Action & Adventure
La señora tenía el vestido roto. Las lágrimas le marcaban surcos blancos en la cara llena de polvo y suciedad. Miraba desesperadamente la loma de escombros. Allie podía escuchar los gemidos de un bebé.
There's a masked man in the store, and it isn't Halloween.
I duck down again—fast.
I hear someone say, "This is a stickup." It's the guy in the mask. He has a weird voice, like it's not a normal voice. He says, "Is there anyone else in the store?"
That tells me that the masked man hasn't seen me.
"No," my dad says without even a second's hesitation.
The guys huddle closer and murmur; the girls' heads incline together and they whisper. They're all talking about me. I'll bet if they were naked I could see their tattoos. They've been taken. They're waiting for me to be taken too.
I force myself to walk past them, even though I have the overpowering urge to run. Or scream, tell them I know all about their plans. Why me? I'd like to ask them that. I hesitate. Maybe I should ask them. Maybe there's some shred of humanity left in one of them and they'll help me escape.
After my brother died, my dad said the nightmares—the ghosts—were all in my mind. That they couldn't hurt me. Turns out he was wrong.
And then we watch helplessly as the jeep burns. Flames leap from the driver's window and lick at the door frame, red tongues reaching into the black smoke. A wall of heat pushes toward us.
A dhow, an open wooden boat about the same length as ours, is motoring alongside, thudding into our hull. From the edge of the sun, another boat hurtles toward us.
I sense the gunfire more than hear it.
Duncan is yelling at Mom, "Those are warning shots. Cut the engine! They won't hurt us if we cooperate."
