About twenty minutes later, I heard the bathroom door open and Angel walked out with a small towel wrapped around his waist. My mouth hung open in surprise. I could tell his body was perfect underneath all his clothes, but I hadn’t braced myself for what I was about to see.
His upper body looked absolutely delicious with the water dripping away from it, down to his v-shaped abdomen. The tattoo on his right arm extended from his wrist and worked its way all around his shoulder. I tried not to look at his eyes, so instead I turned the other way and allowed him to put something on, for my sake only.
“I got us some tuna sandwiches and Coke,” I heard him say. I turned around and saw him wearing shorts and a white tee. “It was the only normal thing I could find.” He sat at the edge of the bed and handed me a foam plate and a can of soda.
“Thanks,” I answered before I inhaled the food faster than I thought possible. The sandwiches were amazing, or maybe I was just extremely hungry. I ate about three and collapsed back on the bed, closing my eyes and moaning with pleasure.
He took my plate and threw it out. “We should get some rest. I don’t know how long we’ll be walking tomorrow.”
He took a pillow and threw it on the floor. “What are you doing?” I asked him.
He turned back to me. “I’m sleeping on the floor.”
“No, you are not. Why? This bed is big enough for the both of us.” Okay, so I was being a little selfish, and I thought he could sense it. “Besides, I need you more than ever right now, and letting you sleep on the stiff floor will not help this situation.”
He just stood there looking at the floor while I stared at him. He looked like he was about to argue with me. Finally, he took a deep breath, picked up his pillow and made his way to the bed. He slid underneath the sheets and sat down facing me. I looked at him and felt my cheeks flush so I turned away for a while. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“I promise you that I will get you back home just in time for your twenty-first birthday,” he said with his voice sounding soft.
I turned and looked at him again and saw honesty and sincerity in his face. I was so used to seeing his guard up, with complete defenses. Now his eyes were like the window to his soul. I felt like I could see his vulnerability if I tried hard enough. But I looked down at the sheets and let it go. I didn’t want to bother him.
He cleared his throat and said, “Did you have any plans?”
“No, I just thought about spending it somewhere in Europe. But I guess the Middle East it is.”
He was silent for a moment. I wanted to turn and look at him. But he did something I wasn’t expecting. He softly grabbed my face so I had to look at him. I flinched. I was used to receiving a beat down since my abduction. He scared me, not intentionally, but I couldn’t help the way my mind had been working lately.
I looked up to his face, letting a single tear escape my eyes. His eyes looked extremely sincere, but his jaw line looked overworked and tense. I saw anger begin to well up and I closed my eyes to let more tears run down my cheeks. He turned my face from side to side, inspecting my bruises. I felt his thumb on my cheeks, wiping my tears away.
“You didn’t deserve this.” I opened my eyes again and he let my face go. “Your face looks much better. We should get some rest.”
And just like that, his guard was up again. I hated how he was so composed all the time. So robotic, without showing any big emotion. But then again, that was the way most army people acted. He lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling. I laid down facing him, letting my silent tears run freely as I closed my eyes.
I felt him move slightly and heard him click off the lights. When he came back to the bed, he laid facing me, putting his arms around my shoulders to console me. This was the first time since the shack that he’d seemed like a human with emotions. He was my shoulder to cry on for the night. His chest was bare. So I just buried my face in his chest and let my tears run until I was too tired to cry anymore.
Chapter 5
I saw her, my mother. She was looking at me from a distance. Just when I made eye contact with her, she turned her back on me the way she did when I was ten. She walked away in the middle of Times Square, New York. The crowd was immense as usual, which always made it hard to walk in any direction as it is. At first, everyone was walking in slow motion, letting me concentrate on my mother. But as soon as I started moving, everything moved faster. I saw her heavenly blonde hair like mine, down to her waist in giant waves, flowing with the wind as she walked away from me. Her white dress flowed the same way her hair did. She turned to me once and I met her dark eyes again, cold with no compassion, and continued to walk away from me.
“Mom!” I yelled, or I thought I did because nothing came out. Not even a whisper.
The crowd was pushing and shoving me in every direction. Men wearing expensive business suits, carrying newspapers and briefcases, hurrying to their destination. I lost her somewhere in the crowd; so after what felt like hours of walking, I gave up. I sunk to the dirty cement sidewalk and began to cry. I put my face in my hands and let it all out. I looked up to see if she turned around and someone shoved a newspaper in my face.
The headline for August thirteenth, “Samantha Kelber was killed by terrorists in India.”
I jumped on the bed and opened my eyes to see the sun shining through the window. I began to feel the bed for Angel and saw him sitting on the floor with tiny drops of water in his buzz and black uniform on. It looked like he’d recently cut his hair short again. His guns were back together, ready for combat. I lay there staring at his face, as he looked at his guns carefully, cleaning them, and inspecting them.
“I know you’re looking at me,” he smiled, looking more relaxed and open than last night. “You should wash up.” He looked at me and flashed his beautiful white smile with his dimple on his right cheek. “There’s a bagel here with coffee. But we have to move fast.”
