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Before I get my chance to prove I’m not as useless as everyone thinks I am, a fist connects with my stomach. The gun flies out of my hand and I hit the ground hard, seeing stars. I’m moving as soon as I fall, trying to recover to my feet, determined not to lose Polly the same way I lost Lev.
Uri would never forgive me. And I couldn’t blame him: I’d never forgive myself, either.
But upright or in the dirt, it doesn’t make a difference—I’m outnumbered. More men converge. They grab my arms and my legs and no matter how hard I thrash, I can’t break free. My foot connects with something, but it’s not the skulls of these evil motherfuckers—it’s just the side mirror of my car. The kick takes it clean off and it crashes to the ground, spraying shards of glass everywhere.
As the men flip me upside down and prepare to shove me into their van, I catch sight of my reflection in one of the broken shards.
I look unhinged. Hair flying everywhere, eyes wide and desperate, mouth parted in a heaving inhale. In that same reflection, I see one of my captors pull a rag from his pocket and bring it toward my mouth.
“No…”
But it doesn’t matter what I want anymore. He presses it over my face and that chloroform stench invades my senses. My stomach throbs with pain and my last half-formed thought before I see darkness is,My baby…
63
ALYSSA
Everything hurts.
My arms and legs are stinging in a thousand places. My head is aching and my gut roils uncomfortably. Even blinking my eyes hurts.
It’s dark wherever I am, but after a few minutes, my vision adjusts to the darkness just enough to confirm that all my limbs hurt because I’ve been tied to this bed.
There’s nothing to see in here—bare concrete walls, water-stained ceiling—apart from a second bed with a dark lump on it. “P-Polly?” I get only a whimper in response but she’s starting to take shape and I’m pretty sure it’s her. “Polly, it’s me. Alyssa.”
“A-Alyssa… where are we?”
Suddenly, my pain feels so much less important. All I can think about is Polly, tied up like I am, terrified and helpless.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
“The same people that took L-Lev… they took u-u-us… oh God…”
“Hey, Pol,” I say softly, using the same voice I use with Lev, “I need you to take a deep breath and concentrate on my voice, okay? We need to stay calm.”
She lets out another couple of sobs, but slowly, she finds the rhythm of her breathing. It still shudders, but it’s less soaked with fear than it was a moment ago.
I blink and a tear slips down my cheek. I remind myself to take my own advice.Breathe.After a couple of breaths, my own inhales and exhales even out.
“We’re going to get out of this.”
“Is that another promise?”
“It’s a hope and a prayer all wrapped up in one.”
“I don’t believe in prayers. They don’t come true unless you make it happen.”
I laugh tearily. “That sounds like something Uri would say.”
“Actually, itiswhat he says. I used to hear that all the time from him when I was growing up.”
I nod. “It’s hard to believe in a higher power when you’ve lost people you love early in life. I had a crisis of faith when I was a teenager.”
“What happened when you were a teenager?”
I didn’t intend to talk about Ziva. I mean, I neverconsciously intend to talk about Ziva—but I’m also realizing that talking about her doesn’t feel quite as impossible as it used to. I wonder when that happened. “I lost my sister when I was seventeen. We were twins.”
“Oh my God.” Polly straightens up as much as her restraints will allow. The moonlight through the window is falling on her in slanting beams, casting half her face in a pearly white glow. “That must have been rough.”
