Chapter 207
I pull him away, and he almost slashes me before he recognizes me. His face abruptly s.h.i.+fts from one of malice and rage and bloodl.u.s.t into one of relief, love. Love. That look says so much. His eyes are soft. Where before he was a killer, now he is the lover. He is before me, mere inches away, reaching up to touch me, to kiss me.
Something within me melts. I hear shouting, a vehicle's engine roaring, tires skidding. Gunfire echoes behind us, answered and silenced by American rifles. I see none of this. Only Hunter's handsome face. His sky-bright blue eyes on me, taking me in as water to a man dying of desert-thirst.
He s.h.i.+fts forward, and I think he is moving to kiss me, so I wrap my arms around his neck and press my lips to his, but instead of kissing me back his strong mouth is slack and his weight presses upon me.
"Hunter?" At first I am only confused. I pull back to look at him. "Hunter? Speak to me. Please."
He does not. His eyes are rolling into his head, and he is falling down onto me.
I try to catch him, but he is too huge, too much man for a frail girl like me to hold up. He falls hard, cras.h.i.+ng to the ground. This rouses him enough to peer at me through heavy-lidded eyes.
"Rania?" His voice is faint. There is blood on him. Too much. So much. His, Abdul's. "I'm done for, Rania."
I shake my head. "No. No. Your friends is here. They will make you okay." I am having trouble with his language, but I know he is too hurt, too tired to speak mine. "Please. Do not go from me."
I turn and see Americans in camouflage approaching us. Hunter's eyes glance behind me and widen in shock.
"Derek?" Hunter's voice cracks.
"Yeah, man, it's me. I'm here. Time to go home, buddy." Derek's voice is a raspy drawl.
Hunter looks at me with pleading eyes. "Come with me, Rania. I'll make them bring you. I'll make you mine." The last sentence was in garbled Arabic.
"Go with you?" He is still struggling, still fighting to rise, to move; I touch his chest to still him. "I will go with you. Anywhere." I kiss him gently. "I will go anywhere with you. I love you. I love you." I repeat it in English and Arabic.
His eyes widen at the words, and I still feel, even now, panic that he will not want me if I profess to love him.
But instead he lifts his arm, straining to move even his own appendage as if it were a great weight, touches my face. "I love you."
He faints, and I am torn away from him by rough hands, gloved hands and American arms. Pushed away. Dismissed. Ignored.
He is watching me, whispering, pleading. They do not hear him, or are not listening. He is wrestled into the American vehicle, one of those things like a car made into a tank, and at the last his eyes are on me before he faints.
I hear screaming, and realize it is me. My words are unintelligible, even to me. I hear myself as a stranger. Do not take him from me, please, take me with you, please, I love him-but they are heedless, and Hunter is gone and I am alone.
Ha.s.san bleeds into the dirt, and I can hear him gasping.
I kneel beside him. "Brother." I do not know what else to say; I cannot lie to him now, at the last. "You saved him. You saved me."
"You are...my sister." It is all the explanation he has strength for. It is enough.
My hands are on his chest, gloved by his blood, and I am weeping. For him, yes. But for me, for Hunter. For my broken heart. They took him, although he loved me, and would have made me his. I wanted to be his. Someone's.
Anyone's.
Ha.s.san dies quietly, watching me until his eyes take on the far-seeing blankness of death, and I know he has gone to be with Allah, if Allah exists.
I kneel in the dirt and the blood-mud, bending over the cooling corpse of my brother, my last connection to anything, and weep.
He was dead, and then he was miraculously alive again, protecting me. And now he is dead again. Truly dead. I smell it on him, the stench of death.
And then I hear them behind me. Angry, wounded, b.l.o.o.d.y men. Iraqis. I harbored an American.
They want my blood in payment for theirs.
They can have it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
HUNTER.
I wake to pain, and a sudden, intense need to remember something I'm missing, or something I've forgotten.
f.u.c.k if I can remember. Hot lances of raw agony stab through me, arms, legs, chest, lungs, head...my heart. Not my physical heart, but my emotional heart. My core.
Where Rania lives.
I bolt upright, clunking into someone's chin, causing a curse. "Where is she?" I demand.
Derek is next to me, clutching a bleeding bicep. "Who? And yeah, you're welcome for rescuing your sorry a.s.s, motherf.u.c.ker. Good to see you, too. Yeah, don't worry about me, I'm fine."
"Where is she?" I'm looking around me, feeling the familiar rumble of the Humvee beneath me.
