Her blood iced in her veins. Ammar al-Khayr stared back at her.
Before she could do more than gasp, he yanked her inside, clapped a hand over her mouth. His other hand lifted to thrust a machine gun in her line of sight. "Not one word or I will open fire on the crowd outside and your colonel will be the first to fall."
Drew? Her heart stuttered like a machine gun already in motion as Ammar tugged her into darkness, deeper into the cement building that had been her prison. How could he know about her connection to Drew? And how in the world was he here...
Blinking, she noticed the pit waiting open in the comer of the floor. A trap door gaped.
Tunnels. Of course Ammar had secret rooms and tunnels out. Her memory even niggled with Drew's words into the radio to his men about how they had to take cover from the storm in places that had already been checked. Yet, she had led him right here, to the area that hadn't been cleared. Where Ammar had hidden just below them until the storm had passed.
He hauled her down into the pit. Shadowy. Full of cobwebs and Ammar's gross stench of garlic and body sweat. She gagged under his bruising grip over her mouth.
"Do not worry. We will not be in here long." His fanatical eyes bit into her through the hazy dark as sharply as his hands grinding into her skin. "Only long enough for me to plan. Since the Americans collapsed my escape route, I will need to devise an alternate means of getting away. And what better hostage than the Colonel's woman."
Her sister was pregnant.
Monica called upon every molecule of doctor calm. The toughest thing she'd ever done. But she would hang tough because, damn it, she'd come here to support her sister, not to curl up and cry like a baby.
Baby.
Oh, God. Monica rolled her latex gloves off while her sister adjusted her clothes. Military-green privacy curtains offered a modicum of isolation from the rest of the noise and bustle in the medivac aircraft, exams in progress, wounded being treated.
She reminded herself to be grateful that her sister was here. Healthy. Alive. The rest, they would deal with. Hyatt girls stuck together no matter what the world threw their way.
If only she didn't feel like such a failure. This time, there would be no Barbie Band-Aid that could make her sister's hurts go away.
Monica reorganized her supply tray, gauze rolls, tape, alcohol swabs. Intellectually, she understood this wasn't her fault. But that didn't ease the brain-searing sense that she was responsible for watching out for Sydney, a duty that had been ingrained in her since childhood.
Ingrained.
Hadn't Jack said something close to the same thing about the way his father expected him to kick ass for women? Of course Jack knew his wife's death wasn't his fault, but that wouldn't stop the guilt or pain. How odd to find a common ground in this.
At least something made sense in this whole crazy day. She couldn't stop the snarl of emotions tangling tighter inside her, as never-ending and convoluted as the cables along the C-17's ceiling. But for her sister's sake, she would contain herself a little longer.
Her sister didn't need her falling apart right now. Sydney had enough to worry about with Blake crawling around in tunnels working SSE to reestablish airfield security so there wouldn't be a repeat of what happened to Jack. The tangle knotted tighter in her stomach until the threads began to fray.
Rustling sounds of Sydney dressing slowed. Monica turned, hitched up onto the edge of the litter to sit beside her sister. "Whatever you need, I'm here."
"I know. And thank you. I'm trying not to make too many plans yet. I want to take the next few months off from work, spend time with Blake, get my head together. Heal." Her mouth lifted into a sad, one-sided watery smile. "Have a baby."
The smile creasing Sydney's sunburned face clenched the snarl around Monica's heart. Her sister's pale complexion never could tolerate more than fifteen minutes at the beach without sunblock. How damned silly to obsess over the fact that no one gave Sydney sunscreen when so much worse had been inflicted upon her and the other two hostages.
Monica slung an arm around her sister's shoulders. Sydney slid one right back around Monica's waist and they simply sat, heads tipped and touching, connected by blood and bonds years in the making.
The raveling emotions inside Monica multiplied until they strained against her Ziploc-seal control. Damned if it didn't feel like Sydney seemed to be propping more than being propped.
Sydney slipped a fresh stick of gum into her mouth. "How wild is it having Yasmine here?"
Monica snorted, let the dry humor ease the tangle a bit. God, what she wouldn't give for one of Jack's jokes right now. "She's not quite so obnoxious, anymore."
"She never really was except around you." Sydney's smile dimpled both sides of her face below wise eyes. "You two didn't bring out the best in each other."
Instinctive defensiveness eased as more perceptions shifted. "I guess not."
Sydney studied the tops of her dusty sandals, her toes flexing and relaxing while the hum of activity beyond them droned into an indistinguishable blur of noise. "Part of the reason I came here was to find some peace about her."
"Yasmine?"
"Our mother."