Judged by Elise Noble

Author:Elise Noble
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Undercover Publishing Limited

CHAPTER 23 - ZIYA

MOTHER OF A goatherd, it was worse than I thought.

I realised Ro had been under a lot of strain these past few days, but until this evening, I thought he’d been holding it together. His nightmares had worried me, and now? Now, he’d cracked. Why else would he be standing in the hotel garden in his underwear? And who were those two men with him? The Americans he’d mentioned earlier?

I shrank back into the shadows as they headed in my direction. The black burqa I’d hurriedly pulled on made me all but invisible, but I still held my breath as they passed within six feet of me.

“Come and sit down, buddy,” the dark-haired man carrying Ro’s clothes said. “It might not be as bad as you think.”

The other guy steered Ro across the lawn towards the only room with a light on. Should I offer to help? Would Ro even want me to? I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt that he’d sought the comfort of strangers instead of talking to me. Did he think I was too fragile? Because that stung too. Hadn’t I proven that I was strong enough to cope during the journey from Deraz?

I used the cover of the scrawny trees as I crept closer and closer to the men’s room. A light breeze whispered through the overhanging branches, and I shivered, partly from the cold but mostly out of worry. On any other day, Ro would have sensed my presence, but tonight, he was oblivious. We still needed to travel to Kabul. How could we get there if Ro had lost his mind? The familiar sense of panic slithered its way up my throat, and for the thousandth time, I cursed Afghan men in general and Tabesh in particular. Without his deceit, we wouldn’t be in this position.

Inside, the strangers’ room looked the same as ours, except they had extra chairs and a small table. And a laptop, a slim, expensive-looking one. Did everyone from America have fancy computers? Even backpackers?

“Are they still watching?” Ro asked.

Who was “they”? I glanced around, but the only movement came from a bird swooping low towards the main building. Even the street sounds from outside seemed muted.

“Does it feel like they are?” the blond-haired man asked.

“How am I supposed to know? Twitchy is my normal operating state.”

Uh-oh. This didn’t sound good. Was he hearing voices? Seeing things? Ro snatched his trousers and began putting them on, and I definitely shouldn’t have felt that pang of disappointment. This was the first time I’d got a good look at his body, and I’d probably committed a thousand sins in the process.

What’s one more added to the list, Ziya?

“I’m not sure of the answer to that. Want a cup of tea?”

“The kettle doesn’t work,” the dark-haired man pointed out.

“Cola? Lemonade?”

“I don’t want a bloody drink; I want to scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon.”

This got worse and worse. Several years ago, I’d read a case study where a psychiatric patient tried to do just that.

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