Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Vaughn approached the table. “Shabina, I saw Vienna, Sean and Edward leave abruptly. If Search and Rescue was called, do you want Patsy, Tyrone and me to start preparing food to take up to the base camp? Chelsey and Nellie can clear tables. They won’t mind.”
“Thanks, Vaughn. I’ll help in a few minutes. We’ll need the usual. Sandwiches, the stew, the salads, everything on the menu to sustain them through the rest of the day and night. You know the drill. You’ve done it enough times.”
“Let’s hope the outcome is better than the last time.” He hesitated, obviously wanting to ask if she knew any details.
“One of the trail rehabilitation crew didn’t make it back to camp last night. That’s not for public knowledge. Don’t pass it on to anyone,” she cautioned.
Vaughn knew that was an extremely bad sign. A lost tourist would have been better. “Anyone we know?”
“He was here a couple of weeks ago with Pete and Billy and a couple of women. They were all traveling to their camp together.”
“I’m sorry, Shabina. I know this has been a lot for you lately. Stay with Raine for a little while longer and let us close the café and start getting things ready.”
Shabina watched him talk to the others and set everything in motion for her. She was grateful she had taken a chance on him. It had been difficult trusting a man to come into the café in the early morning hours before anyone else arrived to help her set up. She wanted to go to him and tell him she felt it was such a privilege to know him. If she couldn’t hold on, she would write him a letter.
Chapter Ten
The low hissing brought Shabina out of her half stupor. She’d heard that sound before. It was no snake slithering through the desert sand toward her. The increasing sound was layers of sand being lifted and driven ahead of the wind. Her heart accelerated in time with the gathering force. It was now or never.
Scorpion had made his first mistake and it was huge. He’d been called away, and this time, along with his cabinet, he’d taken the two men who were good to her. He had tasked those left behind with keeping her alive. She was in bad shape, far worse than Scorpion wanted to believe. They were giving her blood, feeding her intravenously and even providing fluids because she was too weak after his last furious assault on her to survive on her own.
Before he left, Iyad pressed a knife into her hand as he bent over her supposedly to check that she was still breathing. He whispered that he was sorry and that the shame was shared by all his people. He thought he knew what she intended to do. She still wanted to protect him. She didn’t know if the knife could be traced back to him.
The sound of drums joined the hissing, swelling in volume. She tore the lines out of her arms, heedless of the pain. She barely noticed it with the agony she experienced with every tiny movement of her body. She had almost no skin on her back, and the stab wounds in her left thigh were still open. When the sandstorm hit, anywhere on the human body that wasn’t covered, the sand could take the skin right off. With open wounds and no clothing, she would be in trouble. That was to her advantage. No one, least of all her guards, would think her capable of moving, let alone attacking them during such an event.
The hissing and drumming increased as she rolled from the thin pallet onto the desert floor. Black spots played behind her eyes as she hit the ground. Agony sent bile rising so that she retched over and over. She was used to pain, but trying to get on top of this was horrendous. She had no idea if she could do it. Consciousness kept coming and going as she began to drag herself across the sand toward the men in the distance, as they hurried to wrap themselves in blankets.
A roar grew, swallowing every sound. The dim light of a partial moon was snuffed out to be replaced by total darkness. The sand hit, abrasive, cruel, cutting into her already-torn body. She rolled, trying to escape the whipping particles as they roared into the camp at a good sixty miles an hour.
* * *
—
Shabina found herself on the floor of her bedroom, her dogs pushing against her as she buried her face in her hands. Her chest felt on fire, and the pain in her left thigh was intense and throbbing. She couldn’t stop the horrific memories from flooding her mind.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered to the Dobermans. “I just can’t do this anymore.”