She met his gaze, shocked to see that he was smiling through the grime on his face. He put one palm on each side of her face so she saw nothing but him.
“Joey’s in the hut with two others.”
Her jaw dropped. “Joey?OurJoey?”
“Yeah. Our Joey.” His expression was beautiful. “Ky’s with them. They need food and medicine. I think they’ve been stuck in there for weeks.” He leaned in and kissed her lips. “Let’s take them home.”
Daniel entered the hut first, and she heard the smile in his voice. “Ooh-rah, boys,” he said. “Cavalry’s here.”
When Marion entered, all three prisoners were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall, eyes wide. They were skeletal and filthy, and Marion smelled decomposition in the air. A wound gone bad. When she got closer, she saw lice moving in their tangled, greasy hair. One man had lost two front teeth.
None of it mattered; she knew Joey immediately. She dropped to her knees beside him.
“Joey!” she cried. “Oh, Joey.”
He looked baffled. “Do I know you?”
She laughed and sniffed back tears. “No, you don’t know me. But Sassy says hello.”
Hearing his sister’s name, Joey’s face underwent the most sublime transition, from the emptiness of resignation to a shining, incredulous hope.
“Sassy,” he whispered.
“You’ll see her soon,” she told him gently. The sad news about his father was for another time and the siblings could handle that between them. Today was a celebration. Joey was saved. All of them were.
Boots clomped into the hut behind her, but Marion wasn’t afraid.Daniel stood like the shield he’d promised, watching and keeping her safe.
“Doctor is here?” she heard from behind him.
“Bao!” she said, grinning over her shoulder at him. “Look! I didn’t die!”
He laughed. “Good you not dead.”
“I need medicine, Bao. I need clean water and bandages. Food? Can you find food?”
Moments later he returned with Ky, their arms full of cloth and bowls. From somewhere in the enemy’s camp they dug up a pot of rice, still warm, along with dried fish, and even a can of condensed milk. While Marion cleaned wounds, the men dug grubby fingers into the food and smeared whatever they could find into their mouths. Daniel, finally convinced everything was under control, sat with them.
“This is Hal,” he told Marion. “Hal. Slow down. You got rice all over your face, dummy.”
Hal was the one with the missing front teeth, so when he laughed, his tongue stuck out a little. He stuck it out farther, seeking out the rice in question. “Better not waste it.”
“That’s Stu,” Daniel said, indicating the man lying on his back nearby, clearly the weakest of the three. “And you already know Joey.”
“Welcome to our little p-piece of heaven,” Hal said.
He had a heavy stutter, but that didn’t slow him down. Energized by the food, he kept talking, going off on tangents Marion couldn’t follow, but always coming back to his buddies. His brothers.
“Where’s Chip?” Daniel eventually asked.
Joey flinched beside him then reached for a canteen of water. “Don’t ask.”
Hal’s eyes went dark. “Ch-Ch-Chip messed up. Tried to run, b-but Charlie cut off his head.” He pointed toward the door. “Left the rest of him in front of the hut for two days, until something dragged it off. N-never saw what happened to his head.”
Marion stared at him in shock, but the men seemed to have accepted the horror as part of their lives now.
“I told him not to risk it,” Joey said, wiping water from his lips with his sleeve.
“Chip always knew better,” Daniel acknowledged. “Sorry to hear it.”
