He didn’t ride a white horse, but . . .
Camille wasn’t feeling so good. In fact, she hurt all over, and was fighting nausea.
And no wonder. Red Scarf, the man whose thick head she’d grazed with a bullet back at the school, took every opportunity he could to either punch or kick her. It would serve her captor right if she barfed all over him.
He was just as annoyed that she’d damaged his new scarf as he was that she, a lowly woman, had attacked him. At least that’s what she’d been able to gather from his accented English. The expletives weren’t all that hard to understand. “Whore!” “Crazy American!” “Bitch!” “Stupid girl!” At least he still thought she was a schoolgirl . . . albeit a gun-wielding schoolgirl. She couldn’t imagine his reaction if he found out he’d been fooled, too.
She’d made the mistake of trying to defend her shooting him by pointing out that he’d been about to attack her. Her perfectly logical explanation resulted in a twist to her injured wrist, which she’d now ascertained was sprained, not broken, but might not remain that way if her tormenter kept up his abuse.
Neither had her nose been broken by her forward fall when she’d been knocked out, though it hurt like crazy. She wasn’t able to check herself because her hands were restrained behind her back, but one of the girls kidnapped with her had observed that it seemed straight and only a little swollen.
Camille had been in and out of consciousness during the bus trip from the school to here, wherever “here” was. Actually, the bus had been driven into some underground bunker, where there were other equally rickety buses and all-terrain vehicles. Then, Camille and a large number of the Global School girls were frog-marched through the jungle until they reached some kind of intersecting paths where the captives were divided randomly into three groups and continued to push through the thick, snake-infested foliage. Toward evening, covered with mosquito bites but dully quiet, having cried themselves out, the girls finally arrived at a village, which had apparently been expecting them.
This might have been a tribal village at one time, but there was no evidence of families here now. Mostly men, and the downtrodden female slaves who served them, some of which Camille realized, to her horror, were the kidnapped schoolgirls the world had been looking for the past few years. By the way they averted their eyes with shame, Camille ascertained that the slaves were being forced to serve more than food to the men. Not unexpected, but disgusting just the same, especially considering their young ages.
About twenty of them were crammed into a large, single-room dwelling, which might have been a village communal meeting place at one time, or home to a large family. They sat or lay about on an immense woven carpet of once vibrant colors that covered the dirt floor and was filthy with misuse. No one seemed to care. They were exhausted and frightened into silence.
Everyone except Camille had been untied, and the others had been warned that they would die if they touched her ropes. Five-gallon buckets sat at each end of the room, serving as toilets for all of them. Another bucket, presumably clean, held drinking water and a long-handled dipper. Hunks of flatbread were their only food.
Red Scarf had taken great pleasure a short time ago in dragging her over to one of the buckets, pulling her panties down, and sitting her down to pee. The luxury of toilet paper was denied them. “Ha, ha, ha!” he’d laughed to one of his comrades. In what dumb-man rulebook did embarrassing women count as a joke? When she’d asked for water, he pressed the dipper to her mouth, and half of it landed on her face. More dumb laughter.
She took immature satisfaction in calling him an asshole under her breath.
Jasmine Olander, the Nigerian girl sitting next to Camille (her parents were foreign diplomats, who, in hindsight, should have taken the twelve-year-old with them to Paris), shared bits of her bread.
“I saw what you did to that man at the school,” Jasmine said.
Camille nodded, not wanting to draw the attention of the rifle-toting guard at the open doorway.
“You’re not a student, are you?”
Camille shook her head and whispered, “Navy WEALS.”
Jasmine’s big eyes went even bigger, the whites showing starkly against her ebony skin. “You’re a Navy SEAL?”
Not exactly, Camille should have said, but didn’t. It would have taken too long to explain. “Yes,” she said.
Jasmine smiled, probably the first time any of them had smiled all day. “Thank you, Jesus. Our prayers are answered. The SEALs will come to rescue us!”
Lord, I hope so, Camille thought.
And then was alarmed to see Jasmine whisper the news to the girl next to her, and like dominos, the news spread around the room. The Navy SEALs were on their way. Camille only prayed she hadn’t raised false hopes in the girls, who, reassured that rescue was only hours away, settled in for the night. Like a nest of puppies, they cuddled up against one another.
Too tired to stay awake, Camille fell asleep, as well. A deep, dreamless sleep interrupted only by the occasional twinge of pain from her injuries.
It was daylight when she awakened to a loud ruckus outside. There were angry shouts, arguing, what sounded like slaps and thuds, cries of pain. “You fool! Bringing a stranger here!”
“He rescued me.”
“How do you know you weren’t followed?”
“We weren’t. Besides, he only wants his daughter.”
“Idiot! He’s too young to father one of the schoolgirls.”
“He told me he was sixteen when—”
“He told you, he told you! I am surrounded by idiots!”
A loud slapping noise, followed by a cry of pain. She wasn’t sure if it was the rescuer or the rescuee who’d been hit.
A more authoritative voice broke in, “What’s going on here?” Quickly apprised of the situation in a native dialect Camille didn’t understand, the man in charge said, “Bring him!” And there was the sound of a person being dragged unwillingly away. This time she was almost certain it was the stranger, not the BK member who had been “rescued.”
