I emerged again and laughed out loud. My laughter was the only noise around the desert, which was a little creepy. But it felt like I was in my own paradise. I brushed my teeth quickly and began floating on the water. The silence and peacefulness was something I hadn’t had in a really long time. My ears weren’t ringing, things weren’t exploding, and people weren’t attacking us. It was just this lake and I.
I closed my eyes and swam as far as I could until I grew tired. Then I began to float slowly back towards the hotel where I found Angel waiting in the shoreline, with his arms crossed and a poker face. Party’s over, I thought to myself. I got out of the water and splashed towards him. He closed his eyes and turned his head, but smiled slightly.
“I told you not to go anywhere alone.” He was wearing shorts and a white tank. “You never listen to instructions, do you?”
I squeezed all the water out of my hair. “No, sir.” I saluted him.
He raised his eyebrows but held my hand. “I’ll show you where you can wash up so we can eat something.”
“And where were you this morning?” I asked, following him.
“I was contacting the Captain.”
I gave him a questioning look. “How? Smoke signals?”
He just gave me a ‘smart ass’ look and pointed towards a room in the corner with a bucket full of water. This gave me negative memories. Memories that reminded me of my little torture home back in Afghanistan. I shrugged it off and did my necessities. Once I was done, I walked out with the towel wrapped tightly around my body. He led me back to our bedroom and stared out the window so I could change.
I looked over at him, still clutching my towel. His broad shoulders were memorable. Every ripple in his back, down to his slim waist was clearly visible through his tight tee. His rear end in basketball shorts was the envy of every woman: tight but noticeable. He wouldn’t turn around and look at me.
I shrugged and let the towel fall on the floor. He’d seen me naked plenty of times, especially at my worst. The only thing I was embarrassed about was that I was on the skinny side since I hadn’t been eating like I usually do. Now I was a little underweight for my 5’6 stature. I was usually fuller and toned.
There was a small mirror in the corner. My skin was completely clear from any kind of cuts or bruises. But I had many bite scars; everywhere that I could see, there was a bite. I couldn’t remember any of these bites. My back looked completely horrendous. Tiny golden lines covered my body, bites everywhere, and a thick scar on my chin. I had no clue where it came from, but it looked ugly. Maybe when I got back home I could get a plastic surgeon to repair it. My leg had healed as much as it could, but that gash looked like it would never go away.
I turned and spread the wet clothes and towel on the floor. It wasn’t like everything wasn’t going to be covered in sand anyways. I looked up to find Angel staring at me. I looked into his ocean eyes for a brief second and continued my task of getting changed. A white tank and rolled up sweats later, we walked out the room and he led me towards the front of the building.
It was a small room with a small table in the middle, but no windows. Candles made it brighter, and the walls were bare. The room felt inviting though. There was food all over the table. Freshly squeezed lemonade, and a bowl filled with melting ice.
“Let’s eat before the ice melts completely and the food gets cold.”
He led me to a chair and sat to my right. The food was Mediterranean, and it was delicious. We ate in silence, enjoying the food. Angel wasn’t good with small talk, I can tell you that much. He won’t just go and spark up a conversation just to break the silence. I guess he enjoyed it. That’s something that I wanted to ask him one day, because I, on the other hand, am a huge talker.
Once we were finished, Angel handed me orange and pink rags. I looked at him with a confused look. “What is this for?”
He looked down at me, “We’re going to ride a camel, recreationally.” When I still looked at him blankly, he sighed and took the rags back. “You can’t go out in the sun looking like that. It will cook you alive.” He took the longer cloth and began to wrap it expertly around my body, tucking it over my shoulder so it wouldn’t unwrap. The smaller cloth was used to cover my face and neck. He did his own with white rags and then led me from the room.
I looked down at myself and began to laugh hysterically. I gave Angel the camera and he snapped a few pictures of me smiling. “I look like the pile of laundry that is sitting in the corner of my room.” He looked back and shook his head.
We walked around the stone quiet hotel until me made it to the edge. It was extremely hot outside. The sun was unbearable; I couldn’t look up. I understood why we needed to be covered. But I wondered if I was going to sweat bullets underneath all these rags.
At the edge of the lake, there was a large pale camel drinking water while the man we’d met yesterday was holding his leash. We walked closer and the camel spit on the ground.
I looked at Angel and said, “We’re riding that?”
He looked down at me, and my breath caught at my throat. He looked absolutely beautiful and mysterious covered from head to toe in white and his blue eyes electrified my body. He didn’t answer; he just looked at me. It seemed as if he was smiling, but I couldn’t tell because his pink lips were covered. He took my hand again and led me to the camel. I didn’t protest; I just let him lead me. We made it to the man and he handed Angel the leash and walked away without saying one word.
The camel turned to us and just stared. Angel walked around the camel and helped me on. The camel moved and grunted. I stared down at Angel with worried eyes and this time he laughed out loud. He jumped behind me and we were on our way.
He put one arm on my waist and with the other, began whipping the camel to life. He was actually faster than I would’ve thought. He was kicking sand as his feet glided through the desert.
