He shields me from view with his jacket while he puts me into the van. “Keep that over your head, or you’ll die right now.”
Part of me wants to remove it, just to speed along my demise, but I also know that every moment I am alive is a chance to get free. So, I comply.
We drive for a while with his jacket on my head; I have neither the will nor the strength to remove it. When we finally stop after what may have been hours or minutes, and I sit very still until I hear the door open and feel a surprisingly gentle hand on my arm. “The time to go home is now.”
I say a small prayer and tell my father that I’ll be joining him, my strength too far gone to put up a fight. I try to think of a quip, something mean, somethingRolyto say, but nothing comes, save for more of the throbbing headache that has haunted me for three days. It feels like a failure, and even though I don’t want it to, a tear tracks down my face.
A random line from one of the series DVDs on base floats through my foggy memory banks.
Today is a good day to die.
I giggle at myself, barely pulling back from hysteria. Great, I can barely sit still enough to watch an hour of TV, and my last coherent thought is going to be aStar Trekreference.Jules will be so proud of me.
Somewhere in the middle of my mental breakdown, the door next to me is opened and the jacket is pulled off my head. I blink against the sunny brightness until I can see where we have arrived. I look at Asadi, not sure what he’s playing at. We’re just around the corner from a check point, in a diplomatic parking space. I peer up at the mountain, and he smiles.
“It’s okay, little bird. I was never going to hurt you.”
I blink up at him several times, not computing. “B-but, I, I—”
He holds up his hand, silencing my inarticulate words. “What those men did to me was not your fault.”
I finally stop my spinning thoughts and look—really look—at the man I’ve spent the last three days with. The sun highlights the faint red of his beard and the hazel-olive color in his eyes, reminding me of a boy with bottle-green eyes and hair that hides its red brilliance until the sun hits it just right. For the first time in three days, for the first time in this entire mission… I feel safe.
Asadi is not going to hurt me.
I want to collapse in on myself, and my face hurts from trying—and failing—not to cry. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and now I have to tell him, because he saved my life and he deserves the truth. I wipe my selfish tears and face him. “Itwasmy fault. They overheard me. At your father’s party.”
He rubs my arm, his battered and bleeding face kind. “I know.”
Shame overcomes me, wave after wave of it. I don’t deserve the forgiving look in his eyes. I don’t deserve to be alive. “I wanted them to stop hurting you, but I couldn’t say the things they wanted. I’m so sorry.”
He leans in and cups my face with such exquisite tenderness that I know I’ll never recover from it. “What a sweet little bird. They hurt me to play with your mind, but you were stronger than they were. You are so brave.”
“I just—”
He shakes his head, and the words die on my tongue. “At least with this, I can help someone like me.”
All I can think about is the fact that I made fun of his size at the party, flippantly dismissing his entire humanity, giving our captors permission to do the same. Even though it hurts so bad to do it, I drag my eyes up to his so that he can see my sorrow and my genuine repentance. And, oh god, his eyes are so warm. They hold no malice and instead look down at me like I am something precious.
“I’m so—”
He put his fingers to my lips. “No apologies. But try harder to be kind. If you are kind and of service to others, then that is all the apology I will ever need.”
That moment, that achingly simple request for kindness, is crystalized, forever, in my mind. I make myself a solemn vow to never hurt another person again, and if I ever see my family again, I will do everything in my power to make them know I love them and have their backs.
My spinning thoughts are broken when Asadi lays his warm hand on my arm. “I wish we could know each other better, little bird. But I must go now, or I will have to answer to my father.”
I nod, and he leans in, supporting me as I exit the car. I’m dizzy from the constant pounding in my head and nearly fall, but he catches me. I hold on as tightly as I can, and suddenly I’m sobbing into his chest. Soft, strong arms surround me, and he whispers into my ear, “You are beautiful.”
I laugh at my ridiculousness and eke out a few more sobs, then run my eyes and nose across the sleeve of a shirt that I will burn when I get home. Once I’ve settled, I chance another look up into his eyes. Still they shine with sweetness and… attraction. I’m reminded of that boy I once crushed on in high school, and I think that there is something I can do for him.
“Will you get into trouble if I kiss you?”
“I, uh…” His voice is a cross between turned on and nervous.
I wrap my arms around his neck, ignoring the deep ache in my shoulders and my body’s general sense of protest and pull myself up onto my tiptoes. After a small hesitation, he leans down and touches his lips to mine. I sigh and melt against him, deepening the kiss. It’s a chaste kiss; his face is pretty bashed up, and neither of us has brushed our teeth in three days. But it’s the sweetest kiss I’ll ever know. As we part, he strokes my cheek and says again, “You are so beautiful.”
On those words he hugs me, then releases me. “Can you stand on your own?”
