The Way Home

“No wonder you prefer Kabul.”

“What I prefer are basic human rights. The Taliban have been ousted from political power, but they still rule by terror here in Kandahar Province. Women here are expected to follow sharia law. We have no rights. We are chattel. Only because of my father, only because he is a malik, was he able to send me to Kabul, where I went to school.”

“To become a teacher.”

“Yes. And to become active in the Afghan women’s movement. Because of us, there are women in parliament now. Some of us even drive.”

Her statement triggered another memory. “You were driving when you found me.”

“Yes.” Pride filled her tone. He understood why. She was a trailblazer.

“Isn’t it dangerous for you to drive in this part of Afghanistan?”

“Because of the heavy Taliban presence, yes. But I studied hard to pass the test and earn the right to drive as any man does.”

“That doesn’t explain why you risked driving through Taliban territory.”

“My father called me home. I drove during daylight hours to avoid the night patrols.”

She was not only beautiful, she was also smart and brave, and she honored her father. Here a daughter obeyed her father with no questions asked.

“Your father is ill, isn’t he?”

She drew a long breath. “He is old. And yes, he is not as well as he once was.”

He had noticed that the old man barely picked at his food. And then there was the excessive sleeping. “He should see a doctor.”

“He refuses. He is a stubborn man, my father. Like you, I believe, are a stubborn man.” She stood then and held out her hand. “Do not tell me no again. We must go inside. And you will accept my help.” Sheer determination filled her eyes.

“And if I say no?” Because she looked so stern, he couldn’t resist baiting her.

“Then you will be responsible for me not getting any sleep this night.”

She’d known exactly how to get to him. “That’s not playing fair.”

“What about life is fair?”

Didn’t he know it? And yet this exchange made him smile.

He took her hand and slowly rose to a sitting position. Standing had gotten easier, but he always had to take extreme care with sudden movements, or he’d land on his ass, sweating like a marathon runner in the last mile, swallowing back his dinner, and hanging on to the world while it spun out of control.

“Wait until you are steady,” she said when he finally had his feet beneath him.

They stood side-by-side in the moonlight, his weight on his good leg, his world fairly level. It struck him then that for a woman of such strength, she was neither tall nor heavily built.

“How tall are you?”

She told him in Pashto.

That calculated in English to five feet four inches, which made him around five-foot-eight or -nine since the top of her head was level with his nose.

“Ready?” she asked uncertainly.

Ten feet separated them from the edge of the flat roof. “I can do this.”

Only the first step out of the gate proved he couldn’t. His bad leg promptly cramped, and he started to go down. Rabia moved in fast. She tucked herself under his shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist, steadying him.

“That went well,” he gritted out as he rode through the burning ache in his shin.

“I suspect your leg was once broken and did not heal well,” she said, as he leaned on her for support.

“Bastards wouldn’t set it. They just dumped me in that hole and—”

He stopped, felt his gut tighten, as a wrenching memory of a hole in sand-colored soil crystallized through a murky fog.

Four feet deep, four feet wide, six feet long.

Covered with a crude lattice hatch of rough wood that only opened once a day when they threw starvation rations of food and water at him. If he was quick enough, he tossed out the contents of his waste bucket.

Snow and ice covered him.

Rain washed in.

Sun burned and baked.

He carved lines into the dirt wall with his knuckle to mark the time that crawled like the snakes that sometimes slithered into the hole with him.

Two hundred fifty-five lines that he counted over and over again so he wouldn’t ever forget, wouldn’t ever forgive.

A cold fear gripped him. A cold sweat enveloped him.

Two hundred fifty-five lines? Two hundred fifty-five days?

It couldn’t be. He wasn’t thinking straight. And yet he knew the number was significant.

“Askar?” Rabia. Her voice sounded far away and full of concern.

“My God.” He dropped to his knees, dragging her down with him. Horrible, excruciating memories shot across his mind’s eye like tracer rounds in a sky lit up with RPGs.

Two hundred fifty-five lines.

Not twenty-three lines in a cave.

Not another twenty-eight days in Rabia’s father’s home.

Somewhere, somehow, had he really survived two hundred fifty-five days in a hole in the ground where he’d been caged like an animal?

No. He wouldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true.

He wouldn’t let it be true. He couldn’t let it be true, because that meant he hadn’t merely survived a month or two before Rabia found him. It meant he’d been lost for nearly a year.

Or was it even more than a year?

“My God, my God.” He started shaking uncontrollably.

How much of his life had he lost? And how many more lines had he made in other holes that he didn’t remember?

Chapter 12

Northern Minnesota, August

IF YOU DON’T COME BACK and finish this, I might have to hunt you down and hurt you.

Jess still didn’t know if she should be mortified or proud that she’d issued Ty that ultimatum three weeks ago. Either way, she’d said it. And she’d meant it. Now, twenty-one long days later, she was going to have to make good on her words. Good sense or bad, she could hardly wait.

“What are you looking for?” Kayla asked as Jess rummaged around behind the counter for Bear’s leash.

“Before it gets any darker, I want to take Bear for a quick W-A-L-K.” Since the Lab understood the word walk and went wild with excitement when she said it, Jess spelled it out for Kayla.

“How will you ever be able to tear your eyes away from the clock for that long?” Kayla teased.

“You’re a laugh a minute, you know that?”

“I do, yes.” Kayla counted back change to a customer.

Kayla was right, Jess thought as she got sidetracked by another last-minute sale and stopped to scoop up