All of the girls were awake by now, glancing toward her for answers. She looked at the guard and arched her brows. To her surprise, the man answered, but it wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, “They take man to be tortured. Aikeem good torturer. The prisoner will spill his guts. Ha, ha! Get it? Spill his guts.”
That would be prison humor, Camille figured, but she wasn’t laughing. None of them was.
Several hours later, after a delicious breakfast of unsweetened, glutinous oatmeal, she got her answer. Two BK soldiers dragged in a man wearing camouflage clothing, his arms tied behind his back. One eye was swollen shut. His bottom lip was bleeding. He’d obviously been beaten, all over his battered body.
“Do not touch the enemy,” one of the guards ordered the girls. “He is unclean.”
Huh? If you asked Camille, everyone in this camp was unclean.
Propping the prisoner’s back against the wall across the room from where Camille sat, the guard extended the man’s legs, none too gently. Fortunately, because his pain must be unbearable, the man appeared to be unconscious.
Stunned, everyone in the room just gaped. Camille let out a little gasp of recognition when she realized who it was.
Harek.
He looked like hell. How bad were his injuries? Was there internal damage? She knew how these BK thugs liked to kick a body’s soft parts. His hair was a greasy mess, and not the usual designer disarray. There was a bloody slash across one forearm, probably from a knife. Through his ripped clothing, she could see damaged skin. His black and blue marks would have black and blue marks. He might have chipped a fang.
Once the guards left, Harek opened his one good eye and winked at her.
Whaaat?
“Prince Charming to the rescue,” he drawled.
For the first time in this horrendous ordeal, Camille burst out in tears. It was humiliating, really, and probably against Navy regulations.
A beautiful princess, she was not . . .
Camille’s hair was a wild, red, uncombed bush, her freckles standing out like blinking zits, her skirt and blouse ripped in places, her socks bagged around her ankles, bruises everywhere. One shoe was missing.
Thank God she still appeared to be wearing the breast binder, otherwise she would probably be bruised in other places, too. Not that the BKers were squeamish about raping underage girls!
In essence, Camille looked like hell, but he was so glad to see her, you would have thought she was a goddess smiling down with appreciation at him. Not that she was smiling. Once she got over her bout of hysterical crying, she shot questions at him, like bullets.
“Why are you here?”
“To rescue you.”
“Where are the SEALs?”
“On their way. Eventually. Maybe. I couldn’t afford to wait.”
“Why?”
“You know why.” Along the grueling trek from the school to this godforsaken village, Harek had decided that he no longer “thought” he loved Camille. He “knew” for a certainty that he loved her. But he wasn’t about to make that announcement in front of a roomful of adolescent girls and Camille looking like Little Orphan Annie’s cousin from the asylum. He didn’t have an IQ of 200 for nothing. Besides, it wasn’t the place for romance. It kinda smelled in here.
“What’s your plan?”
Definitely not romantic. “What plan?”
“No talking!” the guard barked.
Once the guard turned away to watch something outside, she began talking again. “Where are the others?”
“What others?”
She rolled her eyes, which had to hurt considering the bruises on her face, including the distinct imprint of a man’s hand on her left cheek. Someone was going to pay for that.
“You came alone?”
He nodded. He was starting to get a headache with all this talking. Or it might have been that kick to the head by a guy with a red scarf. He was going to remember that red scarf.
“Can’t you do that teleshot thing and get us out of here?”
“That teleshot thing is only for special occasions.”
“This is a blinkin’ special occasion,” she said shrilly, which caused the guard to look her way and scowl. “Sorry,” she said, and waited for several minutes before she hissed at Harek, “Get us the hell out of here.”
“All of you? I’m not a magician.” She obviously had an overinflated opinion of his powers.
“Stop acting like a dope when we both know you have the brain of a computer.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“Aaargh! You’re giving me a headache.”
“Welcome to the club.”
She gave his injuries a brief look of sympathy. Then, very slowly, as if he were the opposite of Mensa, she said, “If you can’t get everyone out, all at once, how about a few at a time?”
“Camille! First of all, teletransport is a tool to be used in emergencies, when all else fails. I’ve already crossed the line with it for you. I will have many years added to my penance for its indiscriminate use, believe you me.”
“I would certainly consider this an emergency.”
Stubborn woman! “Secondly, it is done best alone, or with one other person. Not in multiple numbers.”
“Well, couldn’t you—”
Before she had a chance to come up with some other outrageous, impossible suggestion, he went on, “You are not to worry your pretty little head.” Even your not-so-pretty big head, at the moment. “I’ll think of something.” In truth, just before he entered the village, he’d alerted his brothers. They would arrive before the SEALs—in fact, they were probably out there already—thus being able to clear the area of Lucipires and save any of the BK willing to repent. The guide who’d brought him here, for example, seemed a prime example of a sinner who could be saved.
His guide had informed him that the kidnapped girls had been divided into three groups, taken to different hiding places. Upon questioning about a red-haired girl, Harek had settled on this particular village, which, fortunately, had been a good choice. After all, there must have been other red-haired girls at the school.
