by Lexy Timms
“Tell me something,” Taylor said, not relaxing his stance one whit. “Why is someone like you stuck in a refugee camp?”
“Someone like me?”
“Competent,” Taylor said, giving respect where it was due. “Able. A posting like this is for someone useless anywhere else, like that lieutenant of yours. You’ve got old men here, bulging guts and half drunk on half truths about their better days, but you... you’re good. You’ve seen combat and you’re too valuable to be wasting away down in tent city, trying to keep hungry children from stealing an extra slice of bread.” Taylor watched the man’s expression shift, and nodded. “I hit a nerve, didn’t I?” He looked down at the rifle in the man’s hands. “Fine. Take me to your leader.”
“The lieutenant is inside,” the soldier said, stepping away from the door.
Taylor noted his response, the grudging respect, the curious eyes that assessed him, trying to figure him out. “All right,” he said quietly, dropping his arms and walking toward the indicated door. “I’ll go see him.” He opened the door and turned, his hand still on the door and in plain sight. “But then, I want you to take me to your leader. The real one.”
The soldier’s face never broke the careful, still expression, never moved so much as a muscle. It was a blank slate carved from onyx. But there was a change, a subtle alteration of some muscle that told Taylor he’d gotten through. Taylor nodded, satisfied, and walked into the building.
“I HEAR THAT YOU HAVE learned a local word. Charra, I believe it was,” Lieutenant Durand said by way of a greeting when Taylor was walked in through the door. “Care to tell me who you’re looking for?”
“A patient who was discharged too early.” Taylor made no move to sit down but stood, arms crossed in much the same position that he’d taken with the man outside. “I’m helping my fiancée find her, to be sure she’s safe.”
“And who told you that she was discharged too soon? Are you a doctor?”
“No.” Taylor looked at the young man and said slowly, so that even he could understand, “My fiancée told me, and she is a doctor. In fact, she’s Charra’s doctor.”
“I see.” Durand perched at the end of his desk and crossed his arms. If he was meant to look powerful and intimidating, he was failing miserably. His large girth only gave the entire posture a sense of ridiculousness, a beach ball about to hit the floor. He seemed not to notice, his expression indicating that he was a cat about to pounce on Taylor’s mouse. “Tell me something, where are your weapons?”
Taylor’s look was one of pure innocence. “What weapons?”
“Americans do not drop their spies into foreign countries without arms. It’s what your country is known for. Where are they?”
“Your country is known for elephants, but I haven’t seen one since I got here,” Taylor countered. “And I’m no spy. You searched me. You searched my bag. I don’t have weapons. As I told you, I’m a reporter. Nothing more.”
“A reporter without a camera?”
Taylor shrugged. “I do print news. Stuff to be read. I’m not a photographer. When I’m working, one travels with me. Right now, I’m not working. I’m only here to visit my fiancée.” Odd how the word rolled off his tongue. Admittedly he’d been a bit surprised when she’d used it, but as a cover it worked well and wasn’t exactly distasteful to use. In fact, the idea of holding her to him in such a way had something of an appeal.
Mate, something primitive within him growled with deep satisfaction.
“Give me your phone,” the lieutenant demanded suddenly, holding out his hand.
Taylor stared at it, one eyebrow raised. “No.”
“What?”
“I said no.”
Durand was on his feet. He came up to Taylor’s chin, though he didn’t seem to realize the incongruity of their relative sizes. His face purpled, a single finger rising to just beneath Taylor’s nose. “I can have you arrested!”
“Try it. And I’ll you thrown into a worse assignment than this. If that girl dies, I’ll be sure to mention you by name as culpable in the death of a teenage refugee. And she’s pretty, too.” Taylor was bluffing, but he was pretty sure this guy didn’t know her either. “You have any idea what will happen when that goes viral? Your government will need someone to blame it on,” Taylor said, cocking his head to one side to regard Durand thoughtfully. “Someone expendable.”
The lieutenant took a full step backwards, smoothing his shirt, straightening his tie with hands that didn’t seem quite so steady as they had been. “I don’t take well to threats,” he snarled at Taylor, his body half turned away, careful not to look at him.
“You should,” Taylor said, his voice heavy with disgust he no longer cared to disguise. “You’re in charge. You’re going to get them a lot, and from all sides. They put you here because, if something bad happens, they can wash their hands entirely and nothing sticks to them. Just you.”
“We’re here on a humanitarian mission,” the man said, suddenly seeming impossibly young. Just how old was he? “We are here to keep the peace and to help people. All people.” He turned to the soldier who had escorted Taylor into the office and had been studiously ignoring the conversation up to this point. “Sergeant, help our friend here find this Charra. Dismissed.”
Taylor bowed to the lieutenant and turned on one heel. He was almost down the hall and back out the door he’d come in through before he spoke to the soldier. “I bet you’re good at poker, aren’t you?”
“Poker?” the man asked without batting an eye. “Never heard of it. Some kind of game?”
Taylor grinned. “You’re that good? Tempting.” He stopped outside at the same spot he’d been leaning against before he’d been called into this whole useless meeting. “He’s an idiot; you know that, right?” Taylor asked, thumbing the building and indicating the boy/man inside.
