PROLOGUE
Four days ago…
“I want my mother.”
Evie Mitchell turned to the terrified little girl sitting to her right. Nine-year-old Armineh Shah was sitting with her butt in the dirt with her back leaning against the rough rock wall behind them. Tears welled in the young girl’s terrified eyes as they searched Evie’s in a desperate, silent plea for help.
“You’ll be with both your parents again very soon,” Evie reassured her young student.
“P-promise?”
A forced smile lifted the corners of her dry, chapped lips as she held Armineh’s fearful gaze. “I promise,” she whispered softly.
God forgive me if I’m lying.
In her heart, Evie believed her words to be true. Their kidnappers had to release them soon. Theyhadto.
The alternative was too horrifying to accept.
“It is an impossible thing, what you say.” The muttered comment came from the girl at Evie’s left. “You do not know if we will be freed. None of us do.”
Of the four Afghan students Evie had been assigned to teach, Benesh Sayyid was the youngest. A few months from turning nine, the tiny bit of a thing was wise beyond her years and sharp as a tack.
“You’re wrong, Benesh,” she countered. “It’snotimpossible. You heard what the men who took us said. As soon as the ransom demands are met, we will be released and reunited with our families.”
It was clear by the look on the girl’s saddened face that she wasn’t convinced.
“We have already been here four days.” Benesh’s accent was thick, like the others’, but her English was spoken with clarity. “They have stopped bringing us food…we are barely allowed any water…and the bathroom smells disgusting.”
Despite the truth in Benesh’s words, Evie felt her lips lift into a more genuine smile. With a friendly, gentle nudge, she told the frustrated girl, “You’re right. The bathroomdoessmell disgusting.”
Even calling it a “bathroom” was such a massive stretch. The space they took them to do their business was little more than a hole carved into one of the walls inside the mountainous cave serving as their prison.
Inside were two small but deep holes she and the girls were forced to use as latrines.
“That is because boys use it,” Sadia Rahman used a matter-of-fact tone. “Girl bathrooms are clean and smell like flowers and perfume.”
“Sadia is right.” Malalai Alam, the fourth and final girl in Evie’s care, kicked the dry dirt with her heel with a pout. “If my brother were with us, he would say this one smells like shi?—”
“Malalai!” Evie scolded as she leaned forward to meet her student’s dark gaze.
She didn’t let her students see the hidden smile tugging at her dry, cracked lips.
“My apologies, Miss Evie.” The young girl lowered her head in shame. “My father would surely give me a lashing if I said such a word in his presence.” A single tear drew a shimmering line through the dirt on Benesh’s adorable cheek. “Even so, I wish he were here.”
“I know you do, honey,” Evie took the frightened child’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “We’re all scared and frustrated by the situation, but we can’t give up hope. The second we do that, those men out there win. And we don’t want the bad guys to win…do we?”
They can’t win. They just can’t!
“No, Miss Evie.” Malalai tightened her hold, giving a jerky shake of her head.
At nearly the exact same time, Armineh, Sadia, and Benesh each offered a united, “No.”
Though their situation was still as dire as ever, her students' strength in the present sent a renewed sense of hope flourishing up from somewhere deep inside. Evie understood the terror they must be feeling because she was absolutely scared out of her wits.
Father warned you something like this could happen. He warned you, and you didn’t listen.
The truth was she hadn’t been concerned about her personal safety, or that of her students, because of their tender age.