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The first time, Annie had backed away in disgust.
The second, she’d been desperate enough to use it.
That had made the woman cackle with laughter.
The wife of the American ambassador had received the same treatment, but Annie had no idea how she’d dealt with it. The ambassador’s wife hadn’t said a word since their capture.
She was roped, not cuffed, to a ring in the opposite wall. Annie had eyed the arrangement with longing. The wall looked as if a stiff breeze might knock it down. If they’d shackled her the way they’d shackled the ambassador’s wife, she was sure she could have broken free by now.
She’d whispered to the ambassador’s wife, urged her to give it a try, but the woman didn’t talk, didn’t even make eye contact. She simply lay on her side, knees drawn up under her chin, and stared blankly into space.
After a while, Annie had switched tactics.
“Can you just get to the door and maybe crack it open enough to peek outside?”
No response.
“How many men did you count when they took you out to pee? I think I saw at least a couple of dozen.”
Nothing.
Annie had stopped asking questions. She knew she’d have to rely on herself and she did a quick tally.
Two dozen bandits. Maybe six or seven more.
Her party had numbered thirty-eight when they left the palace in Qaram. Eight had died in the first furious minutes of the ambush. Four Royal Guardsmen. Three Qarami council ministers. One of her ladies-in-waiting.
Annie leaned back against the wall.
Such a fanciful name for female guards loyal to her uncle, but her uncle was good at that. At making evil things seem like good ones.
This wedding, for instance. As far as the world knew, she was a happy princess on her way to a fairytale wedding to her prince.
Annie shuddered.
The reality was that she’d been on her way to marriage to a man who agreed with her uncle that the world had been a better place when women were kept in a state of subjugation.
“Barefoot in the winter and pregnant in the summer,” her uncle had said, laughing uproariously at the ugly old joke.
She’d been lost in those thoughts when a bunch of vehicles came tearing into the clearing where the Qarami party had stopped because of a flat tire.
Eight Guardsmen had died then. At least twice that many, based on the sounds of gunfire, had died right here a couple of hours ago.
Annie had sat crouched in the semi-darkness of the shed, her hands over her ears in a useless attempt to drown out the screams and gunfire—although the next sounds had been worse.
The sounds of men roaring with laughter.
After that, there’d been silence, which was almost as bad as the screaming.
She tried not to think about what would happen next.
Instead, she thought about ways to escape.
About what was happening away from this terrible place.
Was there a rescue party coming? Would her uncle pay whatever ransom was asked for her, because surely this was about ransom? Or would he write her off as a deal gone bad?
After all, that was what she was.
