My Soul to Take (30 page)

“You’ll piss me off if you make me do this the hard way,” Harley said.

The first morning after Marcus was gone, he’d had to literally drag her to the interrogation room. She’d been out of her mind that day. She was still out of her mind, but she’d learned how to hide it better.

Harley didn’t seem like himself. He was the only one who scared her, who shouted at her and stood close enough to pose a physical threat, but Harley was a professional. He didn’t start out in a bad mood.

“No,” Phoenix said. “I’m up, see? I’m ready. I thought of something I forgot to tell you—it’s the whole thing. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before now. And then you’ll bring Marcus back? And let us go?”

Phoenix didn’t recognize her own voice anymore. A blathering jellyfish.

“That’s what you said yesterday, Mrs. Harris,” Harley said, shrugging. He cuffed her hands behind her back, too tightly. That wasn’t like Harley either, using such a low street cop’s trick. Harley was
yes, ma’am
and
no, ma’am
even when his eyes had a different message.

Phoenix realized she could smell the sour spice of Harley’s day-old deodorant. He was standing too close to her, a mound of body heat. Harley ran his palm across the top of Phoenix’s head, lingering at her neck. It was an intimate touch, one she saved for Carlos.

“You know, your cold’s not getting any better,” Harley said. “You need to get out of this hellhole before you really get sick.” His words were tender, but his voice was not.

“Carlos is all right?” she said, hoping to tempt him to say the
words. Waiting for Harley to answer made Phoenix so anxious that she started coughing. “There’s a palace, maybe a church, high on a hilltop …” she began, breathless. A wheeze.

“Save it for the room,” he said, leading her into the hall. “Let’s get it on tape.”

Until then, Phoenix hadn’t been sure they would leave her cell, with Harley’s mood so strange. Relief quivered her knees. She didn’t want to be locked in her cell with him.

As he pulled her into the hall, Harley ran his hand across her scalp again, and farther down her neck. Caressed her shoulder blades. He always touched her in ways she didn’t like, subtle taps on her kneecaps now and then, but his hand felt heavy and purposeful now.

“There’s a valley below the church, or maybe it’s a palace …” Phoenix said.

Harley’s hand slid casually across her lower back as he walked her briskly down the hall.

“You’d say anything to get out of here today,” Harley said.

“All this time, I was looking in the wrong place,” she said. “It’s the
dream
I should have looked at. I’ve had the dream more than once. I had it the first time the night of the raid, when I was brought here. I should have realized …” Her teeth were chattering.

Two soldiers were waiting in the elevator. The dark-haired one had a mustache, the one who brought her oatmeal and stale bread occasionally, making jokes about room service. She had never seen the younger soldier, who was about twenty-four, badly sunburned, his carrot-colored hair shaved into a crewcut. The new soldier was husky, but he watched Harley with trepidation, taking a step back. Neither soldier met her eyes.

Harley led her inside the elevator, his hand pressing harder against her back. Phoenix despised Harley’s touch, but at least his hand was warm.

The elevator door opened, and Harley’s hand guided her out. The last door on the right loomed at the end of the hall. Would they be alone? Was there a camera in the interrogation room? His two hundred fifty pounds could crush her.

It didn’t matter, she tried to tell herself. Nothing Harley could do to her body was worse than Marcus being away from her.

“No time to drag your feet now,” Harley said.

“I’m not dragging,” she said. “Let’s get this done quick, real fast, so I can go. I’ll tell you all about the palace. It’s … Spanish, maybe….”

“This isn’t a good day for you to jerk me around, princess. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Her feet
were
dragging. He lifted her by her armpits every few steps to keep her walking. Her weight was nothing for him to carry, but she knew that if she didn’t walk faster, he would fling her over his shoulder the way he had the day they took Marcus.
And then he’ll rape me as soon as he closes the door
.

It was more than a premonition; it was just a hard fact. She’d never had those thoughts about Harley, who was stern and loud, sometimes, but always professional. Harley had changed.

“Just—just give me a chance to tell you,” she said. “It’s all in my dream.”

“Walk.”
His grip around her arm was a clamp. The suddenness of the pressure made her realize he could snap her arm in half.

“Ow!”
she said. “There’s no reason to hurt me. I said I’ll tell you all about it!”

