Текст книги "Darkest Before Dawn"

Автор книги: Maya Banks

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

CHAPTER 4

HONOR clutched the heavy makeshift garment covering her entire body with one hand to keep the hem from swirling in the high wind. Not that it mattered, traveling at night as she was, with no one to see whether parts of her were exposed. But the habit was already deeply ingrained in the days she’d been running. Trying to avoid discovery.

The cloth she’d fashioned into a pack was lighter than it had been in the beginning as more and more of her supplies dwindled, so it gave her two hands to tamp down the unmanageable material instead of the one she was accustomed to having to use to wrest control of the wind-driven folds of fabric. Though her tangible burden might be lighter, the ones unseen were slowly eating away at her, pressing down on her with oppressive strength. Bone-deep weariness assailed her. And she had miles to go this night.

The sudden poetic quip that had slipped into her thoughts, amusing her, caused sudden alarm. There was nothing remotely humorous about her circumstances, and she was shocked that she could even conjure the trait. Maybe she was succumbing to the horror and stress of the last days. She thought “days” in general and purposely didn’t cite the number of days because she’d lost track of time in the aftermath of the massacre and her frantic efforts to free herself. She had no idea how many days had passed because she’d had no opportunity to stop, slow down, process and then compartmentalize her grief so it didn’t incapacitate her. And it would. She would lock down, unable to get past the horrors she’d witnessed firsthand. She couldn’t afford to allow herself to think. She had to act. To keep moving. Because if she stopped she would lose.

She refused to say die when referring to possible failure. Nor did she say live or survive when she fantasized about making it to safety. She’d made it a game. Hide-and-seek, Rambo style. The most epic game of hide-and-seek ever. She was hiding and they were seeking. Because to give in to the terrifying truth and acknowledge that grim reality was to breed the very thing she fought with everything she had and had been thinking in terms of life and death as being the ultimate prize. Which was exactly what it was. So she retreated into denial and formed an alternate reality where it was simply a game. Or a twisted version of those reality television shows when people were forced to fend for themselves against difficult odds and the person to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and outlast the others was declared the winner.

She was in an impossible situation. She had to fend for herself. It was her only choice. And when she outlasted her pursuers and passed over the border where there was a U.S. presence, she won. She would defeat evil and she had to believe it. It was as simple as that. She was smart. She loved challenges—though this was not a challenge she’d ever purposely choose. And she wasn’t afraid of adversity, though her perception of adversity had been irrevocably changed the day of the attack. There was adversity and then there was this. There was nothing that could describe what she was up against. And if she had any say in the matter, she’d never face this kind of adversity again. Nothing in her young life had prepared her for such a horrific ordeal, and it had made her rethink her calling a hundred times as she’d fled for her life, having to stay a step ahead of her pursuers or . . . die.

She shook her head, refusing to let reality creep back in. She hadn’t come to this area without being prepared. She hadn’t woken up one morning and decided to come here on a whim. She was fluent in several of the languages in the country, even the more obscure ones, and had extensively studied the culture, the many different dialects and subtle differences that signified a different region. She knew how to blend in and what the laws were for women. Never had she been so glad for all of that information as she was now.

Her mouth was dry, her lips parched and cracking. She was nearer to the village she’d been traveling toward for the last three days, but she had to find a place to rest, a place where she could survey the village and its inhabitants from a distance and study it closely before she ventured into it.

She’d traveled strictly at night, knowing she risked too much by spending prolonged periods of time in the daylight. One wrong move. One misstep. One lapse in her rigid disguise and she’d draw notice. And she knew her adversaries were close. Maybe even ahead of her and in the village already searching for her. She didn’t want to go into the village, though she’d chosen one that was small and hadn’t yet drawn the ire of the bloodthirsty savages who’d executed her fellow relief workers. She’d stuck to a strict regimen of sleeping by day and walking at night, keeping to the shadows, always on her toes and expecting the worst. It was a terrible way to endure and it was fast draining her reserves.

