8
Kristi woke from an uneasy sleep, her dreams a commotion of images, shouts, gunshots. She glanced around, confused. She was in the hotel in Kaduna with Malik. It was over. She was safe.
Malik was in the room with her. Somehow, he’d managed to fall asleep in an armchair, his long legs propped up on another, smaller chair. He woke when she sat up, instantly alert. “Are you okay?”
“I just need to pee.”
When she stepped out of the bathroom, she found him standing beside the bed, wearing a T-shirt and pair of sweats and waiting for her with a fresh bottle of water.
“Drink.” He handed it to her. “How’s your head?”
“Thanks. I still have a headache, but it’s better.” She took more acetaminophen, swallowed it with a few gulps of cool water, and set the bottle down on her bedside table. “You don’t have to sleep in the chair. That can’t be comfortable. We’ve shared a bed before—a much smaller bed.”
The beds at Amundsen-Scott were notoriously narrow.
Then it dawned on her that there might be someone in his life now.
“Sorry. I didn’t think. You could have a girlfriend or wife for all I know.”
You’re babbling.
“Is that your way of asking if I’m connected?” He chuckled, a soft, deep sound. “I’m not. No wife. No girlfriend.”
She wouldn’t deny that she felt relieved at his answer. “I just wanted to say that you can sleep in the bed—if you’re comfortable with that.”
“I didn’t want to presume, especially after what you’ve been through.”
God, he was sweet.
She held out her hand. “Come.”
He pulled off his shirt, took her hand, and slid beneath the covers beside her.
She turned onto her side, facing him. “You shaved off your beard.”
“You haven’t changed. You’re as beautiful as I remember—even with bruises.”
She reached out, touched his cheek. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”
He caught her hand, pressed his lips to her palm, laced his fingers through hers. “Where else would I be? I’m the dude who kicks the ass of any man who touches my wife, right?”
“Right.” She kind of liked hearing him say that word—wife.
He seemed to study her, concern on his face, his gaze soft. “How are you doing, Kristi, really?”
“I … I don’t know. It’s all so … raw.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She didn’t, not really, but the words began to spill out of her. She told Malik everything, starting with the moment she’d spotted Peter watching her in the vaccine line. She kept it together until she reached the point when Peter had come up behind Jidda and shot him. Then tears came, and her body started to tremble.
“I didn’t like Jidda at all. He killed people to save his own life. I’m sure he trafficked women. But I thought he and I had reached a truce. I agreed to be a nurse for him and his men as long as they kept their hands off me. When Peter shot him…”
Malik wiped a tear from her cheek. “You must have been terrified.”
“I knew it was over. I had the scalpel, but I was afraid to use it on him because I knew he’d turn it against me. I told him you would kill him. I told him that no matter what he did to me, I would think only of you.”
“God, Kristi.” Malik drew her against him, and for a time he just held her, his body warm and solid in a world that had come apart. “I’m so damned sorry.”