“Cover your mouth. If you scream, we’re dead.”
She’s brave as fuck. Doesn’t make a sound when I snap her shoulder back into its socket. But her knees buckle as I step back, and I catch her with an arm around her waist.
“Breathe for me.”
After a beat, she straightens. “I will be fine. Give me the gun.”
I pull one of my backup pieces from my vest and pass it to her, butt first. “Safety’s off. Stick close to me and be ready to run as fast as you can. We’re going out the back gate, but there’s no cover for two hundred yards, and we’ll be exposed.”
“You will take Mateen?” Testing the gun’s weight in her hands, she locks eyes with me. “He cannot run like other boys. He is sick.”
“I know. I’ll carry him.”
Lisette kneels in front of the boy. “You have to be quiet now, Mateen. We are going with this man—?” She glances up at me.
“Nomar,” I whisper.
“Nomar is going to help us. But only if you are very brave. Can you be very brave for me?”
He nods.
“Up you go, buddy. Hold onto my neck and don’t let go.”
My watch buzzes with the three-minute warning. It takes almost that long to wind our way to the back gate between buildings and stacks of crates five feet high. Shouts come from every direction.
“Who did this?”
“Find the attackers!”
“They took the Amir’s son!”
There’s no fucking way we’re going to survive this.
Twenty feet from the gate, I pull Lisette against me and put my back to the impending explosion. “Cover your ears and close your eyes, Mateen. This is gonna be loud.”
The kid’s fine, but Lisette yelps—a sound I feel rather than hear with my ears ringing. “Run!” I shout.
The once hard-packed sand shifts under my boots as we race through the busted gate. Loudpopspierce the night. Lisette turns and stumbles.
“Don’t look back.” I grab her arm. My side burns like someone lit it on fire, and I almost drop Mateen. “Fuck!”
Lisette fires two quick shots. “Zaman will kill us. Go. Take my son. I will—”
“Hell no.” I shove her in front of me, pointed toward an old, busted Range Rover. “Get behind the car. On the ground. Cover Mateen’s head.”
She takes the kid’s arm and tugs him with her. The AK-47 I stashed in the back seat hours ago is heavier than it should be. Too much blood plasters my tunic to my skin.
The thirty-round magazine empties in seconds. One man goes down. The other’s still firing. Until the final charges blow, and screams come from the compound. “You are dead!” the man shouts before turning and racing back through the gate.
CHAPTER TWO
Lisette
The stolencar bounces over what was once a road, but now is little more than a suggestion. I huddle in the front seat, head bowed, hoping no one will recognize me.
In the back, Mateen clutches his little soccer game to his chest while he snores softly.
The man behind the wheel—the one who saved us—swipes at his brow.
