She snorted. “Daddy says you’re the best of the best. An elite soldier. You’re not scared of my aunt.”
He raised one eyebrow. “No?”
She just smiled.
He tapped the book. “You like this stuff, huh?”
She nodded. “I’m going to be a doctor. I want to help people. I might even join the military.”
“No, you won’t.”
“What?”
He shook his head then sighed. “Sorry, forget I said anything. I think it’s great you’re going to be a doctor, little bit.” He stood.
“You’re leaving?” she asked sadly, wondering what it was she’d said.
He smiled and tapped her nose like he used to when she was a kid. It annoyed her a little. She was eleven now, not a child.
“Been here long enough. Got to get back to the base.”
“You’re going back to work?”
“Nothing to stick around here for.”
She guessed not. He glanced over the fence. “Jonty the Jerk still giving you problems?”
“No, his dad sent him to boarding school. I know you had a talk with him. You’re lucky he didn’t tell his dad about that.”
“Just had a man-to-man chat about how to treat a lady.”
“I’m no lady,” she said, giving him a grin to show him she wasn’t offended. “I’m a warrior princess.”
He grinned and tapped her nose. “You’re trouble, that’s what you are.”
Chapter One
Fifteen years later . . .
They were back. She cringed as she heard a noise at the door to the hut she was locked in. There was no source of light. No windows, no cracks in the walls, nothing except that door. Sometimes it seemed like the darkness would smother her. She couldn’t even make out her hand in front of her face. It was the freakiest feeling. There were times she felt like she couldn’t even tell up from down.
Light filled the dark room, making her squint and blink frantically. Someone stomped inside. She knew better than to try and talk to them. The one time she’d tried that, the man had smacked her across the face and spat on the ground next to her. Her captor emptied the slop bucket and then put down a tray of food. Food she couldn’t bring herself to eat. All those years of diets her mother had put her on and all she’d needed to do was lock her in a dark room with no company, no light, and no way out.
The door slammed shut plunging the hut into darkness once more.
How long had she been here? It could have been days, even weeks. She felt weak and ill. Her lips were dry and cracked. And she stank. If she wasn’t sweating buckets from the stifling heat, she was freezing cold and shivering.
The leather cuf
f around her ankle chafed against her skin, digging into her. She’d attempted to pull it off several times, but that only rubbed her skin raw. A heavy chain that had been secured to a spike in the ground was attached to the cuff. It kept her on a short leash. She couldn’t even reach the door.
They weren’t taking any chances she might escape. Not that there was much possibility of that. Even if she could free herself, she had to get out of the camp undetected, then make her way out through the countryside. She didn’t even know if they were still in Sudan anymore.
Every movement made her whimper with pain from the beating they’d inflicted. She was scared, sore, miserable. What had she been thinking? Why had she joined Doctors Without Borders?
Because you thought you could make a difference.
Yeah, that had worked out well. After a month of being in Sudan, the village she’d been working in had been raided. Everyone had been killed except her, and she was starting to wish they’d murdered her too.