Read Online Night Hush by Leslie Jones - Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t get through on the sat phone. Maybe the sandstorm interfered?
    Thankful for the respite, she eased herself to the ground, pressing a hand over her left side and the peculiar tightness and stabbing radiating from that spot. Jace sat nearby, deep in thought. He turned to her, seeming to be sifting through options until he finally spoke.
    â€œDo you . . . remember how you came to be in that camp?”
    It wasn’t the question she had anticipated, and the odd phrasing threw her. He had asked it in English; she feigned confusion and answered in Turkish, certain he would not understand her. “My name is Necia Kuzuou. I live in Ma’ar ye zhad. Please, can you take me back there?”
    His grim, unsmiling gaze rested heavily on hers, as though he could see inside her head, as though he could tell she was lying through her teeth. “You’re Turkish?” he asked. “But you speak English.”
    She started, realizing she had, without thinking, been either speaking or following his English instructions for miles. Oh, shit! She lowered her eyes, counting on her scarf to hide her expression. Her brain finally unfroze. “Many ­people speak English. It is only Americans who refuse to learn another language.”
    There was another long silence.
    â€œWhy did you pretend not to understand me, just now?”
    Heather’s breath caught at the back of her throat. “You frighten me,” she said, realizing after the words left her mouth that it was true.
    The man said quietly, “I won’t hurt you.”
    â€œWho are you?” she challenged abruptly, hoping to startle him into revealing something. He only exhaled a soft laugh.
    â€œI’m the guy who saved your ass,” he said. “And the guy who’s going to take you to safety. To Ma’ar ye zhad.”
    Keeping her head lowered to mask her relief, she said, “Thank you for your many kindnesses. I did not mean to . . . I am grateful you took me away from that . . . that terrible place.” Her voice wobbled against her volition.
    He hesitated. “How, um, how did you come to be there? You were a prisoner, right?”
    Heather blew out a breath. It was an inevitable question. She chose her words carefully.
    â€œI attend university in Ma’ar ye zhad,” she said, in deliberately stilted English. She smoothed her hands over her knees. “I speak out against the atrocities building in this country. I speak out for freedom, for . . . for fairness. Justice for the women who are being forbidden to learn, to be educated. To work, even when they are doctors, biologists, mathematicians, engineers. Many groups do not like when I speak this way. I was threatened, do you understand?” She was lying outrageously, but the sentiment was true. She hated the fundamentalist trend attacking women’s rights in this formerly progressive country.
    Jace rubbed his chin. “So someone kidnapped you?”
    â€œI was taken against my will to that camp and held there.” That much, at least, was true, and it was easy to let her fear show in her voice. “Shouldn’t we . . . should we not keep moving?” Heather could feel the trembling in her legs getting worse, and the longer she sat, the stiffer her feet would become. Walking was becoming excruciating. “The sandstorm . . .”
    â€œIn a minute. We’ve got a long road ahead of us.” He dug into one of his many cargo pockets and pulled out a ­couple of power bars. He held one out to her, and she barely stopped herself from lunging for it. It was gone in two bites. He stared at her, his expression unreadable, then proffered the other. She cleared her throat.
    â€œNo, thank you. You, also, must eat.”
    â€œI think I’ve eaten a lot more often than you have,” he said quietly. “In that camp. What hap . . .” He stopped, shook his