She wouldn't blame them for laughing in her face. After all, what did she have? A couple of sharpened forks buried with a handful of pills hoarded from her early days in captivity. Her captors didn't offer much in the way of drugs to prisoners.
Certainly not for medicinal purposes.
Only enough to dope them into submission. But she'd saved it all in the hope of using them on her guards one day. She'd gritted through the pain of a broken ankle. Pretended to be docile. Sometimes more difficult than others.
Nausea swelled with memories. She swallowed both down.
Would Phillip and Kayla be willing to attempt escape with her or give her away? Too well she knew family wasn't always loyal.
She couldn't afford to wait much longer for a miraculous rescue. How naive to think Blake would come charging in. Her job bred familiarity with the maze of diplomatic channels required even to bring food into this country. He couldn't dial up his SEAL team buddies for a quick swoop in to scoop her out.
And she knew it was killing him inside that he couldn't. Forget that they'd broken up before she'd left the country, unable to reconcile their conflicting ideologies, the pacifist and the warrior. How damned inconvenient. Heartbreaking. And over. Blake, her dear friend who had once been her lover.
Not that sex was high on her list of favorite topics now.
Memories seared through, more persistent this time, of brutal hands claiming her body in an act of domination and humiliation inflicted on each of the hostages. She tried to remind herself that being raped had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with violence. Sometimes that helped. Other times not. And it wasn't something any of the three of them were ready to talk about.
Refusing to think about it was easier, especially as time passed without further repeats. Once certain the three NGO workers weren't CIA, their captors pretty much left them alone except for the occasional taunt, slap or punch served up with horse-meat on rice.
She'd lived through the hell. Survived. If nothing else, she'd learned these past months that the child who'd always depended on her sister's protection was a survivor after all.
Flipping to her back, Sydney stared out the thin window, eyes focused on the sky, and allowed herself to entertain the near-painful dream of seeing her sister again. Of course practical Monica would have already guessed what happened to her since her capture. But the growing proof of the incident would kill her over responsible big sister. She tried not to worry about Monica, who always worried enough for ten people.
And there was plenty to worry about, increasing in size with each day that passed.
Rolling onto her side again, Sydney tucked her knees to her chest in a protective shield that wouldn't mask the truth from her friends or her captors much longer. Under the cover of the dingy sheet, she slid her hand to her belly, cupped the curve that would soon decide her fate for her if she didn't take charge of it herself. Because if Ammar al-Khayr found out about this baby, biologically his child, he would kill her.
Or worse yet, never let her go.
Yasmine threaded through the crowd of diners, unwilling to be caught just yet. Yes, she wanted the kind-eyed soldier with a penchant for fruit-flavored candy to apprehend her. Eventually. Once she had reached a more secluded location.
She could hear his footsteps thudding a steady pace behind her. Closer. Louder. Or was that her heart? Not that it mattered either way. She shivered in anticipation, steadied her breathing. This was the man with goodness in him she'd been hoping to find. One search into his eyes as clear blue as the endless desert sky upon sunrise and she'd known.
He was her contact. A conduit for her goal. One with cerulean eyes that soothed and stirred her all at once.
Seconds after she saw the goodness, she found more. Felt more, something akin to the crackle of a dry lightning storm across windswept dunes. But she could deal with that. She would deal with it, because nothing was more important than staying alive.
Yasmine darted from the stifling dining area into a near-deserted corridor, past faded framed posters of the Rubistanian countryside. Away from the crowd. Down a narrow side hall.
A hand clamped around her arm. Hard, thick fingers. Her heart tripped along with her feet. Please, please, she hoped she hadn't misjudged this man.
Panting, she righted her step. Her back pressed to the wall. The frame cut into her waist, a minor intrusion compared to the icy gaze digging into her soul through her eyes.
"Don't move."
Her vision filled with desert camouflage uniform and honed man towering over her, an M-16 hooked on his shoulder and pistol in his web belt holster. She focused on his blue eyes instead. "Will you release my arm, please?"
"Not until I'm convinced you aren't going to gut me or blow me up."
Fear and indignation prickled. Suicide bombers made things more difficult for everyone, sewing the seeds of distrust against even the innocent.
He touched her.
Shock stilled her. His hands roved her arms in bold swipes that left the air suddenly thick and heavy. He moved up to her shoulders, down her back to her waist.
Along her legs.
Heat rushed to her face and to other parts of her until she fought not to fidget under his search. Never had she been stroked this way, but understood she had surrendered a certain hold on her rights by pressing the note into his palm. Her mind clouded with a haze, pleasurable, urgent.