All the Way Back Home (The Rain Collective Book 6) by J.R. Rain

Author:J.R. Rain [Rain, J.R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Rain Press
Published: 2019-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

Mahdi’s crooked-toothed smile hovered over me.

Why it hovered over me, I hadn’t a clue. In fact, it took many confused and frantic seconds for me to remember the fighting pit, the leopard, the slave girl, and Ahmed’s final shot.

“Where am I?” I asked, certain I was hallucinating. Or dead.

“Relax,” Mahdi said in a soothing voice, placing a hand on my chest. “It is too soon for you to move.”

“Where’s War Daddy? The kidnapped girl?”

“You mean t?” asked a voice as a familiar face hovered next to Mahdi’s, the beautiful woman I hadn’t been able to get out of my head ever since she disappeared into that Mercedes.

I tried to smile. “Yes. And War Daddy…” I began, but stopped short when his cold nose pushed up under my hand. I automatically scratched behind his ears. Though he didn’t appear to be nearly as strong as normal, the glimmering spark remained in his eyes.

For a second I got the strangest feeling of contentment from him, along with an exasperated sense of fatigue… like he’d done something that should’ve been much easier, but had to go the hard route.

Since, again, that struck me as an awful lot to infer simply from making eye contact with a dog, I filed it away as a result of my overactive imagination.

Mahdi said, “He’s been right here beside your bed the whole time. He hasn’t moved, even to eat or drink.”

“But he was wounded, and I was shot…”

The girl knelt next to me, her almond-shaped eyes alive and bright, her headscarf loose. “Do you want to hear the story or continue to try to guess what happened?” She had the unique ability to speak and laugh at the same time. As if the laughter formed the basis of her words. I knew it was a sound that I could grow to love. Her shocking fluency with English also surprised me, despite the strong accent.

“Point taken,” I said. “Okay, hit me. Tell me what happened.”

“As soon as you rushed the slave trader, your dog leaped through the air. Ahmed flinched, and the bullet only grazed your skull, knocking you unconscious.”

“And Ahmed?” I asked, feeling around the bandage on my head.

“His throat was torn out.”

“Mercy.” I whistled.

“Apparently, we had arrived in the middle of an armed conflict between black market traders. Good for us, because we escaped amid the chaos.” She paused, perhaps to ascertain that I was still cognizant. I nodded, and she smiled. “A curious man and a boy helped me get you up onto one of your own camels—apparently, the man recognized them. I sat behind you and held you from falling off. The boy and dog rode on a camel of their own. Your second camel trailed behind, still carrying your gear.”

The thought of having her holding me, though it was completely out of place at the moment, struck me as being something that I wouldn’t object to.

She continued her story, telling me how the three of them had traveled throughout the night and all the next day, and had arrived at an oasis very early the following morning.

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