“You could go back yourself and bring help,” Camille offered in a small voice. He could tell she didn’t like the idea of his leaving, now that he was here.
“I won’t desert you here, not even for a moment. I won’t risk these terrorists packing up and taking you all somewhere you can’t be found.”
She surprised him then by saying, “Thank you.”
And then, thank the stars, she shut up for a while. All around them, the girls had been gaping at the exchange between the two of them. In fact, a little blond-haired pixie next to him, no more than twelve years old, with tear tracks on her grimy face, asked him, “Is Linda your wife?”
At first it didn’t register with him who Linda was. Then he realized that she referred to Camille by her pseudonym. “No. Why do you ask?”
“You were arguing just like my mommy and daddy do before they go into their bedroom for quiet time.” She waggled her little eyebrows at him for emphasis. The imp!
Yep. That’s what he needed. Quiet time. And not the kind Blondie referred to, although that wouldn’t be unwelcome. Later.
He knew that Camille must be anxious to know what had happened back at the school after she left. But she was being prudent in not asking in front of the young girls. Bad enough to know that they had been kidnapped along with a large number of their schoolmates, but they didn’t need to hear, now, that the school was burned to the ground and some of the staff were dead, along with all the fatalities and various injuries to those fighting to save them.
Harek closed his eyes then, trying to tune out the soft murmurings in the room, alert for any unusual noises outside. In fact, he dozed off for a moment, only to be awakened by rustling and shushing noises across the way.
It appeared as if the girl who had been sitting next to Camille was on her knees, leaning over, her mouth nuzzling Camille’s chest. Holy friggin’ clouds! Harek had never entertained those kinds of female-female fantasies, but this was . . . well, interesting.
Camille was the only one who was tied hand and foot—the others had their limbs free—and didn’t that raise questions about what Camille might have done to earn this special attention. But wait, the girl was still trying to burrow inside Camille’s blouse.
“It’s not working,” the girl wailed, and went back on her haunches.
“Don’t worry, Maggie. It’s not your fault.”
“What in bloody hell is going on?” Harek asked Camille.
“Can’t you tell?”
You were about to have sex with a girl, in the midst of being kidnapped by ruthless terrorists? That was lame, he realized immediately. “Actually, no.”
“My breast binder slipped and now one breast is exposed. I’m the bleepin’ One-Breast Wonder.”
“Oh.” He couldn’t help but notice, now that she’d called his attention to the fact, that she looked lopsided, with a flat chest on one side and a nice plump breast on the other. He also couldn’t help but smile.
“Fix it,” she demanded.
“Me? How?”
“Squirm yourself over here and use your teeth to pull the fabric back up.”
Squirm? Is she demented? He tried to picture himself doing that, tied up as he was. “Are you serious?”
“Serious as a train wreck on a black op. I have to get straightened out before Red Scarf comes to take me for my afternoon pee.”
“Did you say afternoon tea? Why would the BK serve you tea?”
“Not tea, you idiot. Pee, as in urine.”
“Someone serves you urine, and you drink it?” These BK were more perverted than he’d thought.
“I swear, you must have lost your IQ to aliens, or the jungle heat. Red Scarf comes in and carries me over to that bucket, pulls my panties down, and put me down to pee. Is that clear enough?”
He snapped his gaping mouth shut and realized that the Red Scarf she referred to must be the same sadistic bastard who’d been torturing him. He saw red for a moment, and it wasn’t any scarf, either.
“So hurry up. Squirm your pretty ass over here and put those fangs to good use.”
“Fangs? What fangs?” the blond cutie next to him asked.
“She thinks my teeth are pointy. It’s a joke,” he explained, and glared at Camille for her careless words.
Just then, all thoughts of breasts and fangs evaporated at the loud noises outside. He recognized the roar of Lucipires, and his brothers’ angry taunts.
Camille made eye contact with him, even as he was slipping a thin blade from the sole of his boot and using it to carefully slice the rope that bound his hands behind his back. “The SEALs?” she asked.
He shook his head and, now that his hands were free, began sawing at his ankle restraints. “My brothers and the Lucies.” He put a fingertip to his mouth for silence.
The guard at the door was nervously watching some scene outdoors, his rifle aimed and ready to fire when Harek moved up, faster than the blink of an eye, and grabbed the man from behind. With the stink of lemon on the fellow, a clear sign he was far gone in grievous sin, Harek made a split-second decision and sliced his throat from behind, grabbing his rifle as he fell to the ground.
“Wait!” Camille yelled as he was about to rush out and help his brothers. He eyed the giant, old-fashioned key in the door, and decided he would lock the girls in for now. “Cut me loose first. I can help.”
“Not a chance,” he said. “You are not fighting Lucies.”
“What are Lucies?” he heard the girls asking one another.
“I can at least protect the girls here.”
He went over, slit her ankle and wrist ropes, then tugged her to her feet. Handing her the confiscated rifle, he gave her a quick kiss, and murmured the same words he’d said to her before, “Wait for me”—except this time, he added, “ . . . heartling.”
Then, with a whoosh of speed, he was gone.