Phoenix saw moral outrage in the younger soldier’s eyes. He was scared for her.

Phoenix’s own fear caught in her throat, and she started coughing again. This time, Harley shoved her. She flew ahead three steps, nearly losing her balance against the wall.

“Uh, sir …” the younger soldier began, before he’d planned out what he would say.

“Mind your goddamn business,” Harley said.

As if to punish Phoenix instead, Harley leaned against her, pinning her to the wall with his weight while he pulled out his key card for the interrogation room. He was so big, he smothered her light. Her insides gave a spasm from the effort of coughing against his bulk.

Through the crook of Harley’s arm, Phoenix saw the soldier
staring at her, flinching as his instincts told him to help her. His jaw was shaking, he was so mad. Or scared. Phoenix didn’t know which. Maybe, like her, his rage and fear were tied together so closely that they were impossible to pull apart.

“You think you’ve got the guts for my job?” Harley said to the soldier.

“No, sir,” the soldier said quickly, and the second soldier shot him a cutting glare. The soldier with the mustache had never had a problem seeing Phoenix as a prisoner. Maybe he’d seen worse. Maybe he had done worse to Carlos.

“You think we should sit back and let this spoiled, crazy bitch open our doors to bioterrorists?” Harley said. He leaned harder, and one of Phoenix’s joints cracked. The soldiers heard it, too. Phoenix’s body was too compressed to feel new pain. Harley had never called her names before. He sounded as if he were talking about someone else.
Becoming
someone else.

“No, sir,” the soldier said in a small voice. “I don’t think that at all.”

The panel glowed green with approval. Phoenix heard the door click open.

“Got any other quandaries you want to chat about, dogshit?” Harley said.

“No, sir.”

Phoenix gave the soldier a smile that she hoped was more than miserable. “It’s okay,” she wheezed through her cough. “I’m stronger … than I look.”

The pep talk won her a punch in the stomach with an impact like being hit by a car, ramming her spine against the wall. Phoenix had never been punched so hard. She sucked in a long gasp while her lungs tried to remember how to breathe. Red and black spots cartwheeled before her eyes.

Her legs were gone now, or seemed to be. She couldn’t move, much less walk.

“Still feeling strong?” Harley said, his breath hot and full in her ear. His gums smelled infected and his breath stank of coffee, but Phoenix inhaled his odors, hoarding the air.

He dragged her beneath her armpits, clawlike fingertips digging. Instinct made her feet scrabble against the floor. The orange-haired soldier’s apologetic eyes were the last thing Phoenix saw before Harley pulled her into the interrogation room and closed the door.

This door was metal, not glass. No one could see in or out.

Phoenix braced for another blow, or Harley’s hands tearing at her clothes.

Instead, Harley gave out a strangled grunt, and melted to the floor at her feet. To Phoenix, it looked as if someone had pulled a plug and deflated him. His huge palm, which had stroked her back only moments before, flopped open. His key card skittered under the table.

Phoenix stared at him in confusion until she saw the ring of blood across his neck.

Two masked black soldiers stood behind her in green fatigues, out of sight from the doorway. One of the men was nearly as big as Harley. The other man was slender, holding a bloodied knife. The big man raised a gun, pointing toward the empty wall beside the door. Phoenix realized he meant to shoot at the other two soldiers through the solid concrete.

“No!” she said. “He—”

But her call came too late. The gun made a sound like two puffs of air, virtually a whisper. Two holes appeared in the wall, three feet apart. Chest level. The masked man had aimed directly at the soldiers’ hearts.

“The lioness and lion meet …”

Phoenix sang instead of screaming.

DON’T BE AFRAID
, Fana’s voice said in her head.
THEY WON’T HURT YOU
.

The voice made Phoenix’s eyes snap open. She was still being carried over the big soldier’s shoulder, her sore stomach and bruised ribs chafing against him with every jouncing step. The men spoke to each other in a rapid-fire language she didn’t know. Despite their uniforms, they weren’t American.

Where was Fana? How could she hear Fana’s voice? Was she dreaming?

