AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Darren rubbed my back. “Your plan worked.”
“It did but not without cost. When I returned at the appointed time, Khalil was there waiting for me. I handed him a small amount of weed. It was all I had, but I told him it was a down payment, and he’d get more after he talked. I remember how nervous he looked as my mind took me back to that day.
“You didn’t get the details, did you?” I asked.
Khalil shook his head. “But I got something better.”
He handed me an envelope. Inside were pictures of two men in bed, fucking. “How is a bunch of porn going to help me stop the invasion?”
He pointed to the man who was bottoming. “That’s my brother, and the other man is his head guard. He would do anything to prevent someone from seeing these.”
“Oh my God.” Darren’s voice pulled me back to the present. “That’s…”
“Yeah. I asked him where he got the pictures, and he told me he stole them from the guard. He found them when he was looking for a weapon. Something about the way he said that unsettled me, so I asked him if he’d found what he was looking for. He responded by pulling out a knife.”
Darren tensed. “Oh fuck.”
“Yeah. He demanded I take him back to camp with me and get him on a transport out of the country. I didn’t even have to say anything. He knew from the look on my face that I’d never had a way to get him out. I offered him money instead.”
I shifted positions, sitting up. I wanted to be facing Darren when I finished the story so it felt like a real confession. I wasn’t sure if I was punishing myself or if I just needed to ground myself in the present.
“‘What am I going to do with American money?’ he asked. ‘How am I going to spend it if I can’t get out of here? You promised to help me.’ I reminded him that I’d said I might be able to help him. I’d never promised. He lost it then and started yelling about how I’d lied to him. I remember his high-pitched scream, and ‘you lied to me’ echoing around us over and over.
“I heard someone coming. Khalil seemed to have forgotten where he was. My only hope for escape was to shut him up and run as fast as I could. I warned him that we were about to be discovered. He lunged toward me, shouting that I would have to die with him. I was faster. I blocked him, pulled my own knife, and shoved it up under his ribs.”
Darren sat up and took both my hands in his. “If he’d been caught with you, he would have died anyway, possibly in a far crueler way.”
“I know. I knew that from the beginning just like I knew I couldn’t get him out. What I was doing wasn’t sanctioned. It would never have been condoned by Grant’s superiors, even if Grant would’ve agreed to it, but I saw an opportunity, and I used Khalil. I acted like a friend, then killed him. What kind of monster does that make me?”
“The kind you had to be to survive the situation you were in.”
Was Darren right, or was I as horrible a person as I feared, especially on the nights where I saw Khalil’s face in my dreams? As if I’d summoned the images, I saw those moments again in excruciating detail. The way his eyes had widened as my knife drove into him. The way his mouth fell open. The way he grabbed at his chest and watched the blood flow over his hands before he fell to the ground and took a last gasping breath, then stared up at me with lifeless eyes.
Tears began to run down my cheeks. I’d tried my best to hold them back, but I couldn’t. The walls I had built were crumbling, and my grief was leaking through. Darren pulled me against him. “Let it out. It’s way past time.”
So I did. I cried until I was shaking, racking sobs making me double over. Darren stayed with me, holding me, soothing me, kissing my neck until finally, I was all cried out.
After several moments of silence, Darren said, “What happened after that? Did someone catch you?”
“Yes, but somehow I was prepared. Three men burst out of the woods. I shot two of them dead and wounded the third. I told him I needed to speak to Omar, that I had information he needed to see. I don’t know how I convinced him, but finally, he hobbled away and eventually brought Omar to me.” Once again I was right back there, rooted to the spot, fighting to save myself and my team.
Omar arrived with an entourage. He looked me up and down and snarled. “You really are an American. What could you possibly have to say to me before I kill you?”