But she was running dangerously low on supplies, and she had to chance going into the village to restock the essentials. She’d traveled as long and as far as her injuries and exhaustion allowed, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and the site of the attack and the men who now hunted her. She would go without sleep today as she usually did and she would walk this next night, so it was imperative that she find the safest possible refuge before dawn so she could sleep as many hours as possible before nightfall.

She stopped a distance from the village and then surveyed the area for a place to rest and wait. She needed one that afforded her not only safety and protection, a place where she was undetectable, if such a place existed, but also a good vantage point where she could see the activity when the people awoke and began their daily routine.

If she hurried she could tend to her needs and get in an hour of sleep, two if she was lucky. The rising sun would wake her. The urgency of her mission today would wake her. And she desperately needed all the rest she could grab when it was imperative that she stay on the move at all times.

She was thirsty and hungry. But water was what she craved, what she needed. Her lips were dry and cracked, her tongue so devoid of moisture that it clung to the roof of her mouth and rubbed abrasively over the sensitive skin with there being no natural liquid to ease its way. She increased her pace, knowing there was little sense in maintaining the guise of her disguised form at night when no one would be out except . . .

Nope. She wasn’t going there. She slammed her mind shut to block the fear that she was being stalked right this moment. That they’d caught up to her and if she alerted them to her position they’d have her. They’d win. Oh hell no. This game wasn’t over. By her count, she was winning. All she had to do was maintain her lead. If she stayed just one step ahead of them, victory would be hers.

When she finally reached the outskirts of the village, she scouted the hillside overlooking the tiny rural populace and found a place where the rock formations were more prevalent. And they were large, jutting upward and spreading out, the configuration such that there was a protective ring around an opening in the middle. She would be shielded from plain sight. One would have to go beyond the perimeter of the structures in order to see her. But at the same time, it would enable her to take position in a place where she could have an unimpeded view of the village below while remaining undetected.

She sank behind the largest formation, one that faced the village, and winced when she had to reposition her knee so that it didn’t bend beneath her. She stretched her leg outward and rested her back against the stone. It wasn’t the most comfortable support, rough with jagged edges, but it kept her upright, so she wasn’t complaining.

She needed food and water. Especially water. But her thirst wasn’t as great as her need to have one moment to just sit in the quiet and breathe. Just a few steadying breaths and a moment to let go of the pain, the sorrow and the gut-wrenching fear that she could be captured at any time.

So for a moment she simply sat there and absorbed the night. This was a sparsely populated area and there were few lights emanating from the village, so the area was blanketed in dark, making the sky that much more visible. The stars were brighter, glowing like something alive, and she could see the heavy carpet of them for miles.

It was truly beautiful. She’d never been in a place where she could see so many stars twinkling in the black velvet sky. It looked like fairy dust. The beauty of the night gave her solace. Those few seconds before practicality had to take over had been needed. She was a little calmer now. She would overcome. She would win.

She dug into the bag carrying her waning supplies and pulled out the antibiotic pills she’d been taking since she escaped the ruins of the clinic. She’d walked through the rubble, hastily looking for anything that would help her stay alive. Water. She’d carried out as many of the bottles of water as she could, given her condition and the fact she had other items to carry as well.

She’d scored protein bars and MREs, grateful she’d seen the box containing them barely peeking from beneath the debris. And medication. Pain medication, antibiotics, sunblock and sunburn aid. It had a numbing agent she could rub on her knee to numb the pain from the lacerations and injuries to the skin.

After rounding up the things she could find that would aid her, she’d torn off her clothing and fashioned a hijab that fell well below her breasts and wore it over a hastily fashioned concealing robe from material the relief center gave out to women to make their clothing. Honor had cut a jagged hole through the middle of the swath and yanked it over her head.

It covered her completely. Not even her booted feet peeked from beneath the hem when she walked. And most importantly it gave her the ability to pull off the rest of her disguise.

She’d used rolls and rolls of medical tape to attach small pillows to parts of her body to make her appear lumpy and shapeless. Indistinct. She padded her belly to make herself seem heavier, but she bound her breasts flat against her chest. Or as flat as she could make the generous mounds. Muslims weren’t to wear revealing clothes of any kind, and for that Honor was grateful because her breasts drew attention, a fact she’d long cursed. With this manner of appearance, there was no difference between her breasts and the rest of her body. She looked like an older rounded woman whose back had stooped her with age.

