Page 69 of Rescuing You

Splat got us out.

She assumed Michael had had nothing to do with their getting out of Baghdad. Which, in her defense, he hadn’t—aside from asking Splat for help. His friend had come up with the plan, but not because Michael couldn’t have. He’d just had his hands full rescuing them and then escaping a bunch of armed guards.

How did Leila figure he’d managed that? Dumb luck?

Michael wanted to go back to sleep, but something had awakened him.

A knock on the wood over his head had him sitting up.

Leila looked in the opening. “Splat says to tell you we’ll be at the border in about ten minutes.”

The border? Already? That meant he’d slept for hours.

He crawled out of the crate and stretched, restacked the boxes in the cargo area, shoving his backpack into the empty crate where Jasmine had hidden.

When the area looked as it should—the boxes neatly stacked, all remnants of their having been sitting back there stowed—he checked on Jasmine and Splat.

Jasmine had donned an abaya and hijab, which covered much of her face, just in case the border agents were on the lookout for her and Leila.

“All good here,” Splat said. “Get hidden back there. We’ll see you on the other side.”

God willing.

Michael and Leila returned to the crate. Without his backpack, there was plenty of room for both of them to sit—on opposite sides. Which was just as well because the last thing he wanted was to hold her again.

Well, maybe not the last thing.

“You are angry,” she said.

“Did you come up with plan B?”

Her silence answered the question.

He’d expected crossing into Turkey to be rife with tension. He hadn’t believed that most of that tension would be confined to their crate.

The Turkish authorities let them through without incident. As soon as they were on the other side and Splat gave the all-clear, Michael unlatched the door, stepped out, and settled on the floor, his back to a box.

She sat beside him.

“You should rest,” he said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

“It’s only that I don’t understand how you know the things you know. Maybe if you explained⁠—”

“What’s your father’s name?”

She clamped her lips shut. A moment later, she said, “I will tell you. Soon.”

“When you do, we’ll talk.” He nodded to the crate. “The padding’s not comfortable, but it’s better than this.” He knocked on the hard metal floor. “Go rest.”

“I don’t want to argue with you.”

“Who’s arguing?”

She studied him another few moments, then crawled into the crate.

Maybe she’d be a little less critical after a nap.

He grabbed a couple bottles of water from his pack, then wandered to the front, where Jasmine had reclined in the seat and was trying to sleep as well.