Three days.
It felt like an eternity.
God, how she wanted a hot shower, a change of clothes, and a chance to brush her teeth. A real meal would be nice, too. Or a cup of tea. Or a real bed, one that was raised off the ground and not in the dirt with rodent droppings.
You wanted to travel and see the world.
Being held hostage in rural Nigeria by killers wasn’t what she’d had in mind.
If she made it out of this alive…
Malik had warned her. Sweet Malik. Malik who’d made her laugh and scream. He would hear about this eventually. Samantha would find out sooner or later, and then Thor would tell Malik. Would he worry about her?
She should have kept in touch. She should have emailed him just to say hello and ask how he was doing. Surely, that wouldn’t have been out of line. Now, she might never get the chance to talk with him again.
The thought made her throat go tight.
Stop!
She couldn’t let them see her cry. They were predators. Any sign of weakness or vulnerability would make Peter bolder. The bastard would have raped her last night if Jidda hadn’t told him to stop. And though she had the scalpel, she knew she could only use it once. The moment she turned it against one of them, they would kill her.
She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, wondered if she could talk Jidda into letting her boil water for a sponge bath. She had no intention of undressing in this camp, but since her arrival in Nigeria, she had gotten good at taking a bath out of a bucket.
Jidda was making his way back toward the hut now, wincing with each step.
She’d just started toward him when a small group of Jidda’s men appeared, laughing and dragging something between them. Whatever it was, it struggled and cried out, sounding so much like a baby that chills skittered down her spine.
A little duiker.
Two men held it by its horns, dragging it, kicking and wailing, into the center of the camp. Another hurried toward them with a machete.
Kristi turned away, the little creature’s distress tugging at her, its desire to live matching her own. Then its cries ended suddenly.
She fought back her disgust, pity for the animal putting another lump in her throat. She reminded herself that she wasn’t in a position to judge these men. She’d never had to kill to eat or worry about starving to death. Her meat came neatly packaged from a grocery store. She couldn’t begrudge them a meal—even if they were robbing, murdering assholes.
Still, there was no way in hell she would eat it. Undercooked or contaminated bushmeat was associated with a host of zoonoses—diseases that passed from animals to humans—including Ebola. She would stick with rice.
Not eager to return to the darkness of the hut, she found a tree stump, checked it for scorpions and spiders, and sat. She watched as the men built up the fire, singed the fur off the poor duiker, then cut it into sections to roast.
Obi ran over to her, an excited smile on his face. “You wan chop?”
Do you want to eat?
She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
Peter yelled for Obi, and the boy turned and ran back to Jidda, who limped toward the hut once more with their support.
Knowing Peter would yell for her next, Kristi followed, dread settling in her chest at the thought of the night ahead.
5
Malik and David arrived in Kinu just as the sun was setting, David’s bodyguards following behind in a black SUV. The drive from Abuja to Kaduna ought to have taken only three hours. Thanks to a collision between a dumper hauling rock and a truck carrying farm produce, it had taken twice that long.
“We should have stayed in Kaduna and waited until tomorrow to drive out here.” David sat in the passenger seat of Malik’s rental—a bronze-colored Ford Explorer—firearms and other gear in the back. “The drive back will be risky.”
Malik hadn’t been able to wait, not when Kristi’s life was on the line. “If you’re worried about running into trouble, we could use the drone to make sure the road ahead is clear.”
“Drone?” David stared at him. “What drone?”