It was automatic when thinking of her appearance that she pulled out the piece of bark that she used to apply and rub in the henna dye. She checked her arms, shoulders and neck even though they were shielded at all times. Still . . . She adhered to the motto that one could never be too careful. Especially when it came to self-preservation and the overwhelming instinct for survival.

She took out the mirror she’d taken from the clinic. Already the idea for how she’d hide had been formulating in Honor’s mind as she’d collected up supplies in preparation to flee. And she knew a mirror was essential in order for her to ensure that the only visible part of herself stayed darker. Just as the penlight had been a source of light, no matter how small. Because she’d known if she had any chance, she would have to travel mostly at night and find a place to rest during the day and force herself to ignore the panicked demand in her head screaming at her to keep running, not to stop. Not for one minute. The logical part of her knew she did herself no good if she made demands of her body it wasn’t capable of fulfilling. If she pushed herself too far, she’d only incapacitate herself, and then she’d be a sitting duck.

She pulled at the headdress until it pooled at her neck, and she breathed in, allowing the wind to blow through her hair. It was a heated wind, not a relief wind bearing cooler, sweeter air. But it helped to remove the sweat on Honor’s neck and scalp and would dry it from her hair before she pulled the material back up into place. She picked up the mirror with one hand and the penlight with the other, turning it on.

Her eyes were always the first thing she looked into. It gave her a measure of reassurance to know she was looking into her own eyes. Living eyes. It reminded her that she was a survivor.

She touched up places that likely didn’t need it, but she did so to give herself the illusion that she was making herself safer from detection. Then she turned her attention to her hair. Her greatest liability.

Her eyes were brown and while she was usually fairer skinned, her time here had burnished her skin, making it a darker brown, though she was still noticeably lighter than the native women. But her hair was blond. A dead giveaway. In her time of panic as she realized the problem of her hair when she’d been hastily collecting supplies from the relief center, she’d considered simply shaving it all off. But a bald woman would get every bit as much notice as a blond one, perhaps even more.

Thankfully, her brain kicked in and kicked her in the ass and then took over, shoving panic and all the chaotic emotions out so that her only focus was on her escape.

Once she was far enough away from the attack site to feel that she could stop and take the necessary time to complete her disguise, she vigorously rubbed henna into any skin that could be potentially exposed, even with the mountain of material covering her body. She paid special attention to her hands, ensuring that they appeared worn. She’d smeared dirt and even made small scratches and cuts to her fingers and knuckles, praying the antibiotics would ward off infection, in an effort to make them look like those of the older woman she pretended to be. She’d torn off the remaining fingernails. Most of them had been ripped to the quick when she’d dug herself free of the rubble. The bruises and damage she’d sustained during her digging aided her because with the swelling and abrasions, her hands appeared gnarled and misshapen.

Once she was satisfied that she’d done as good a job as she could disguising her flesh, she turned her focus to her biggest danger. Her hair.

She’d meticulously coated every strand of her hair in the dark dye and then carefully applied the color to her eyebrows. And when she was finished, she waited precious minutes she couldn’t afford for it to set in and then she repeated the process. And then a third time. It wasn’t the best job, nor was it that convincing, but she was banking on the fact that no one would see her without her hair covered, and all but her eyes was hidden by the headdress. If a stray strand somehow blew free, it would appear dark, and for the few seconds it took for her to conceal it once more, someone wouldn’t have time to truly study the color or judge its authenticity.

It was hard to see well with the tiny light source she used, and she didn’t bother to even use the penlight. It was too risky. Instead she reapplied the dye to her hair, being as thorough as she had been the first time and ensuring that not a single strand was missed.

Finally finished with the repairs to her protection, she tiredly reached into the bag to pull out a protein bar, the bottle containing the last ounces of her water and the antibiotics and painkillers.

She drank first, sucking greedily at the liquid but tempering the urge to drink it down to nothing. Then she quickly ate the protein bar and chased it down with a small sip. She’d learned the hard way not to take the antibiotic or the pain reliever on an empty stomach. The first day had been hell with an upset stomach, her knee throbbing and her having to stop to dry-heave more times than she could count.