I stared at his face for another brief moment before I got up and went to the bathroom. Mentally, I rolled my eyes. I wished I could just grab him by the shoulder and shake him really hard. He needed to stop being so collected all the time. I washed up quickly. I looked at my bruises in the mirror; they were turning yellow at this point. My eye was still purple. I washed my face and put on the clothes from yesterday.
When I walked back, I sat on the floor next to Angel and began to work on the bagel and coffee while he finished playing with his guns. Angel pulled a hat from one of the bags, and kneeled in front of me. He brought his hands around my face and I closed my eyes. His scent surrounded me quicker than I could imagine. I didn’t want to open them. I wished I could just bring my hands up and feel his face like I did last night.
I opened my eyes again and looked at him. He pulled the hat down my face carefully and looped my long hair through the back loop. His hand lingered on my hair. He looked into my eyes and I caught my breath. He let go of my hair and my stare to turn around. I put my head down in disappointment.
I had absolutely no clue as to why I was feeling this way towards Angel. I mean, besides the obvious. I’ve said it one too many times; he is very good looking. But maybe it’s because he’s very seductive without even realizing it. He called me in; I wanted to touch him, I wanted to feel his soft skin. I didn’t know what is wrong with me, but being alone with him all the time was driving me insane.
But besides the obvious, Angel has become a companion to me. He was my shoulder to cry on every night. He was my savior. He was my protector. He was the only person that truly cared about me. It felt like an obsession.
“I need to change the dressing on your calf and wrap your arms and legs. I also need to take a look at your back.”
He came back with his First Aid kit and began to pour rubbing alcohol on my wrists. I took advantage and stared at his beautiful face as he concentrated. Once he was done, we went for my swollen feet. He took the dressing off my calf and the smell was disgusting. It looked like raw meat. I looked aw
ay as he did his job. A five-minute process felt like an hour because of the smell.
I couldn’t bite my tongue, so I asked, “Why did you get all those tattoos on one arm?”
He finished wrapping my leg, then sat across from me. He looked at his arm while he turned it over examining it, his muscles flexing with his movement. Finally, he turned his forearm towards me and said, “Do you see these letters?” He pointed at a few words barely visible underneath the orange fire and a faceless angel.
I touched his cool skin and traced the letters. But I couldn’t make out what it said. It was covered up. “What is it?”
He looked down at it and traced them with his own finger. Our fingers almost touched. It was tempting to close that tiny space, to close the barrier that was separating us. But I held back. He only touched me when he needed to. And last night he comforted me because he felt sorry for me. That’s all that was between us. Everything else was professional.
I looked at his face and he looked sad. He was reliving a memory. “It says,” he began, “Fuck the world.” He looked up at me and started laughing because my face fell. He looked almost embarrassed because of what he said.
“I did it when I was fifteen and still at the orphanage. I was almost kicked out because of it. But it was the main reason why I had to leave and become emancipated. I had a rough past.” He looked up to me. “When I was sixteen and living in the streets, I had nowhere to turn. So I enlisted in the Navy.”
We sat across from each other for a while, in silence. He’d lived on the streets. I could not imagine how difficult it must have been emotionally to have nobody to turn to. Not to have a single soul in this world who cared about you. He was never adopted. Nobody wanted him. I looked at his face as he studied mine with curiosity.
We sat there, staring at each other. He’s broken, just like me. He has so much anger and emotions that he wants to take out on someone. Maybe that’s why he chose the career he did. But killing and torturing people would not cause this pain to go away, and I didn’t think he’d realized this yet. And for the government, Angel was just a tool. They didn’t care about him either. He was just a weapon that they would use until he either died or got seriously wounded.
He got up and pulled my top up without me realizing it. I was still in deep thought. I looked up at his eyes as he finished pulling it completely from my body, leaving me with the tiny bra. I immediately covered my chest and looked down. He walked round me and began to dab my back with alcohol, stinging it a little in the process.
“I’m sorry, but your back is going to be marked forever. I think those cuts are too deep for repair.”
I’d already known that. I could tell how bad they were just by the movements I made. Whenever I shifted my body or used my back, I could feel the scabs stretching slightly. I would be carrying the memory of that place on my back for the rest of my life. He walked in front of me and gave me the shirt back as he turned around looking for something. Once we were finished, he handed me a pair of old sneakers that were too big for my feet. But then again, they were swollen so maybe the shoes would fit perfectly.
He put most of his ammunitions in his duffle bag, except for a gun, which he hid in his waistband underneath his shirt. He grabbed his packed duffel bag and pulled out his dog tags.
“I’ve never seen you wearing those,” I said out loud as I walked towards him and inspected them up close.
He gave me a half smile and said, “I’m supposed to keep a low profile, remember? But now I think we’re trying to look like someone we’re not. Let’s just say were tourists.”
I laughed as I looked up to his tall profile. “Right,” I said as I followed him out the door.
