AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gulnar blinked. Her eyes were open and she did see the woman in front of her. The woman who’d just yelled at her.
Oh, hell! She was daydreaming again. Lost in her impossible fantasy. For thirty-four days now, ever since Dante had left, it had been the only thing that had kept her functioning, the escape she’d needed to salvage her sanity. Or so she’d told herself. If she was sinking into it now, involuntarily, unable to resurface from it, this could be serious. Would she soon fail to differentiate between fantasy and reality, take refuge in her delusions on a permanent basis?
She was still hearing his voice over the woman’s tirade, soothing her, promising her he’d stay, at least somewhere in her life, that he wouldn’t disappear completely.
Face facts! Dante had disappeared. He’d walked out of her arms that morning and had vanished off the face of the earth. No one knew where he’d gone. No one had even reported seeing him anywhere on his way out of the region. There were no records of his movements anywhere. And there should have been, with him such a well-known figure at the moment.
Had he really existed or had she been having an impossibly detailed and vivid psychotic episode all the time? Had her mind finally caved in, taken enough horrors and losses and desperation and decided to find itself a way out? Created her a man beyond her dreams, a passion beyond her imagination?
But why had it also given her grief beyond her endurance? If it had, then her mind must really be diseased. To introduce him to her in such a horrific scenario, to make him so perfect, yet so unattainable, so that losing him would be a far worse trauma than anything it had invented him to escape.
No. To her regret, her mind was still sound. And it would remain so, so she could suffer and know it. Dante and the two weeks of their relationship, the night in his arms were real. Only real life was that cruel. She knew…
“Don’t you ignore me!” The woman was screaming now, and that catapulted Gulnar back, plunged her into the dreary reality that was her world. All around her was the dismal Sredna refugee camp populated by over two hundred thousand Badovnans. A scene from a recurring nightmare.
She’d been here before, with Lorenzo and Sherazad. She’d watched their love blossom, had misunderstood it at first. But they were together now, strong and secure in each other, with a baby on the way. And she was alone—for ever…
Focus! Before that woman goes for your throat!
“Madam—I was just a little distracted. It was an eleven-hour drive getting here, and I’m exhausted. If you’ll please repeat what you said…”
“We all know you’re one of the doctors who saved the Azernian hostages.” Well, well. News traveled widely. “How dare you come here when you side with the people who put us here?”
Gulnar tried her best placating tone. “First, I’m not a doctor, just a nurse. And I’m with GAO, and you know we help people in need regardless of their nationalities or political beliefs. I was here a year ago. If you don’t remember me, maybe someone else who’s been here longer will.”
“You saved Azernians and killed Badovnans!” the woman frothed. “You could have killed one of our brothers or husbands and now you’re coming here pretending to help us…” Then she lashed out at Gulnar, her fist catching her on her ear with all her strength.
A thunderclap exploded in Gulnar’s brain and everything came back in an avalanche. The whole hostage situation, the last minutes, Dante standing there, drawing the rebels’ fire, protecting everyone, Dante turning around, seeking her eyes, the shocked knowledge that he’d been shot surfacing in his…
“You listen to me! You listen to me, all of you. I killed a monster and I don’t care what nationality she was or whose sister or moth
er she was. She killed unarmed people before my eyes. She was going to kill the man I love. I would have shot my own sister in the same situation. Do you hear me?”
“C’mon Gulnar—it’s not worth it…” Emilio had taken her gently in his arms.
“No! They have to hear this!” She struggled away from him, swung around to face her nemesis. The woman was glaring at her. “You think you have license to hate and kill because you’ve been wronged? You think you’re the only one who’s been wronged? You think your way is the only way? It isn’t! I spent years in a camp worse than this one, an outcast and an orphan, and I didn’t get out of it bent on punishing those who put me there, along with their allies, and their loved ones, and neighbors, and anyone who didn’t side with me. I came out to help those who got trampled like I was. And that includes you!”
“I’d rather die than take your help!” the woman yelled, and spat on the ground.
“Is this how you’re raising your children? To bring on you decades of war and displacement? Don’t you understand that by embracing vengeance and sanctioning terrorism, you are perpetuating your own suffering?”
“Enough, Gulnar.” Emilio placed his bulk before her, blocking her from sight. He turned to the crowd. “OK, people, now’s the time to make this clear. If you don’t want us here, just say so and we’ll leave.”
One of the men came forward, late fifties, balding. “We’re sorry for all of this, sir. We appreciate GAO and everyone who works for them. I remember you from the last time you were here. And the lady. Tatiana is just overwrought, since both her brother and husband died recently in the fighting.”
“Do we have your word nothing like this will happen again?” The man nodded. Gulnar remembered him now. He was one of the camp leaders. Emilio almost lifted her off the ground before she said anything more, dragging her with him in the direction of the tent they’d erected as soon as they’d arrived.
They didn’t reach it.
A supply truck came hurtling towards them, screeched to a skidding halt among a storm of dust right beside the tent. The passenger door swung back on its hinges before it stopped. Then he jumped out and everything vanished. Dante!
Dante!
She froze.
Was her mind playing tricks on her? Was it summoning his image to rescue her from the frustration? She blinked and he remained there, motionless, his eyes on her. Only her. Fierce, full. Then he began to walk towards her, his steps slow, filled with his effortless grace. Illusion or not, she’d bolt towards him. Something anchored her. Emilio’s grasp.
“Take him to the tent, OK? I’ll give you an hour, and then we’ll have to start setting up our operation.”
