The bus arrived about an hour late and we made the line. The humidity inside was unbearable; I immediately knew that I was going to get sick. We sat down towards the back; Angel sat on the aisle seat. The bus filled up quickly, and it was pretty hot in there. Children were crying, people talking and laughing. It was all too overwhelming for me and the heat wasn’t helping. I closed my eyes and leaned back. “How long is the ride?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed.
“Twelve hours, with only one stop.”
Great, so I would get sick along the way. The bus lurched forward, and began to speed away. The ride was terrible: bumpy and swerving at times without warning. I was completely surprised that everyone else, including Angel, were sitting as if there wasn’t anything wrong with this guy’s driving. I tried to look out at the scenery but it was just making my stomach feel worse so I looked down.
My eyes began to roll back; beads of sweat were beginning to form all over my forehead again. My head felt weak, and I could feel my breakfast burning in my throat.
“I don’t feel good,” I was able to say without vomiting all over Angel’s thighs.
Angel turned to me, concern written all over his face. But when he saw that I was getting road sick, he smirked and said, “When aren’t you sick?”
I rolled my eyes and closed them. But I felt his cool fingers over my forehead, removing the sweat. I opened my eyes again and looked straight into his. His blue eyes looked mesmerizing, addicting to the point where you don’t want to look away. So I didn’t, I forgot about my motion sickness, and the heat wave making it worse. His fingers went from my forehead to my cheek, down to my almost-unswollen lips, making me shiver with arousal from his touch.
The driver swerved again without warning and Angel crashed on top of me, crushing me with over 200 pounds of muscle. This time my vomit answered with anger, and I threw up all over the floor. Many people around us grunted with disgust. I looked back up at Angel but he got up and went to the small dirty bathroom on the back of the bus. He came back with a few wet napkins and ran them across my forehead and lips, cleaned the mess on the floor and threw everything out the window.
He sat back next to me and said, “Are you okay?”
I nodded and he put his arm around my shoulders and I leaned into his broad chest, closing my eyes and hearing the rhythm of his heartbeat. I wrapped one arm around his tight waist, feeling his gun there so I went for his chest instead. I breathed in his smell, making it part of my dream. I became selfish and let myself become comforted by him. I wanted his arms around me; I wanted to feel him close. I felt his arm tighten around me, and his head rested on top of mine.
Waiting for the right moment, I was able to bring my head up. But the heat and the movement wouldn’t let up. I looked over at Angel, my face pale and clammier than before. He acted fast. He removed his tight black shirt, leaving him in just his white tank, and rolled it on his thigh. He quickly moved the gun to one of his pockets before someone noticed. He indicated for me to lie on his thigh.
After a final thought, I rested my head on his thigh, looking up at the ceiling. Angel looked straight ahead, sometimes out the window. Even at this angle he was beautiful, though I could only see his lips and up his nose. He looked down at me and removed my hat. He began to stroke my hair, untangling the braid, and playing with the long strands automatically. I began to get sleepy. I turned to the side and wrapped an arm around his waist again before I took a short nap.
Chapter 6
After riding for hours with only a short stop, we finally made it to Tabriz, Iran. We stepped out of the bus to face a cold night. Angel handed me his black shirt so I could double up and avoid getting sick again. I wrapped my arms around my body and followed Angel towards a small motel about ten blocks down the same main street. We bought some takeout food from a small corner restaurant and walked into our small room. This room wasn’t as nice as the first one. But it was clean and comfortable. I set the dinner on the table and walked into the bathroom to clean up and change.
My face looked clammy and pale, even sicker than the day I’d escaped captivity. I took a steamy shower and walked out wearing sweats and his long tee. I absolutely loved wearing his clothes and smelling like him. It made me feel comfortable, like I could survive this. He was sitting on the table, hunched over and eating his food as he concentrated on the newscast on TV.
“It’s worse than I thought,” he said between bites, “Iran has its own war going on.”
I didn’t say anything. I wrapped a towel around my hair and sat at the table to begin working on my meal. The last thing I wanted to talk about right now was more fighting and more people dying and Angel knew that. He finished his meal and walked into the bathroom without looking at me.
Isn’t it bad to shower right after eating?
I shrugged. I turned off the TV, leaned my head back, and closed my eyes. I felt like I was floating, my eyes felt heavy. I couldn’t remember the last time I was able to sleep without worrying about anything. I wanted to wake up like any other normal girl.
I wanted to be home, wherever that was. Surely I had a nice home, a nice family. Did I have brothers and sisters? I needed to worry about all this when I was home, away from all this.
Someone knocked on the door. It was three hard knocks. I got up from the chair and walked towards it automatically. I looked towards the bathroom and I could hear the shower still running so I shrugged and opened the door. There was a tall man wearing faded jeans and a yellow tee shirt staring down at me.
“Can I help you?” I asked but let it go because my stomach gave me a warning. He was still staring at me, without moving an inch.
I took a few steps back and walked into the small bed, so I stopped, staring at this man with my mouth open. He smiled at me with crooked teeth, his tanned skin shining with sweat. He pulled something from his side, a black Glock. He pointed it straight at my forehead and pulled the trigger without giving me a chance to scream.