Angel and I walked towards the front desk, he handed the guy our room keys and walked out without saying a word. Walking past the door felt like a heat wave smacking my face. The sun was brighter than I last remembered. The humidity was at its highest. People were walking in every direction, fanning themselves with paper, or whatever they could find. Many of the men were eyeing my shorts from the moment we left the motel. I think I wore the wrong outfit for this place. Now that it was daytime I was able to see our surroundings. Most of the houses were made of pure cement; some were rundown with pieces of rubble everywhere. The dirt road was slightly wet. The people did that to minimize the amount of dust in the air when cars drove by.
Angel put an arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “We need to move away from this crowd.” His breath tickled my ear and I couldn’t suppress a smile. Men looked at me in disgust as if Angel had said something naughty in my ear. My smile grew wider with that thought, wishing it were true.
We walked to a busy intersection where multiple old cars were honking their horn at us, asking if we needed a taxi.
Angel waved an old Toyota down and we got in. “Where are you going?” the man asked in an English I almost couldn’t understand.
“Take us to the nearest bus station, we’re heading to Pakistan.”
“Pakistan, you’re crazy,” he said, eying us curiously through the rearview mirror.
We bumped into each other as the driver swerved and he said, “What do you mean?” He put his arm over my shoulder, helping me stay steady with the swerving. I felt a spark immediately. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“There are riots everywhere. Violence and killings because of the war against the Americans. And you two clearly look American, so this might not be the best choice for you.”
I looked up at Angel with worried eyes and he looked down at me. He whispered in my ear, “We’ll be fine,” and looked back at the driver. “It’s okay, we’ll just pass through.”
“Whatever you say,” he muttered and we drove the next twenty minutes in silence.
A death wish. That seemed to be what we were asking for. Drowning ourselves deeper into a river that we might not be able to get out of. The disaster that I’ve dragged Angel in. There is no way that we’re getting out of this mess alive and sane.
We passed some of the poorest areas in Afghanistan. There were children without shoes all over the streets. Some of them looked like they hadn’t eaten in days. The dirt roads were bumpy and uncomfortable to drive on. The air felt thick and polluted to the point where I felt my skin became dry and cracked. I was surprised that the Toyota didn’t break down from the blazing heat.
I looked at Angel, facing the opposite window that I was. His eyes glowed with the sunny rays entering his pupils. His face looked tight, as if there was a big war coming. Maybe what the driver said to us was getting to him. How were we supposed to survive the war we’re about to enter? We’re about to walk in the middle of a riot. I didn’t see how this was any better to where I was before, chained and slowly dying.
“Here you are.” I looked up and saw a small white building with people walking to and from different buses. The buses were old and dirty, but they had the Mercedes logo, which surprised me. The building was only one story, but there were men sitting on the roof looking down at the passengers. Nothing but the buses indicated that this was a bus station.
Angel pulled out some local money and paid the taxi. We stepped out and he pulled our duffle bag over his shoulder. The sun began to prickle my skin; the wind was making my hair fly all over the place, so I pulled my hat lower. We made it inside and walked towards the cashier. The cashier was a man with an overgrown beard and a few missing teeth. The inside was just as bland as the outside. The floor was made of grey cement. The chairs were made out of white plastic, and there were only a few phone booths with rundown stools by each one. The fabric was coming off the chairs, and the stuffing was pouring out.
The cashier looked at us so Angel cleared his throat and said, “We need to buy two tickets to Pakistan.”
The man laughed, showing me that there were more missing teeth in the back than in the front. “Haven’t you been watching the news? Not happening. All the traffic to and from Pakistan is postponed.”
“When will it be
possible to cross?” he asked, lowering his voice and moving closer.
“As of right now, there’s no definite date. One week, maybe two.”
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, trying to control his anger. He was not very good at it though. He reopened his eyes and said, “Fine. Two tickets to Iran.”
The man shakes his head and mumbles something we didn’t understand but gave us the tickets. Angel took them and walked towards a pay phone on the corner. He put a few coins in it and dialed. He closed his eyes again and leaned against the wall.
“Hey,” he said softly after a few seconds of waiting. “Is Captain there? I just wanted to report in,” he said in a deep husky voice. “I lost my earpiece in a car bombing.” There was a small pause and he smiled, a smile that would make any woman melt at his feet. “Right, as if that’s going to happen anytime soon.” There was another pause where he half smiled, his eyes shining in the process. “You miss me?” Pause. “Okay, I’ll wait.” He waited again and a deep voice emerged.
“The Ruby is fine, sir, but we ran into a few roadblocks.” He told the person on the other end of the phone about our situation in his professional voice, not the sexy one he’d just used. Then he said, “I know about the war in Iraq. I’m going to try to avoid it. I’m thinking if we head towards Europe the heat will cool down. I’ll keep you posted. I lost my earpiece so I’ll contact you as soon as I can,” he assured his listener and hung up.
We sat down on the benches and waited for the bus. He looked ahead, clearly annoyed about the whole situation. Arms crossed and poker face on duty. And I just didn’t have it in me to begin to ask questions. I didn’t need him to tell me about the mess we were about to enter. We’re stuck in the middle of a giant war in the Middle East. No matter which way we turned, we were going to walk into trouble.
My Sweet Escape: A Touched by an Angel Novel Page 5