I see Dusty, driving, turning to glance at me, blood running down his cheek from a deep gash on his forehead, deep enough to show white bone peeking beneath the grooved, flapping flesh. c.h.i.n.k is there, riding shotgun, staring at me, unspeaking, grimacing, dirty, in pain but unbloodied that I can see. Benny, arm creased and seeping blood. Derek, confused, angry at my lack of grat.i.tude.
f.u.c.k grat.i.tude.
"Who the f.u.c.k are you talking about, Hunt?" Derek is annoyed and in pain.
"The girl. The blonde girl. Rania. Where is Rania?"
"Oh, her?" Derek waves a dismissive hand. "We left her back there, bro. She was just a native hooker, man. You're on the way home."
"Turn around." I glare at Derek, and he sees the seriousness in my eyes.
"What? Are you f.u.c.king nuts?" He leans forward. "No way, man. Uh-uh. That place'll be swarming with rag-heads."
"Don't call 'em that, D. And
"You can barely move," Derek says. "It ain't happenin'."
I dig deep for strength and swing my fist, knock him back against the seat. Then I lean up and s.n.a.t.c.h Benny's pistol from its holster on his hip before he can react. Tension fills the Humvee as I press the barrel to Derek's forehead.
"Turn. Around." The words are low, grated, filled with whispering death. "I swear to f.u.c.king Christ I will kill you if you don't."
Derek pales. "f.u.c.k, man, okay. Okay. Turn around, Dusty. We're going back."
No one says a word as Dusty slews the vehicle into a skidding, fishtailing U-turn. He drives recklessly fast now. The men grip weapons, slam fresh clips home.
"She's important to you, huh, bud?" Derek says, after I lower the pistol.
"You have no idea." She's alone. Her brother is dead by now. The other locals will be scared and angry. She'll be an easy target.
"She was pretty fine, wasn't she?" Derek is trying to cajole me into a better mood. "Did you tap that a.s.s, Hunt?"
I snarl at him, a feral sound. "Shut your G.o.dd.a.m.n mouth about her, Derek. You have no f.u.c.king idea about her. None. So shut the f.u.c.k up."
Derek slumps back, confused; I've never acted like this before. "Jesus, dude. Take a pill. It was a joke. We'll get her back, bro. We're almost there. We'll get her. Stay in the f.u.c.kin' truck."
I hear shouts in Arabic, and then the Hummer slides to a stop and the boys pile out. I'm out with them somehow, moving on pure panicked rage and protective instinct. The pistol is gripped in my fist. I see red. A crowd is gathered in a semicircle, and now that the battle seems to be over, they don't pay us much mind. I shove through them.
A knot of Iraqi men are cl.u.s.tered around a p.r.o.ne figure. Kicks fly. I see skin, blood, ripped cloth, a flash of blonde.
I fire, unthinking. A head bursts pink and a body thumps. The men turn from Rania, but I'm too enraged. I fire again, and then the pistol is stripped from me and arms wrap around me, but I fling them off and I'm attacking hand and foot. I feel no pain. Punch, kick, head b.u.t.t, knee. Bodies scatter, curses in Arabic and English boil loud around me. The crowd is angry, restless, but the guys are holding them back, playing the familiar role of crowd control.
I slump to my knees next to Rania, who has split lips, puffy, bruising eyes, blood running from her mouth. Her clothes are ripped, and I can see bruises on her skin.
I scoop her up into my arms. Tears p.r.i.c.k my eyes, and I blink them away. And then she rolls her head to look at me, and she smiles.
"You came." Arabic, but simple enough that I understand, even through my adrenaline and rage and pain and panic and fear. And love.
"I came. I'm here." I think some of that was Arabic, some was English. Don't know, don't care.
"Come on, man, move it." c.h.i.n.k, b.u.mping into me from behind, his back to mine. "These folks are p.i.s.sed. Go."
I stumble, move with Rania's precious form to the Humvee. My legs betray me, and I falter, shuffle. Derek is there, catches me, takes Rania from me, cradling her carefully, and climbs into the truck.
I'm empty now, past empty. Agony washes white over my vision, and I vomit into the dust, collapsing.
Hands haul me into the Humvee, and I can't see anything, but I smell Rania, sense her, hear her. I'm sitting and I feel her move, collapse on top of my legs. I nearly pa.s.s out again, but manage to hang on.
The rest climb in, and we're moving, Dusty driving insanely fast, skidding around corners. Shots ring out, ping off the sides, spider-web the gla.s.s, and then we're out of range there's only the rumble of tires and silence and breathing.
