Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“We need a doctor, Vasily,” I tell him, but he’s not getting out of the driver’s seat. As I look around, there are men, armed men, swarming Hudson’s car. It’s Mendoza and his men.
Oh, thank God. I push the passenger door open and practically spill out onto the concrete, all naked, bloody, and snot-faced from crying. “Mendoza,” I cry out. “Daniel needs a doctor! He’s been shot!”
He rushes to me, barking orders at his men. Someone hands me a shirt, and I try to get to my feet, but pain stabs me. I collapse on the ground and stare at the red soles of my feet that are gleaming with shards of glass. I can’t stand. “Daniel,” I say as someone tries to help me up. “Get Daniel!”
Then, there are men dragging him out of the van, gesturing another man—hopefully a doctor—forward. Mendoza is draping the shirt over my naked body as I hug one of my glass-embedded feet.
“Come,” Mendoza tells me. “Put the shirt on. I want both you and Daniel in the infirmary.”
I nod and slip my arms into the shirt, hugging it closed. Mendoza picks me up in his arms, and I want to yell for him not to touch me, but I can’t walk, and I want Daniel more than anything. I crane my neck and see that they’ve brought him inside, and that’s where I want to be. In the distance, Hudson is surrounded by dozens of armed men, his hands behind his head. Good.
As soon as we step through the doorway of the compound, I hear an engine start. Startled, I turn at the same time Mendoza does, and we watch the catering van drive out of the compound, despite the number of people in the courtyard.
I look around. Naomi is nowhere to be seen.
Neither is Vasily.
Daniel’s friend has re-stolen Daniel’s sister. Oh no. My heart sinks.
“We need a blood transfusion,” someone yells up ahead, and I forget about everything but Daniel. Clutching at Mendoza’s shoulders, I don’t relax until I’m in the clinic with Daniel.
And then I can do nothing but watch as Mendoza’s doctor goes to work on the man I love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DANIEL
“Sergeant Hays, you have a Red Cross call.”
I look up from the picnic table where I’ve got a ten and a five. Rubens, one of the direct assault troops in my squad, has a face card and a four. Do I hit or stay?
“Wait,” I say. “Did you say Red Cross?”
The lance corporal delivering the news nods his head stiffly. A Red Cross call is an emergency call, a special number that connects families of troops with deployed soldiers no matter where they are. I’ve never had one in the eight years I’ve been in—not even when I was in theater and my old man had a heart attack. It was a minor one, but I learned about it an email four days after I’d come back from a mission in Beirut assisting the Lebanese in ferreting out a leading member of Al Qaeda. The U.S. military is enjoying using its Middle East staging ground from Afghanistan to launch all kinds of Special Forces missions. “Hit me,” I tell the other recon sniper assigned to my squad. He lays out an eight. “Fuck.”
“Busted,” Rubens crows and drags in the cigarettes we’re using as currency. Three of them break, and the tobacco leaves a trail on the scarred and cracked wooden surface. “Sergeant?”
I jerk my head around. Nothing good comes from a Red Cross call, but I go and lift the phone up like it weighs more than a .50-cal machine gun.
“Your sister’s been kidnapped. You need to come home and find her.” My dad’s voice is hoarse, as if he spent the whole night crying or, more likely, shouting at people. I stagger on my feet, looking for a chair and can’t find one. I slide to the ground.
“When?” I ask. I need details, but there’s silence on the other end. Finally, my dad sighs.
“Two days ago.”
“Two fucking days ago and you’re calling me now?” I scream down the line. My heart is pounding so hard and fast now I fear it will jump out of my chest. This is my fault. All my fucking fault. I was the one who encouraged her to take this spring break trip. I had almost bullied her into going, telling her she needed to spend time with people her own age.
“You need to come home, Daniel.” It’s my mom’s voice, so quiet I can barely hear her. She’s crying, and her tears remind me of Naomi. “Daniel, come home.” More tears. Lots of tears.
“Save me, Daniel.”
I see those words in a thousand faces. The hunt for Naomi started in Cancun, but it has taken me everywhere. From the Philippines to Dubai to Russia to London. Girls are being sold everywhere. Their red mouths and tiny hands reach out to me, but before I can reach them they are shot, one by one. I turn around to stop the shooter, but no one’s there. A heavy weight drags down my arm, and I see a smoking gun. I throw it away with a scream.