“Angel,” I said, adoring the way his name sounds on my lips, “I don’t want to end up with raccoon eyes.”
I looked over at him and he rolled his eyes. “That will not happen. We’ll only be out here for a few hours.”
The camel slowed down as Angel whispered in my ear, “Do you see the pyramids?”
I couldn’t see anything at first because the heat emerging from the hot sad was making everything look deformed. But then I did, there were far off the distance. Almost unnoticeable. But we were slowly riding towards them.
They were incredible. Like the size of an ordinary New York block. I couldn’t imagine how perfect they used to be in the ancient times. Smooth. But now, some of the pieces were falling apart. Angel stopped the camel and we walked around a huge pyramid. I mean, I had to stop and sit on the edge of it because I just couldn’t believe that this thing was real.
Angel came next to me and pulled me up for an embrace. It felt amazing to be in his arms, I was so happy. I was in love with the way my life was whenever I was in his presence. I sneakily grabbed his robes and ran away with them without him realizing it.
He laughed, and let me run away from him for a bit before he began to run towards me with all his power. And I acted scared as he charged towards me. I squealed and tried to run faster, but it was useless because he caught up to me and tackled me to the floor. I was laughing so hard that I actually snorted, very loudly. I covered my mouth with my hands, but continued laughing.
He looked down at me with those amazing eyes and said, “I like the sound of you laughing. I don’t think I’ve heard it before. Not freely like this.”
“You make me happy.” I smiled up at him.
He smiled back, but it didn’t fully touch his eyes. Helping me up, he said, “We should start heading back. It’s not safe to expose ourselves like this.”
I wanted to scream, “Then why did we do it in the first place!” But I held back. He was trying. However, he was holding back on me. I shrugged and followed him back to the camel.
Once we got back, we showered and ate before retiring to our bedr
oom. It went completely dark as we hung out and I talked to him about my life back home. The only source of light was a few candles on the walls and the bright white moon through the window. Dressed in only a small tank and boy shorts, I pulled back the white mosquito net and jumped on the bed. Angel, wearing only his shorts, laughed out loud before he secured the net around us.
I plopped my damp hair on the fluffy white pillow and watched Angel as he blew out the candles on the walls. He came to bed and lay down facing me. His face was completely visible thanks to the glorious moon in Egypt. I watched him watch me. His eyes blinked once. Once again, I wished I could read his mind so I could know what he was thinking. What he thought about me. I wanted to know his deepest frustrations.
He gently caressed my drying hair and said, “The chopper will be here before sunrise.”
I closed my eyes with despair. If staying in a foreign country forever was all it took to keep Angel by my side, then I would sacrifice everything I had at home to be with him. I opened my eyes again and looked at him; he just gave me a sad smile.
“You know,” he continued, “I never thought that taking this job would have made me this happy. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
I just looked at him. With that sentence, I didn’t need him to explain anything else. He came up on his elbows and leaned towards me. I smiled at him before he pressed his lips gently to mine. This kiss was innocent and angelic. Soft enough to make me feel like I was floating away with the clouds, and soft enough to make me lose my mind.
His lips parted from mine and he kissed my forehead before gathering me completely in his arms. It was warm in the room, but I would risk the uncomfortable heat to sleep in his arms any day. I buried my face in his thick chest and breathed in his scent. This was the way I wanted to go to bed. Every night.
Angel woke first; I was still soundly asleep. I finally woke up when something exploded extremely loudly. I spread my arms around the bed looking for him. But he was looking out the window intently, with his magnum on his hand.
“What’s going on?” I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
He walked back towards me, his face inches from mine, dogtags jingling with his movements. “They found us.”
He didn’t need to say anything more. I jumped out of the bed and went straight for his duffle bag. I pulled on shorts and threw Angel his uniform. Then I picked up all the ammunition that I could without making any extra noise. As Angel scoped the scene from the window, I strapped the guns on his thighs, and put the automatic on his back.
Once I was done setting him up he looked down at me and said, “There is a whole army out there. I don’t know what we can do.”
I looked at him in remorse. All of this was happening because I’d escaped. Wouldn’t it be easier if I’d died back there in the shack, instead of all these people dying, including Angel, because of me?
“I need to just give myself up.” I looked into his eyes.
“No.”
“But it will be easier. None of this has to happen. Besides, it will give you time to figure out a strategy.”
“I said no. Now we need to go, stay near me.” He pulled my arm with a little more force than he’d intended. I already knew that I would have a bruise there tomorrow, if I made it that long. His eyes softened for a brief minute. He kissed me so seductively and slowly that I had to hold on to him to make sure I wouldn’t collapse. “I’m not letting you go.”
He looked out the window one more time, then grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the door. He put one finger on his lips and I got the message. I looked down and realized that I’d forgotten my shoes, again. But I didn’t need to think about that.
He cracked the door so slowly that I didn’t think he could peek out from it. He pushed me against the wall and opened the door wider. I stayed flat against the wall with my eyes closed. I felt Angel leave my side. I couldn’t explain it, but I didn’t feel him there anymore. I squeezed my eyes as soon as I heard the gunshots sounding like never-ending firecrackers. Tears were streaming down my cheeks while I waited.
