I lift my hands and stare at the backs of them, as if they’ll give me a different answer than what I know is in my memory. “I thought I knew who I was back then. Turns out, I didn’t even have an idea who I could be yet.”
The memory hits sharper than the edge of a knife, and I know just how awful that feels sinking into my skin.
If hell on earth exists, we’re walking through it.
We’re sweeping an alley behind what used to be a butcher’s market. Now, due to a Molotov cocktail being tossed through the front window, it’s a smoldering skeleton of hanging hooks and collapsed wooden beams.
The air smells like smoke and fear—a stench that sinks into your mind more than your clothes. It follows you back to base, into the few minutes of sleep you manage to catch, no matter how much distance you put between yourself and it.
My XO, Walker, says, “I’m thirty and seeing this shit makes me feel fifty.” He taps my shoulder, gesturing for me to watch the shadows the building hid in the left alley.
We’re supposed to rendezvous with an interpreter the State arranged for us two streets over, but the splinter groups in the Middle East don’t care. We’re on high alert as our mission parameters change from minute to minute, heartbeat to heartbeat.
That’s when I spot a silhouette stepping out of the shadows. A flash of movement.
I snap my rifle in the direction, even as I shift to protect Walker. That’s when her small gasp registered along with her bruised and battered face. Her breath is labored. Panicked.
Despite the compassion that immediately wells up inside, my training takes over. I motion the muzzle of the gun directly at the center of her chest.
Hands raised, she falls to her knees in the dust. She whispers in heavily accented English, “Please, do not kill me. Please.”
I take in her appearance—veil torn, ankle bleeding and twisted. Her whole body is shaking like the world was about to end.
Walker lowers his weapon a fraction. “Jesus. She’s just a kid.”
No, she’s not a kid. Still, she’s barely old enough to be considered a woman.
Returning to the room, I give my second wife a name. “Later, I’d know her as Fasa—the name she whispered when she finally trusted me with it. But in that first moment, all I saw was terror wrapped in cloth and dirt.
I lower my rifle fractionally. “What happened?”
She pointed behind her, toward the deeper alley. “Bayt…home? Family…” Her voice is raspy in the way I’ve heard a man’s when they’ve been deprived of oxygen for too long. “Gone.”
“All of them?” Walker lowers his gun almost to his side.
She dips her head a bit, wincing. “Dead. Blood. I run.”
I blink and my focus finds Rhoswen as I return from the past. Her eyes hold the same pain my voice reflects. Right now, she’s my anchor in a roomful of people who I know love me. I rasp, “Her English was broken but desperate. I was…soft.”
“We need to move,” Walker urges. “This could be a setup.”
It should have been my first thought as well. Instead, all I can focus on is her obvious pain. I take a step closer to her. “You don’t have anyone? No friends or family?”
“No.”
“You’re alone?” I probe just in case she didn’t understand me.
Her gaze flits around, frantic. “Help me. Please.”
“We can arrange for…”
She makes a grab for my gun arm and Walker’s rifle snaps back into position. Her hands fly upward. With that movement, so did the sleeves of her abaya. I see the very visible abuse marks on her arms causing my fury to ignite. “Walker, lower your damn weapon!” I snap.
He does. Once it’s no longer in her face, she pleads. “I help. I…know things. Heard men. Trade.”
Information. Always the cleanest currency in war. I look at Walker. His eyes narrow in a “don’t-be-an-idiot” look.
“What do you want?” I test her.