The big man called out a warning in a commanding basso. The man leading them, the one with the knife, dove across the floor, reaching the end of the hall in time to surprise a man rounding a corner in a three-piece suit. The soldier plunged a knife into his neck, once on each side, so efficient it was like an illusion. Blood spurted in twin fountains. The dead man didn’t have time to make a sound before he was on the floor.

No!
Phoenix tried to say.
Not for me. No more killing for me
.

DO NOT BE AFRAID
, Fana’s voice said.
YOU’LL SEE MARCUS AND CARLOS SOON
.

Red lights were flashing in the hall, silent alarms. More urgent whispers from the soldiers, and she was jounced in yet another direction. The soldiers were running up the stairs, talking back and forth, increasingly agitated.

What if she was sent to her cell again? What if these men were worse than the last?

Phoenix felt herself swooning, her consciousness fading into a wave of panic. Each jolt up the steps was a new blow to her stomach. She wanted the soldier to put her down on her feet so she could stumble some kind of way on her own. She wriggled, but his iron arm held her.

DO NOT BE AFRAID
, Fana’s voice said.
LET ME HELP YOU BE LESS AFRAID
.

Yes, yes, yes
, Phoenix thought.
Please. I’m hurt
.

It was as if Fana’s voice was the voice she had been looking for when she tried to talk to God. Time had taught her to be satisfied with silence when she really needed to think God was there—in the cell downstairs, and when her mother had been screaming in pain at the hospital. But sometimes she’d thought the silence meant that no one and nothing was listening. Deep down, she’d wondered if it was foolish to believe anything else.

Not anymore. Fana was listening.

Phoenix asked Fana to take away her fear, and fear receded like a Miami Beach tide racing away so quickly that the loss of it made
her woozy. Alertness and euphoria filled the void: Fana was rescuing her! She was free! The pain from Harley’s punch was still there, but it wasn’t nearly as bad without her fear.

The two men navigated the stairs in silence. Phoenix watched over her shoulder, missing nothing. The soldier in the lead took Harley’s key card and swiped it on the lock panel at the top of the stairs.

“I can walk,” Phoenix said as they waited for the card to register.

The soldier turned to look at her, only his eyes visible through his mask. She had met him before, she realized. He might be Fana’s father, almost too young for a teenage daughter.

“But can you run?” His English sounded American, but with an arresting exoticism.

“I … I think so.”

The light on the panel flickered in yellow. Quickly, he swiped the card again. This time, the panel glowed in green. The door clicked loudly, ready to open. The taller man gently rested her on her feet, holding her steady.

The man who might have been Fana’s father reached out to her. “Hold my hand,” he said.

Phoenix grabbed his gloved hand, grateful for his steady grip. The bigger soldier spoke quickly in their language again, but this time he seemed to be addressing someone who wasn’t in the room. A radio? The bigger man nodded to him, and Fana’s father opened the door, pushing hard against the sudden wind.

Outside, the sun shone as brightly as the star it was. Phoenix couldn’t see anything except brightness as she charged ahead, following the soldier’s sure grasp. The unearthly beating of wind whipped her T-shirt against her skin. A helicopter, she realized.

“Hurry!” Fana’s father said, pulling her along.

Phoenix’s tight stomach slowed her more than she’d expected, but she ran as fast as she could make her legs move. The slate-gray helicopter hadn’t quite landed, but the cabin door was wide open. Inside the cabin, a child beside the window was wrapped in a blanket, peering out.

Marcus?
Hope took the rest of her breath away.

“Yes—we have your son too!” Fana’s father shouted to her, urging her along.

Ten yards to run across the rooftop. Loose gravel tried to steal her footing as she craned to see the child better. Five yards. Phoenix couldn’t believe her son was there until—

The toothless grin came. “Mommy!” Marcus cried. She couldn’t quite hear him over the helicopter’s propellers, but she knew even slivers of her son’s voice.

The larger soldier hoisted her by her waist from behind, and suddenly Phoenix was tumbling into the cabin, the soldiers careful not to trample her as they climbed in after her. The cabin door slammed shut behind them, and Phoenix’s ears popped.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” Marcus was chanting, half laughing, half crying, his arms reaching out for her as he fought his seat belt. Phoenix collapsed into the middle seat beside him, blanketing him in her embrace. She sobbed as she touched his warm face, pressed her ear to his beating heart. No noise, no fear, no pain—only Marcus.