Rania's head is on my lap, her soft brown eyes looking up at me. Her head sways with the b.u.mping of the road, and darkness encroaches on me, numbness spreading through me. I've pushed myself past the limit, but she's safe now, okay now.
I can stop.
The last thing I see before blackness takes me is Rania's sweet smile, blonde hair stuck to her lips and forehead and chin and splayed across her finely sculpted cheeks.
RANIA.
Hunter sleeps for a long time, healing. He took another bullet, I am told. His friend, Derek, says that the American doctors are amazed that he is alive at all. He should not have been able to do the things he did. Derek speaks to me through the translator, who is a Kurd named Suran, a short, squat man with a thin and wispy black beard, gap-toothed, intelligent enough to speak his native Kurdish, plus Arabic, Urdu, English, and several other dialects.
My Hunter is strong. I feel pride for him. He endured much, and still came back for me. I get to know Derek in the days of Hunter's long sleep. Suran spends many hours translating for us. Derek wants to know about me, about how I saved Hunter, and why, what happened.
I tell him, strangely. I did not expect to like him at first, this friend of Hunter's. But I do. He has kindness, but it is buried deep. He risked his life, and that of three other men, to save his friend. He is courageous. And so I tell him. The words pour out, and Suran translates it all faithfully. It is easier to say it all in Arabic and let Suran translate. I speak enough English to know he tells it true. I speak of the photographer, the man I killed so long ago. Ha.s.san becoming a soldier as a boy of only twelve. Starvation. Desperation. I tell him, haltingly, of Malik. The strange sort of not-quite kindness he showed me in giving me food, making me pay for it with my body, and in the process showing me a way to survive when I would have surely starved otherwise. I hate being a wh.o.r.e, but it kept me alive. Malik saved me, but at a high cost. I am not sure if I would thank him, if I saw him again.
Then I look down at Hunter's slack face, handsome in repose, and I know I would. I survived so I might know Hunter, and he saved me.
One day, past noon, Hunter wakes up. I am next to him, as I always am, unless eating or sleeping.
"Rania?" He looks around, finds me. "Are you okay?"
I nod. "I am well." I move my chair closer and brush a strand of hair from his face. "How do you feel?"
"Better. It'll be a while before I'm back at a hundred percent, but I'll live."
I have to guess at much of that, as it is in quick English. I cannot help but lean down and kiss him, and at first it is gentle, tender, but then it turns hungry, desperate.
I think of that night in my house, lying in the dim gray dark with his hands on me and the incredible ecstasy he showed me, the gift of pleasure he gave me, all without taking anything for himself.
I want him. I need him. I want to kiss him until I am breathless, until I melt into him. Now, I have felt desire, and I have known what my body can feel under the tutelage of his hand and his lips, and I want it. I am not afraid. I want to know his love, his touch. I want...
I want to be bare to him. My skin layered over his, moving against his, my body whispering above his. I want this, this thing, this act.
For once in my life, I want to have s.e.x. To make love. I need it with Hunter. It would bind us, bring our odd journey to completion.
Hunter pulls away when Derek clears his throat behind us.
"Sorry to break it up, you two, but we gotta talk." I catch most of this from Derek.
Hunter struggles to sit up, takes my hand. He has an expression on his face which I take to mean he knows what is coming, although I do not.
Suran appears from nowhere, sidling up next to me. He reeks of cigarettes. He whispers a translation into my ear.
Derek pulls a chair up next me on the other side of Suran, facing it away so he straddles it. "She can't stay here indefinitely, Hunt. You know that."
Hunter nods. Fear hits me. He will send me away now. "Yeah. Sarge told you that?"
"No. Comes straight from the Colonel. Our little...escapade didn't go unnoticed, you know. People are p.i.s.sed. She's a local, but she's not connected to anything here. She's just...here. Now that you're awake, they want her gone, or something done."
Hunter pinches the thin sheet between his fingers, rolls it. "I'm not letting her go, D. I'm not."
"I know, bro. I talked to her while you were asleep. She told me her story, and man, she's been through h.e.l.l. And she loves you. You love her. It's plain as day." Derek glances at me, knowing I'm understanding and that Suran is translating. "There's really only one solution."
Hunter nods. "Yeah. I know. Go get the chaplain and some witnesses. Your team. Dusty and the boys."
Derek nods. "You got it." He rises, glances at me again, and then at Hunter. "You sure about this?"
Hunter just nods, staring at the blanket. "Sure as s.h.i.+t, D. Give us a minute." The last part was aimed at Suran, who bobs his head and vanishes.