But I did scream, I screamed at the top of my lungs, pounding my fists at this person standing right in front of me. I’m not going down without a fight, I told myself. I tried to scream again, but he put a hand over my mouth, so I bit him, making him jump back and curse out loud, making his dogtags jingle on his chest.
Dogtags?
Terrorists don’t wear dogtags.
He came back to me, taking my face in his hands and looking into my eyes. His eyes would make anyone forget about the world, just him. He didn’t say anything; he just looked at me, just looked into my eyes. I wanted to cry, but my body felt like it was out of tears, and it needed time to recuperate. And I trembled.
But he wasn’t thinking about my fear, because his eyes were soft and a little unfocused. He blinked a few times. He looked down at my open lips and caressed them with his cold fingers. His eyes looked heavy, hungry. He didn’t seem like he remembered what had just happened. He pulled the towel from my hair and ran his fingers through the long strands. He had artistic fingers. It felt incredible. I felt like a cat when you scratch their head and their eyes roll back.
He began to lean towards me. I looked down at his lips as they parted and I closed my eyes. I didn’t have the chance to catch my breath. He slowly leaned in and gently pressed his lips on mine, so slowly, as if he was trying not to frighten me.
His lips were soft and cool, with drops of water on them. I tried to kiss him in return, but my body wasn’t reacting. With everything that I had experienced lately, I never expected to feel this warmth in the pitch of my stomach. A feeling of caring for someone.
My ears were on fire, my face was boiling, and my arms were unresponsive. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and bring him closer to my body. But they just hung loose at my sides the way they had at the shack. But his cool breath and his soft lips were melting away all the torture I’d experienced. His fingers radiated calmness around my body, removing all the fear I had for him.
And I must say that was one of the best kisses I’d ever had i
n my entire life. A kiss that made me forget about my surroundings, a kiss that made my heart skip multiple beats, as if I’d developed a heart problem. A kiss that made the sun and moon align with all of the planets. His movements gave me the chills, and then warmed me up with affection. The way he moved his fingers on my cheeks made me realize that he knew what he was doing.
Did I seem like an amateur to him?
I was losing control of my breathing; my head felt light. But right when I thought I was going to pass out, he pulled away from me.
When he pulled away, he finally let me gasp for air. I was completely shocked at what one of his kisses could do to me. I couldn’t even imagine what anything else might do to a woman. I looked up at his face, my body feeling warm and flushed. He didn’t let go of my face; he continued to caress it with his thumbs. I just looked into his eyes, wanting to say something, but I couldn’t find my voice. I was lost in his eyes and confused as to why a complete stranger would kiss me. He caressed my cheek with the back of his hand and smiled at me with warm eyes. He began to lean closer to me again as he closed his eyes.
There was a knock on the door and he looked at it in confusion. Once he realized our surroundings, he grabbed his gun and went to answer the door, standing with his back to it. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Ihab. We heard screaming, I’m making sure everyone is okay,” said a man with a heavy accent on the other side of the door.
I looked at Angel with fear. “We were sleeping.”
The man quickly responded,” I apologize for bothering you.” We heard him walk towards the next door, knocking on it softly.
He turned back to me and said, “We should get some sleep.”
“Do you know who knocked on the door earlier?” I asked him without moving towards the bed.
Angel pulled up some shorts over his towel, but I was too interested in his answer to turn around. “There wasn’t anyone at the door before Ihab. You were imagining the whole thing,” he answered, with no impatience in his voice.
“No, that’s not possible. He was wearing a yellow shirt. He came towards me with a gun. Why did you come out then?”
He dried his buzz and turned back to me. “The only reason I came out was because you began to scream. I thought there really was someone in here.”
I knew I was not going crazy. I wasn’t seeing things. Annoyed, I turned to look out the window. I needed to compose my emotions. I closed my eyes for a minute then reopened them. It was dark outside, but the moon was bright enough to let me see people still walking around. I looked up at the moon. There was a building near it that caught my attention. I focused on the roof to see a bald man half-visible behind a sniper rifle. “What the…”
I looked at the sniper for a brief second and he eyed me back before I threw myself on the floor, hearing the crash of the bullet through the glass window. I could hear Angel's voice in the midst of all the noise, but I could not put together the words coming out of his mouth. He threw his half-naked body on top of mine, covering me completely. His face crushed my ear, his neck smelled like Irish Spring, his body still cool from the shower. He shot a few times out the window while he was still crouching on the floor.
With the duffel bag in one hand and gripping mine with the other, he pulled me up and we were running out the hotel before I knew it. Ihab looked at us with astonishment as we passed the front desk.
The night was cool and it smacked my face like pieces of ice chips. We were running past the late walkers all over the street. Their eyes were on us; Angel was running around with nothing but a pair of shorts on. I would have thought the street would be deserted at this time with the chaos going on in the Middle East, but I guess not. We made it away from the scene without being attacked by anyone else.
We slowed down at an abandoned street and I steered Angel to face me. "How much more of this are we going to be able to handle until we get killed?"
