“Shit,” I murmur.
“What do we do?” Bomber says.
“We better get them out.”
Bomber is about to shoot the lock, but I stop him. I can feel something weighing down the pocket of the pants I stole from the guard upstairs. Fishing around, I find a set of keys.
I try each one in the lock, succeeding with the third. The door screeches open. The girls look up, terrified.
“Stay quiet, please!” I tell them in English.
I don’t speak Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, or any of the other Nigerian languages. I only memorized a few words of Kanuri for this job. So I’m just praying these girls learned English at school.
I can’t tell if they understand or if they’re just scared into silence. They stare at Bomber and me, wide-eyed and trembling.
I try the keys on the shackles around their ankles, but none seems to fit. Instead, I wriggle a rock out of the wall and lay their chain over top. Bomber smashes it with his rifle butt until the links part. I can’t remove the metal manacle around their ankles, but we can slip the chain out at least.
Putting my finger to my lips to remind the girls to stay quiet, we hustle them down the hall to the kitchen. Bomber peeks his head in first. He sneaks up behind the cook and hits him over the head with a serving platter, knocking the man onto one of the rice sacks Kambar brought just that afternoon.
I drop the girls down the refuse chute, one at a time. It smells fucking horrible.
Bomber wrinkles his nose.
“I don’t wanna go in there.”
I hear shouting up on the upper floor of the building. I think someone just found Nur’s body.
“Stay here and take your chances, then,” I tell him.
Holding up my rifle to keep it out of the muck, I drop down into the chute.
I slide down the dark, foul passageway, hoping against hope that it doesn’t narrow at any point. I can’t imagine anything worse than being trapped like a cork in a bottle in this disgusting place. Luckily, I slide all the way through.
“Look out!” I call ahead to the girls, not wanting to plow into any of them.
Now their clothes are filthy, streaked with grease and rotten food. I grab the hand of the smallest one, saying to the others, “Go!”
Bomber grabs two more by the hands and we run away across the barren ground, praying that the dark and the sparse scrub will conceal us. It’s good that the girls got so dirty—it helps mute the bright white of their socks and blouses.
I can hear the commotion back in the compound. The insurgents are running and shouting, searching the building for us, but lacking organization now that their boss is dead.
I’m trying to run as fast as I can, but the girls are slow. They’re limping along, barefoot and stiff from however long they were trapped in that room. They probably haven’t eaten.
“We’ve got to leave them,” Bomber barks at me. “We have to be at the pickup point in forty-one minutes or they’re gonna leave without us!”
It’s five miles away. There’s no chance these girls are going to be able to run at that pace. Not in their current state.
“We’re not leaving them,” I growl.
The soldiers are in chaos, but soon they’ll reorganize. They’ll head out with their Jeeps and their spotlights, trying to find us.
Crouching down, I motion for the biggest girl to climb on my back. I grab two more girls and set them on either hip.
“Are you insane?” Bomber says.
“Pick up those two, or I’ll fucking shoot you myself!” I shout at him.
Bomber shakes his head at me, his beefy face red with anger. But he picks up the other two girls. Bomber is built like a linebacker. I know he can carry a few more pounds.
We start jogging across the rough ground, the girls clinging to us with their skinny arms and legs.
Even though they’re small, I must be carrying over a hundred pounds. I don’t know what the fuck kids weigh, but these three seem to be increasing in mass by the minute.
Sweat is pouring off my skin, making it hard for them to hold on to me. Bomber is puffing and blowing like a hippo, too tired to even complain.
We run until my lungs are burning and legs are on fire.
“Two more miles,” Bomber gasps.
Fuck.
Each jolt of my feet sends pain shooting up my back. My hands are numb, trying to cling onto these kids. I’m scared I’m going to collapse and not be able to get up again.
I try to pretend I’m back in basic training, when I had to run ten miles with a forty-pound pack on my back. When I wasn’t accustomed to pushing my body, and I had no idea how far it could go.
I remember my first drill sergeant—Sergeant Price.
I picture him jogging beside me, screaming at me to not even think about slowing down.
“IF YOU DROP ONE GODDAMN STEP PRIVATE I WILL KICK YOU IN THE BALLS SO HARD YOU’LL SING LIKE MARIAH CAREY!”
Price knew how to motivate a guy.
At last, when I really think I can’t take another step, I hear the drone of the chopper. It floods me with new life.
“Almost there!” I say to Bomber.
He nods dully, sweat flying off his face.
The last little bit of ground is uphill. I carry those girls up that ridge like I’m Samwise Gamgee carrying Frodo to the volcano. It is both the best and worst moment of my life.
I lift them up into the chopper, one by one, wondering exactly how the hell I’m going to figure out where they came from and so I can get them home again.
“We don’t have the weight capacity for extra bodies!” the pilot snaps at me.
“Then chuck something out,” I tell him.
I’m not leaving those kids, after I carried them all that way.
The pilot throws out the med kit and a couple other boxes of supplies. Hopefully nothing too expensive—I’m probably gonna have to pay for all that.
Once Bomber and I are settled, the chopper lifts up into the air. The five girls huddle together on the floor, clinging to each other, more frightened by flying than by the rest of the escape. Only one has the courage to peek out the open doorway, to see the dark desert dropping away beneath us.
She looks up at me, big eyes shining in her round little face.
“Bird,” she mouths at me, in English. She links her thumbs together and flaps her fingers like wings.
“Yeah,” I grunt. “You’re a bird now.”
As we fly over Lake Chad, my cell buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out, surprised I’m getting service up here.
I’m even more surprised to see Dante’s name on the screen. Last time he called me, I ended up shot in the side. It gave me one of my nastiest scars yet.
I pick up anyway, saying, “Deuce. You better not be calling me for another favor.”
“Well . . . ” Dante laughs.
Deuce never used to laugh much. I think he’s doing it more now that he got his girl back.
Speaking of girls . . .
“Let me guess,” I say. “You’re calling me ‘cause Riona wants my number. It’s alright—I understand. The chemistry between us was palpable.”
“Well, she didn’t throw her drink in your face, so I guess by the standards of your usual interactions with women, it went pretty well . . . ”
I snort. I only met Riona Griffin one time, but she made an impression on me. You don’t see a girl that gorgeous very often. The fact that she’s arrogant and uptight and hates my guts just adds a little spice to the mix.