I felt him come back, his cool fingers wrapped around mine. I looked up at him and saw his bright blue eyes in the darkness. The gunshots continued, hitting the wall behind us. He peered back out from the wall and shot a few other times before the gunshots became more constant.
“We can’t go that way,” he said as he closed the door and dead bolted it. The room was still completely black, but I saw him move an old trunk in front of the door, making sure they would stay out a little bit longer. “We’ll have to go out the window.”
The window? Uh-oh. We could hear banging from behind us, then gunshots. We moved away from the door and Angel pulled something else from the duffle bag. He took out a rope and a walkie-talkie, and put it in one of his many pockets. He tied the rope quickly and securely on one of the bedposts while the gunshots slowly destroyed the thick door.
We ran to the window and I gulped. He spun me so I could face him and our eyes met. “I don’t have to tell you how serious this is now. You will jump out the window, right?”
I didn’t have anything to say so I just nodded. He let me go and said, “I’ll go first. Follow me.”
He neatly stepped over the window, and with a quick move, he jumped out, shimmying down the main wall. I just looked down at him with disbelief; the drop was at least forty feet. Once he reached the ground, he looked up and signaled impatiently for me to come down. I looked back and the door was almost destroyed. I saw the face of one of the terrorists, and that was enough motivation to do as Angel directed.
I grabbed the rope and climbed over the ledge. Using both hands and wrapping both of my legs around the rope, I slowly began to slide down. I shut my eyes tight because I was completely afraid of heights. When I heard the loud crash of the door giving way above me I screamed and let go of the rope. Realizing what I’d just done, I screamed even louder because I knew I was going to break a leg or something; that’s when Angel caught me swiftly. Thankful, I held on to his neck with more force than I intended.
Without wasting any time, he put me on the ground and we began running around the hotel maze. Every now and then, a terrorist would appear and Angel would quickly shoot them down. We kept running until we made it to an underground tunnel, where I collapsed trying to get oxygen back in my lungs. Angel pulled out the walkie-talkie and began to change the stations around.
After a few minutes of static, he said, “Captain, Captain come in!”
The voice on the other end wasn’t the usual one; it was the voice of a young woman. “Angel, you’re still alive!”
“Jessica?”
“Yes, something is going on at the base. I don’t know what it is. I can’t explain what I’ve found, especially through this station. The Captain was killed in his home last night.”
Angel put his head down and sighed deeply. I was going to go and comfort him when he punched the wall, making the tunnel echo and rubble fall on his feet.
“Listen, I’m getting out of here before I get killed too. Take care of yourself, Angel. We’ll meet in the future because you will come back home. Over and out.” And everything went silent.
Angel sank on to the floor, removed the automatic from his back, and buried his face in his hands. He was there in that position for a long time. I wanted to give him a moment to grieve his loss. But it hurt me to see him in pain. It caused me pain too, somewhere deep inside my soul. I crawled over to him, removed his hands from his face and made him look up at me. I didn’t say anything, just sat there looking at his blue eyes. He brought me up to his body and gave me a tight hug, running his hands up and down my back. The tightness of his strong arms reminded me of his body so I pulled away quickly.
“Let me take a look at your knuckles.”
He placed his hand in mine and I immediately felt blood on it. His skin was scraped off his knuckles, and one of his fingers looked broken because it was slightly out of place. I ripped off a piece of my shirt
and tied it tightly around his hand to hold them in place. He looked at me while I worked, his eyes looking defeated.
I got up and looked down at him with my hand waiting for his. “Come on, you’ve got a mission to finish.”
He looked at my hand for a moment, and then grabbed it with his automatic in hand. We slowly began to walk deeper and deeper into the black tunnel. It was dark enough for me not to see much in front of me, but Angel seemed not to have a problem.
Angel stopped abruptly and I crashed into him, he steadied me, pulled out his magnum, and began to walk a little faster. I jogged to keep up and we made it to a clearing by the lake I’d swum in yesterday. I didn’t see this opening when I was here. Then again, everything blended in perfectly.
We looked back towards the hotel and there was chaos going on, everything was being burned down. The Hummer was burning, until it exploded loudly, making some men run away from it. The desert was extremely cool compared to the way it was in the daytime.
Angel guided me towards the lake and jumped in swiftly. I looked at him in surprise and he yelled, “Come on!”
I looked back at the burning hotel one more time before I jumped in next to him, leaving all the noise behind.
“We have to swim underwater to avoid being spotted. This will be the perfect way to escape. Got it?”
I just looked at his ocean eyes and nodded. I was a great swimmer. But I wasn’t good at holding my breath. Angel took a deep breath and went under. I did the same. I saw him immediately and I followed his lead. He slowed down his pace so I could keep up with him. We swam all the way to the other side of the lake. We came out gasping and tired. He helped me out of the water and we continued to walk through the desert in silence.
My Sweet Escape: A Touched by an Angel Novel Page 14