He moved away from me and kept walking towards the abandoned street. "I don't know, Samantha. But standing here in the middle of this street isn’t going to make our situation any better." He turned to me and stared me down with rage. “And how many times do I have to tell you to stay away from any windows? Didn’t I say that to you? I said it, didn’t I?”
I pointed back at the direction of the hotel with anger. “What makes you think that he wasn’t waiting until we went to bed?”
“Okay, so all of a sudden you’re an expert?” He turned around and began to walk away from me.
I caught up to him and jerked on his arm hard enough to turn him towards me. He looked at his arm with aggravation, then over to me. “What the hell is wrong with you? From the day you got me out of that place, you’ve been nothing but a jerk.”
He removed his arm from my grip, but kept eye contact. He didn’t say anything to me, his jaw tightened and he looked enormously egotistical.
“You know what,” I said, throwing my hands in the air, “if you want to go, just go! I don’t need this from you. I was already prepared to die back in that shack. The last thing I need before I die is to be around an asshole like you.” I wheeled away from him and began to walk forward, anywhere away from him.
He followed me into another unknown destination. He didn’t say anything to me as he passed me and walked ahead. After a while, he stopped and pulled out some clothes from the duffle bag and began to change before I even had the chance to turn around. This was not the way I wanted to see him naked, so I focused my glance down the street. He began to stock his pockets with ammunition, and his thighs were securely strapped with guns. He picked up the duffle bag and began walking without seeing if I would follow him.
We walked in silence for about three hours, not knowing what this deserted road had in store for us. Everything was too quiet, creepy even. We made it to a nicer area and there was a pay phone on the corner. He put some coins in and dialed a number fast, not letting me see.
When someone picked up the phone he leaned his head on the pole and closed his eyes. Without using code words, he went straight into business. "Captain, I'm running into so much heat right now. I'm running out of options on how to keep her safe."
“I have a name,” I said without thinking.
I was able to hear the other man on the phone. His voice was extremely deep and raspy, as if he smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. "Let's change tactics, head to Egypt. Can you get there in about a week or so?"
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, another week? He responded quickly, "Yes." He eyed me with a ‘behave’ look.
"Ok. Call me in a week with a status report, I'll send a chopper for you guys. I'll give you the location there, this phone might be tapped."
"Ok," he said, sounding defeated.
"Angel, you’re doing a great job. Get there in a week,"
He was about to hang up when I said out loud, "I want to talk to my dad."
I don’t know what possessed me to say that. I didn’t even know the guy. But at this point I needed to hear the voice of a person who actually cared about me.
The man on the other end of the phone paused for a bit then said, "Keep it short Angel" and hung up without another word.
Angel put the handset on the hook and looked at me. He picked up the phone again and put more coins in. "I’m going to dial your father’s work number."
He put the phone to his ear and a woman picked up. "I need to speak with John, it's important."
She said, "I'm sorry, but he's in a very important meeting. If you give me your name and number..."
"This is Angel Polanski regarding his daughter."
"Hold on ok, he'll take the call immediately."
It took about thirty seconds for me to hear my dad’s voice on the other end of the phone, a little short of breath. "John, it’s Angel. I have your daughter. I cannot give you the location of our whereabouts. But she is safe with me. She will come home."
He pulled the receiver towards me and I took it and smacked it in my ear. I collapsed on to t
he floor, and tears began to flow down my cheeks when I said, "Daddy?"
"Samantha, oh thank God. Are you okay, please tell me you’re ok, sweetie. You’re not hurt, right?"
"Dad, I'm fine but it's been terrible..."
I heard gunshots and Angel said, "Hang up, and let’s move,” at the same time my dad said, “Gunshots, are you hurt?"
"I'm sorry daddy, but I need to go. They’re coming for me," I cried and hung up the phone. It took the whole world to tear me away from that phone, but I did.
I turned towards the noise and saw a pickup truck full of men with guns. I looked at Angel, but this time he didn’t need to say anything because I began running with him as fast as my tired body would let me. We began to pass tin houses and cardboard shacks again. Despite it being the middle of the night, there were kids outside; some didn’t have clothing or shoes on.
Angel pulled a hard left and more gunshots erupted, we leaned against a cement wall and everything went silent. I stood next to him as he peeked to see how many people he was up against. While doing that, he reached into one of his pockets and handed me a small gun.
He looked over his shoulder again and I looked at the gun in my hand. It looked out of place, and I couldn’t bear to see myself take the life of another human being, evil or not. I pulled on Angel’s thigh and unbuttoned one of his pockets before I dropped the gun inside. I looked up at him to realize that he was observing me the whole time. I pulled on the duffle bag from his shoulder without breaking eye contact. The bag was much heavier than I’d expected, but I threw it over my shoulders without complaint.
I heard the truck door open and footsteps as men started running everywhere. Let the games begin, I thought to myself. Angel leaned over the wall, pulled out both magnums for the first time and began shooting. He shot over his shoulder and moved back to face me. He listened over his shoulder for any movement. I just watched his beautiful face concentrate on anyone moving around.
My Sweet Escape: A Touched by an Angel Novel Page 6
