Page 21 of Strangers in Love

To make matters worse, the car I’d scheduled to come pick me up had left because I hadn’t been right there waiting. It took another ten minutes to get a new ride, and by the time I got into the back seat of the cab, I was glad we’d decided to meet an hour before our flight was scheduled to start boarding. We could still make our flight, but it’d be close.

Unless, of course, something else decided to go wrong.

Like a traffic jam.

We were about a mile from Neutral Ground and way more than that away from the airport, when the car came to a dead stop. Cars all around us were honking, and a quick look told me that we were stuck. Freedom and I were going home with less than we’d come since we’d brought an entire suitcase of supplies to donate, but what I had in the trunk was still too much for me alone to carry very far.

This was not good.

None of this was my fault, but if Freedom and I missed our plane, it would just prove to everyone that I couldn’t take care of myself. I should have, somehow, foreseen each stumbling block that had caused me to be late. I should have woken up an hour earlier. Texted my parents instead of calling. Gotten off the phone more quickly. Told the taxi to wait even if I was late. Had a back-up car.

Yes, those would have all been great things for me to have done, but I wasn’t psychic, so I hadn’t done any of them.

And still, a voice in the back of my mind insisted that Freedom would’ve thought of every contingency.

I pulled my phone from my purse and looked at the time. Fifteen minutes behind schedule, and nothing around us was moving. If I was lucky, I probably had another twenty minutes before Freedom called to see what was wrong. If I wasn’t lucky, it’d probably be in five minutes, which was when I’d told Freedom I’d arrive at the airport.

Then, suddenly, something went right.

Traffic started moving. Not fast, but at least going in the right direction. Just before the first crossroad, the driver glanced back at me and rattled something off in Persian too fast for me to catch. I opened my mouth to ask him to repeat himself, but then he took a sharp turn, throwing me against the door. I winced at the pain in my shoulder, but at least I’d figured out he’d been warning me that he was turning.

It would’ve been better to know that my seatbelt wasn’t exactly secure, though.

Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes, and I flew forward, barely getting my hand up in time to protect my face. My palm smarted, and I was glad I’d had my fingers flat because they might’ve broken with the impact. The driver started yelling, but I was almost certain that the expletives weren’t directed at me. I was always surprised at how quickly insults and curse words were picked up once learning a language moved from the classroom to practical application.

“What hap…” The words died in my throat as I looked through the windshield to see three men with guns coming toward the car. “Go.” The word wasn’t even loud enough for me to hear it. “Drive.” Not any better.

I told my arms and legs to move. Crouch down behind the front seats until the driver got us away. Open the door and get myself away from them. Run. Fight.

Something.

Something other than sitting here, frozen.

Freedom would’ve known what to do.

She would have known how to tell the driver what he should do in a language he’d understand. She’d give clear, decisive instructions, and if they weren’t followed, she’d know what to do next. She’d know if fight or if flight was the better option. She’d know how to do either one. Or both.

What she definitelywouldn’tdo was sit on her butt, watching three armed men point guns at the car. Yell something. Open the door and grab her arm.

She certainly wouldn’t have let them drag her from the car. To the dark-colored SUV where a fourth man sat behind the steering wheel. She wouldn’t have gone without a fight. Without screaming. Without trying to do everything physically possible to get free.

She wouldn’t have stared at the back door opening. Wouldn’t have gone into that back seat without raising a hand in her defense.

Freedom would have fought like hell to save me, to save herself.

But I wasn’t my sister, and I didn’t do a single thing to stop myself from being kidnapped in the middle of a street, on a sunny November morning. In Iran.

Seventeen

Eoin

Alec wasfrazzled enough that he’d referred to this being Evanne’s eighth – instead of ninth – birthday at least three times in the past two hours, but I’d never seen him happier. He’d always loved Evanne and had never hidden it from anyone, but even just a year ago, he hadn’t looked as comfortable as he did right now. For example, my uptight brother was smiling at a pair of third graders who almost knocked over the punch bowl.

I knew a lot of it was due to the woman with him. Not Keli, though she had helped plan the party and was around, trying to make up for all the shit she’d put him through. No, it was Lumen Browne who’d made the difference. Everyone here could see it.

Maybe I should’ve felt sorry for Keli, seeing the man she clearly still wanted in love with someone else, but after all the shit she’d pulled, I didn’t have any sympathy for her at all. I’d always be glad that Alec had met her because Evanne was worth putting up with whatever Keli did, but she’d never get off my shit list after the stuff she’d done this past year.

Lumen, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who made me think Alec had scored way out of his league – and I actually thought pretty highly of my big brother. She was good for Alec, but she was also just a great person. Even when Alec had been acting like a complete asshole, she’d cared about what happened to Evanne, above and beyond what a normal teacher would care about a student. And that wasn’t just because of her feelings about Alec either. She was that sort of person, the kind who really cared about others.

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