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"It’s not all about you, babe, and trust me, you don’t have a corner on theyourself" He toyed with the end of her ponytail, tugging lightly "Hey, where’s the Stella I know? The tough cookie who chewed o because I didn’t show up earlier?"

"That was just the hypoglycear and all" She rolled the lip ballass of OJ and I’ll be ain"

"Chipper?" He snorted softly "Not a word I would think could be found on any of your agency psych profiles"

"Psych shht "It’s my job to pretend to be the person of the day Maybe chipper wasn’t on thear"

"Another protein bar?"

"I’ry I’ll even eat that" She extended her palernails cracked and torn

He passed over a peanut butter crunch bar and not for the first time wished he had ot captured"

"I’ll talk in debrief" She tore open the wrapper "You don’t have a need to know"

She bit off a quarter of the bar and chewed,a word more than she wanted And that fast he saw her find that strength he’d been nudging her for, except she used it to put space between thereen eyes and she crab walked toward the lean-to with the rest of her protein bar

What wasn’t she telling him?

His mind churned with horrors and he had no one to blaht to press her for answers

Ajaya curled up under the floor of the compound where they’d held those A, but he didn’t dare get up even though he’d stopped hearing Ao Now the revolutionaries had co If they found hiain Shoot people Get shot at The punish…?

His throat burned with puke

Sweat trickled down his head and into theoff his body from more than heat A scorpion scrabbled past him fast and he didn’t so much as flinch He was scared to death Not of the lethal sting He was scared to hope he could escape today

No s No ht o, forced to join their "army" His first kill had been with a knife Then they’d rewarded hiun Every time they made him shoot, made him kill, he vowed to be the best so he could turn the weapon on theined what it would have been like to have this gun earlier to protect hiswith his father He would have used that gun to take his family somewhere safe

Ajaya came from a Sanskrit word, jaya, victorious Unconquered

What a joke

He was cowering in this stinky cubby like a scared rabbit The past eight er They had only made hi to h with their plan to ht yes, he could even do that

The Alish and shooting guards, they didn’t knohat they’d taken with theh a crack They’d stuffed stolen artifacts in their clothes and packs, maybe to protect themselves, maybe to sell The Americans had no idea what the bastards would do once they realized what the A either since it would be the first thing they looked for They were already tearing apart the co for it, the key to their plans to set off so horrible at the American embassy

Except it wasn’t here If he could find it, he finally would have so he could sell, a ticket out

He was scared, but he had skills now and he had an advantage He knehich way those four Aet what he needed and barter it for enough o to India and study Sanskrit He would be a student, not a soldier

Although first, he had to be a soldier just a little while longer Ajaya clutched his rifle to his chest and focused on ies of his mother, his sister, and little brother He envisioned the than re their dead, bloody bodies as he’d hidden in the scrub brush, stuffing a fist in his mouth to stifle his screams

And he realized he wasn’t a scared rabbit now after all He was a cornered lion, ready to kill

Chapter 4

Stella curled up with the woven cloth around her, deterth in case they had to evade for any length of tied the cottony fabric tighter around her again It see so beautiful, so carefully woven, for protection against night crawlies, but she was practical She needed to rest, so she cocooned herself in the rectangular kanga