“It’s no secret,” the soldier said with a shrug. “Come, we find this girl.”
“I think...” Taylor said, eyeing the man who matched him inch for inch in height, his gaze lingering on the gun slung over his shoulder. “I might do better on my own. You might scare her away.”
The sergeant looked at him and grinned. “And you look so friendly?”
“I at least want to find her.”
“Good point,” the man agreed with a nod, and turned on one heel and disappeared into the camp. The crowds swallowed him within moments, and Taylor stood for a long minute wondering just whose side that particular man was on.
I can’t even tell who the enemy is anymore. What the hell is going on around here?
Chapter 7
Angelica stalked from the office, blowing out the rage and breathing in the calm. At least, that’s what she told herself she was doing. It wasn’t working. So much for all that money spent on therapy. So instead she stormed out of the clinic and walked to the camp, her hands making and opening fists as she walked, which felt slightly more therapeutic, especially when paired with the imagery of her fist sinking into a certain nose.
She stalked the outside edge of the admin complex instead of entering it. She didn’t need to deal with the little Napoleon today, not after the meeting she’d just had.
She saw Taylor leaning against a wall. In a refugee camp in Africa, his Viking ancestry shone like a beacon.
“I take it things didn’t go well?” Taylor asked as she approached.
“Pompous little git,” she said between clenched teeth. “How dare he? I’m here on a voluntary basis; he has no right to treat me like I’m some first-year medical student.” She held up a hand, stopping her own tirade, and took a deep breath, trying to focus on more important things than a dressing down from her boss. “Did you find Charra?”
“No,” Taylor admitted, his own voice laced with frustration and a hint of anger. “Not yet.”
There was a lot he wasn’t saying. She stared at him a moment, thinking there were a lot of things neither one of them was saying. Why was it so hard to talk since he’d arrived?
Initially she’d chalked it up to a certain amount of distrust of the people around her, but she was noticing it now, the distance between them. They stood like strangers, not the lovebirds she’d purported them to be. With a sigh she focused her gaze elsewhere, looking around at the growing number of cots and people. There was an entire tent that had appeared since yesterday. How many more would be there by the end of the week?
“Were you able to find out anything?” she asked, knowing she’d given him a task that had to be near impossible under these circumstances. These people were distrustful, as they had a right to be. They’d come from a difficult situation. Why would they open up to an American stranger?
Taylor followed her gaze, his own eyes narrowing. “I found out there’s someone behind the scenes pulling the strings and making the lieutenant here take the fall. He’s an idiot, but he’s a soldier so it can’t be someone of higher rank; he’d just fold over and let him run it. I’m assuming that the person in charge is on-site, then they would most likely be a doctor. Anything less wouldn’t have the authority to pull it off.”
“Wait, someone from the clinic is running the military operations here?” Angelica slumped against the wall next to Taylor and thought this through. It made a certain sense, though how someone would go about doing it was beyond her. Again, the only doctor with that kind of authority was the one who’d just spent an hour letting her know just how far his authority extended in the hospital, in regard to each and every patient.
She didn’t like the connections she was making.
Taylor seemed to be thinking along the same lines. He looked at her unhappily, hands in his pockets. “So far, I would say so.”
“You’ve been here all of an hour and I’ve been here almost three months...” Angelica shook her head, wondering how in the world she could be so dense.
“It’s my job.” He smiled. “Do you think that this Manchester guy could be calling the shots behind the scenes?”
She was glad he’d put the name to it, not her. It seemed saner that way. She thought long and hard before answering. “I wouldn’t put it past him.” She huffed and pushed herself away from the building and began pacing in a very small circle. “But in charge of what, exactly? This is a refugee camp. There’s nothing here but the clothes these people wore getting here. There’s nothing of any value here. It’s at the edge of a poor city. There’s no reason to be secretly in charge; there’s nothing to be had.”
Taylor’s expression made her blood run cold.
“What?”
“Think about it,” he said. His words were terse, but his eyes were sad. “You have young people, especially girls, cut off from their families, isolated, maybe helpless, vulnerable. No one would miss them if they just vanished one day.”
“Slavery?” Angelica spat out the word, knowing it was the thought she’d been avoiding, the connection she hadn’t wanted to admit. “You mean to tell me that it wasn’t enough sloughing through the Amazon, fighting drug cartels, that now we have slave-traders? Taylor, normal people have neighbors who play their music too loud or someone’s dog poops on their lawn. Did you know that most doctors, believe it or not, most doctors go their whole, entire, long, happy lives without ever once seeing someone’s body melt and reform into a cat?!” She grabbed his shirt and almost dragged him down to her level until they were nose to nose. “I’ve seen it twice! That’s two more times than anyone should.”
Angelica collapsed on his chest and felt his strong arms embrace her. She was trying not to cry, not here, not in such a public place where anyone could be watching, reporting to the powers that be that things weren’t exactly lovey-dovey between them. She bit back a sob, a handful of words that had no business being said, and clutched him as though she were drowning.