After downing both medicines, she reached for the binding around her knee, the last task before she could close her eyes for a short time. She’d taken special care to wrap it tightly before she fled from the clinic and to use some of the precious room in her pack for an extra Ace bandage and antibiotic cream to use along with the oral antibiotics she was taking.

The swelling had lessened some and the vivid black bruise had turned to a ghastly-looking mixture of green and yellow, which relieved her. It didn’t appear to be anything serious like a fracture or dislocation. It was painful, definitely, but the tight wrap had enabled her to have mobility, something that wouldn’t have been possible for a prolonged period of time if it were broken or dislocated. Not to mention she would have been screaming in pain and unable to continue after that first arduous day when she hadn’t stopped for twenty-four hours.

She doctored the cuts, pressed around the kneecap to test for the degree of swelling and then deftly rebound it after using some of the sunburn aid, which contained the numbing agent lidocaine.

Although she needed her hands to appear beaten and weathered to keep up her appearance, she still applied topical antibiotic cream to the deepest lacerations because she couldn’t afford for them to become so infected that she became ill and was unable to keep traveling. Knowing she would—hopefully—replenish her waning water supply in the morning, she used almost all of the remaining liquid to cleanse the dirt and pieces of debris still embedded in the skin. She hadn’t dared pay attention to them, and until now, she’d been able to block out the discomfort of the embedded shards.

Now when she carefully pulled them free and poured the last of the antiseptic she carried with her over the wounds, she let out a hiss of pain and held her breath, simply breathing through it and compartmentalizing it just as she had everything else. After patting the areas clean, she rubbed the antibiotic ointment on each of the cuts and then wrapped them in gauze. Just for this little time of rest. Before she went into the village in the early morning, she would unwrap them and pack dirt over the wounds again, and she’d keep her fingers curled so her hands weren’t readily visible by anyone. They spent much of the time beneath the enveloping folds of her garment, but when replenishing her supplies, she would need her hands and they would be exposed for a short time.

Up close, it would be more obvious that her hands were injured and not those of an older woman. But at a distance, with the rest of her costume giving the assumption of what she claimed to be, no one would look too hard at her hands. No one overly scrutinized any women here. It was forbidden. And while the Western culture ingrained in her chafed at the idea that women were commanded to only appear in public completely concealed, all but their eyes, and in some regions not even their eyes could be visible, she was grateful for the extreme laws women lived under at the moment because were it not for those laws, she would have never gotten as far as she’d come.

And since younger women weren’t allowed outside their home without the escort of a male family member or an older woman, like a mother-in-law, posing as someone younger would also gain her unwanted notice. She didn’t pat herself on the back for coming up with such a good disguise in the few minutes after she’d escaped the wreckage trapping her in the relief center. She’d been operating on raw instinct. Survival instinct. And she’d gathered every bit of her extensive knowledge of the languages and customs of the regions she worked in to help her not only escape her immediate prison but stay hidden in plain sight and pray that she was able to make it to a place beyond the seemingly all-encompassing reach of the militant group that terrorized such a widespread area.

After carefully replacing all items into her sack and ensuring that there would be no sign of her left behind, she once more leaned against the rough support the rock offered and closed her eyes, trying to push back the paralyzing fear of having to go into the village and show herself, even though only her eyes would be visible.

But eyes were the window to the soul, or so the saying went. Would her terror be there for the world to see? Would the villagers know of her pain, sorrow and abject fear just by looking into her eyes? Would she have the look of someone who was being hunted, who’d been handed a death sentence? For a second time? She’d been condemned to die in the attack, but somehow she survived. Could she survive being sentenced to death again?

It’s a game, Honor. One you’re winning. You can’t let yourself think anything else.

Honor swallowed and slipped further toward the veil of sleep. She could pretend all she wanted. She could wear the armor of denial forever. But neither changed the fact that this was no game. This was a fight and nothing less. The most important fight of her life. For her life.

There was no room for second place. Second place got her unimaginable pain and degradation and eventually death. Her only choice was to fight as she’d never fought before.

And win.