Chapter 9
Hassan dragged her backward.
“You want your hero?” he said. “She will leave with me.”
Alexis looked at Major Reeve.
Then she looked toward the civilians disappearing into the service tunnel.
The teenage girl from the truck was there.
She was barefoot.
Shaking.
But alive.
That was enough.
Alexis breathed in.
Hassan whispered in her ear.
“You should have knelt.”
Alexis whispered back, “You should have watched my hands.”
Before he could react, she drove her heel down onto his foot and twisted out of his grip.
The rifle fired into the ceiling.
Concrete exploded overhead.
The operators moved.
Fast.
Clean.
In seconds, Hassan was on the ground with his hands forced behind his back.
His face was pressed into the same dirty floor where he had thrown Alexis’s ID.
Major Reeve kicked the rifle away.
Alexis staggered.
This time, her body almost gave out.
Reeve caught her before she fell.
For one second, she let herself lean against him.
Only one.
Then she pulled back.
“The civilians?”
“Moving out,” Reeve said. “Pilots too.”
Alexis nodded.
“Good.”
Reeve looked at her face.
“You let yourself get captured.”
Alexis glanced at Hassan on the floor.
“I got the address.”
Hassan lifted his head, breathing hard.
“You are nothing,” he spat.
Alexis turned.
Every prisoner in the corridor had stopped long enough to hear him.
The pilots.
The civilians.
The guards now cuffed against the wall.
The operators.
All of them watched.
Alexis walked back to Hassan slowly.
Her legs shook with every step.
But her voice was steady.
“You said one American woman wouldn’t last a week.”
She picked up her military ID from the floor.
Wiped the dirt from it with her thumb.
Then clipped it back to her vest.
May you like
“I only needed three days.”
Read Part 10 to see what happened when Alexis finally came home.