“I couldn’t hear you,” he murmured against her hair.
“I said I want the suburbs! Wisteria and crabgrass and a garage filled with stuff we never use.”
Taylor kissed the top of her head. “Then why did you join Meadowlark?”
“Because having a house in the suburbs and a nine-to-five office job would drive me bat-shit crazy within a month, and would leave me running naked down the highway screaming in boredom. I know I need the feeling of doing something, of helping people who need me, really need me. I just never figured on all of... this...”
“Give me a minute,” Taylor said, his arms tightening around her. Angelica looked up at him curiously. He shrugged. “I’m stuck on the mental image of you running naked down a street.”
She pulled back enough to swat his arm, hard. “Really, that’s the only thing you got from that?” She couldn’t suppress the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.
“No,” he said, his hands on her back, drawing her back into the circle of his arms. “It’s just the best thing from all that.” He bent his head and kissed her tenderly. “We will find the girl,” he promised against her ear. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve held you, and I missed you. And if I tend to picture you naked more often than I do clothed, it’s only because I find you very appealing.”
“Appealing?” Angelica’s face grew warm with pleasure. “I like that. Appealing.” She slipped free of his arms, feeling somehow colder, somehow more alone. “I missed you, too,” she said as she turned and let her hand graze his crotch. She felt his response, though if it was to her touch or the way her body had pressed against his, or the image of her naked in public, she couldn’t say. Did it matter, if it came from being near her? There was something intensely satisfying in that little piece of knowledge.
Of course, this wasn’t the time or place.
She stepped back, lifting her chin, staring him in the eyes. Silent messages passed between them. Promises. Intimacy that couldn’t be voiced.
“Charra,” she said when they’d exhausted all the unheard conversation and had pulled back into themselves. She could see the distance in his eyes. The dark purpose that lurked there. The tiger within.
He nodded. “Charra.” He pulled out his phone and brought up a picture she recognized as being from the video.
“Do you still have my phone?”
He nodded and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” She studied it, checking for messages before slipping it into her pocket. “Do you know that Manchester actually demanded that I hand my phone over to him? As if!”
Taylor frowned. “The young lieutenant said the same.” He tilted his head to indicate the admin building behind them. “I persuaded him to give up that line of inquiry.”
“Teach me that trick,” Angelica said. “I only got away with it because you had it.”
He drew himself up to his full height. “I can try, but you might have to grow a little.”
Laughing, she took his hand and led him back to the bustling camp.
She hated it, the absolute despair and confusion that assaulted her from all sides as she walked through the camp. The air itself felt thick with it. These were people with nothing left from their lives before war and deprivation took it all from them. They had made their way here, on foot for mile after weary mile for the most part, with thieves and guerillas ready to take the last of their meager possessions. That they’d come this far and still survived was a testament to their courage and their infallible belief that there had to be something better than the life they’d lived before.
Every step was torture, not because she didn’t care but because she did. There were simply too many of them and not enough of her. Every step showed her people who needed help, help she could give, simple, easy things that the clinic could handle like abrasions, infections, and malnutrition. The clinic was set up for that, it was configured for that, but so many of them refused the aid they needed.
So much of it is infection of the subcutaneous tissues and fascia, necrotizing fasciitis, superficial cutaneous infection of the skin involving dermal lymphatic vessels...
She stopped even now while searching for the girl, trying to ease someone’s pai
n, trying to help, and getting turned away, rebuffed. They were afraid. Afraid of her. Afraid of the big man beside her. They had nowhere to run to or even to hide, so they turned their backs and pretended. They pretended they didn’t speak English, that they didn’t understand the name Charra. They even pretended that Angelica wasn’t there. It was an exercise in futility, in frustration.
Angelica stopped about halfway through the camp, one hand on her sweaty forehead, pushing her hair out of tired eyes. About now all she wanted was to give up. This was like looking for a needle in a particularly large haystack, with the needle a mobile object. For all she knew she’d passed the girl a dozen times already, just missing her as she went about her daily business. She was healed now, after all, so there was no reason to assume she was just sitting somewhere waiting to be found.
She opened her mouth to suggest quitting when she spotted a familiar face. “Taylor!” she hissed, nudging him hard with an elbow in his side. “There! That’s the old woman! She brought Charra to the clinic!”
“Are you sure?” he asked, but Angelica was already in motion.
“Excuse me!” Angelica cried out as they approached the old woman. “You there!”
The woman saw them coming. She looked as though she was about to flee, but at her age and with the slow way she moved she wouldn’t have gotten far. From the frustrated look on her face she knew it, too. She turned to stand her ground, facing them like she was staring down a firing squad.
“Where’s Charra?” Angelica asked, too tired to beat around the bush.
The old woman spat out a stream of language, none of it English.
Angelica threw up her hands in frustration. “I know you speak English.” Angelica narrowed her eyes at the woman, showing that she too was standing her ground. “You spoke it to me already; now where is the girl?”
“I don’t know any girl,” the old woman said sharply and waved her off with a long stick she was using as a cane. “I don’t know. Go away.”
