d taken with them. He’d watched through a crack. They’d stuffed stolen artifacts in their clothes and packs, maybe to protect themselves, maybe to sell. The Americans had no idea what the bastards would do once they realized what the Americans had really taken. It wouldn’t be long either since it would be the first thing they looked for. They were already tearing apart the compound now, searching for it, the key to their plans to set off something horrible at the American embassy.
Except it wasn’t here. If he could find it, he finally would have something of value, something he could sell, a ticket out.
He was scared, but he had skills now and he had an advantage. He knew which way those four Americans had gone. If he could find them first, he could get what he needed and barter it for enough money to get away. He would leave Africa and go to India and study Sanskrit. He would be a student, not a soldier.
Although first, he had to be a soldier just a little while longer. Ajaya clutched his rifle to his chest and focused on images of his mother, his sister, and little brother. He envisioned them alive, leaving with him.
A lot more comforting than remembering their dead, bloody bodies as he’d hidden in the scrub brush, stuffing a fist in his mouth to stifle his screams.
And he realized he wasn’t a scared rabbit now after all. He was a cornered lion, ready to kill.
Chapter 4
Stella curled up with the woven cloth around her, determined to sleep, knowing she needed to store strength in case they had to evade for any length of time.
Her head resting on the crook of her arm, she hugged the cottony fabric tighter around her again. It seemed wrong to use something so beautiful, so carefully woven, for protection against night crawlies, but she was practical. She needed to rest, so she cocooned herself in the rectangular kanga.