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)
“You must have been so frightened,” Stella said.
“I mostly remember being worried about my mother. I didn’t like being separated from her. She didn’t look back either. That felt so strange to me. She didn’t call out or look back. She let them push her inside the SUV. I told myself if my mother could be that calm and do what we were told in the situation, I should be able to do it too.”
Raine let out her breath. “You were fifteen, Shabina. Separated from your mother in the middle of gunfire. No one would have blamed you if you panicked.”
Shabina shifted her gaze to Raine. Raine could be a firecracker if she thought one of her friends had been misjudged—or in this case, was taking on guilt that wasn’t hers. She found herself smiling again, the heaviness in her heart lifting a little.
“The thing is, Raine, I didn’t panic. I just told myself the security team had gotten my mother out of there, and mine would get me out.”
“But they didn’t,” Stella whispered. She wrapped her arms around Bailey’s neck.
Shabina pressed her palm against her thigh, high up, where sometimes the muscle refused to stop aching. Like now. She told herself it was psychosomatic, not real, all in her head. No matter that she ran daily and stretched endlessly, that pain from the scarring never quite left her body.
“No, those men with guns were everywhere. My team didn’t want to start a war and get everyone in the marketplace killed, so they opted to lie down with the rest of us when they were told. Two of them tried to cover me, but it was my mother and me they were looking for. I was taken along with six other prisoners. Two women in their thirties, both from France, and three men from London in their early twenties, and a woman from Argentina who was close to sixty. I didn’t put up any resistance. No one had been killed. I think a couple of people may have been wounded, but for the most part, when they left with us, the market just had to be put back in order.”
“The fact that you weren’t the only one kidnapped was reassuring to you?” Harlow inquired.
Shabina nodded. “So much so that when the older woman, Kathryn was her name, began to cry, I whispered to her not to resist, that they would negotiate for our release. I was certain they wouldn’t hurt her. I spoke in Spanish, hoping our captors wouldn’t understand me and be angry that I was reassuring her. I had been told to stay very quiet and not draw attention to myself, but I didn’t like seeing her in such distress.”
“That’s so you, Shabina,” Raine said. “You have the most compassionate heart. You clearly had it even then.”
“I would have been too petrified to move,” Vienna said.
Shabina couldn’t help laughing. Vienna hung off cliffs rescuing total strangers. “I doubt that. I think what I’m trying to say is we were treated with kindness. No one hit me or any of the others. They took us to a place with tents, gave us food and water and explained the rules. We were told we were being held for ransom and once that ransom was paid, we would be freed. It was more or less a profitable business for them, just as we’d been told by our security team.”
“There were others in this camp?”
“Even some of their women. Old and young. The leader was a man named Salman Ahmad. He was soft-spoken, but what he said was law. No one disobeyed him. He didn’t torture or murder, but he meant what he said. He had each of us make a video to plea with our families to pay the ransom. There were no political statements, just simple business transactions. Then the entire camp was moved.”
Shabina rubbed her aching left thigh. The muscle pounded with the throb of her heartbeat. “I should have tried to escape. I don’t know why I didn’t. The truth is, I didn’t feel as if I was in a camp with kidnappers. That first year, I was treated with kindness by the women and mostly ignored by the men. I learned so many things and found everything about their lives fascinating. I was able to help with the children and was taught to sew and cook. I perfected my language skills. Kathryn was the first to go, and even she hugged a couple of the women and me when she was escorted away.”
Tears burned behind her eyes, tears for those women and children she’d come to love. They had been like family to her. “I thought about my parents, but it felt as if I’d been sent to one of the many camps or boarding schools while the two of them went off alone together. This was nicer than the summer camps. I learned to play musical instruments and sing their songs. The birds were so beautiful, and I could coax them to come right to me. I practiced each note any bird would sing until I could duplicate it exactly. I studied their beliefs and found them to be fascinating. In most ways, they were a quiet, peaceful, loving people. The men always wore the traditional garb, as did the women. I did as well.”