Prologue

Eight Years Ago

T he men's voices grew louder, and dread seeped into my bones. Huddled in a corner of the pitch-dark room, I tried to pick out some of the words, but they were not speaking in my language. "What are they saying?"

The other girl, the one I had barely caught a glimpse of when they had unlocked the door only long enough to toss me inside, did not speak.

She had not spoken more than a few sentences in the past…. I did not know how long we had been here. Days? Weeks? I could barely stand to think about how I had gotten here or the night I had been taken, and yet, it was all I thought about.

That and the American.

But English was not the language the men out there were arguing in.

The Arabic words gaining in speed and volume seemed to come closer to the outside of our door, and the growing panic that never eased tightened in my chest. "Please," I begged the other girl. "What are they saying?"

" Shh ," she warned. "Wait." Her Turkish was accented. I did not know where she had come from or what her name was—she would not tell me—but I was selfish enough to be grateful that I was not alone.

"Okay," I whispered back.

The arguing grew louder still, and all of a sudden, I picked out a single word that I knew. A word that sent more than fear rushing through my battered, aching, sleep-deprived body.

SEAL.

My panic made me speak. "Who are they talking about?"

"You," the girl barely murmured. "They are speaking about you."

Holding my secret but no longer knowing why, I still held it. There was nothing left to lose, other than my life, but this was not living. Yet, I still held it. I held it deep inside because it was mine and it was all I had left. But most of all because it was what I felt in my soul.

Keep my secret.

But it did not stop me from asking what I knew I should not. "Why?"

The girl did not have time to answer.

The arguing abruptly stopped, and two thumps echoed into the stale, windowless room.

Before I could ask her what was happening—as if she would know any more than I did—the door opened and dim light made my eyes water.

My heart beating to near extinction, trembling in fear, I rapidly blinked as the triangle shape of electric light that cut across the dirt floor was suddenly no longer a triangle.

Shadowed in outline like Iblis, a tall man with a large gun stood in the doorway.

Then his blue eyes fell on me and he spoke. "Let's go."

I stared in speechless shock.

He glanced over his shoulder, then back at me, his gaze taking in the length of my body. "Can you walk?"

The American.

My secret.

The American military man I had seen once before.

He was here.

Here .

I barely nodded, then I asked what I had not before. "Are you a SEAL?"

He hesitated. "Yes." Then he glanced behind him again. "We need to move."

The words registered, my mind awakened, a sharp breath filled my lungs, my body lunged forward, and I was scrambling to my feet. It was not until I was standing on my shaking, unused legs that I remembered. "There is another girl here."

The American SEAL had his gun pointed before the last words had passed my cracked lips. His gaze and his gun swept in an arc across the entire room. "Where?"

"Over—" My voice died as I took in the empty side of the room opposite of mine. "Sh-she was there. She was in that corner when they put me in here." I looked back at the American. "She has been here the whole time." But as I said the words, I thought about all the long silent hours, the unanswered questions, the lack of sleep sounds.

Stepping into the room, crossing it in two strides, the American SEAL used the tip of his long gun to push aside a pile of rumpled blankets.

A hole, barely large enough for someone my size to crawl through, was carved into the hard-packed dirt wall at ground level.

The girl was gone. "I do not lie."

The American was already to the door. "Hostage tactic." With his gun aimed, he quickly looked out.

"Tactic?" Hostage? No. I was being sold.

"Send in a decoy. Befriend you." He took a small device from the complicated vest on his chest and glanced at it.

"Why?" That did not make sense. All the women taken from my village were sold. This was what I had always heard. What I had seen. What I had avoided—until I had not.

He shoved the device back into the pocket he had retrieved it from. "They were trying to get you to talk." His focus returned to the cylindrical piece on top of his gun.

"About?"

He looked over his shoulder and the light caught his eyes, making them colorless. "Me." He glanced outside the room again, this time in both directions. "Moving." Pointing his gun, he stepped out of my prison.

I made to follow and almost tripped over two lifeless men lying on the ground. The two men who had taken me. Two men who had been a part of the group of insurgents that had killed my anne . Belated fear and unshed rage washed over me like a merciless winter wind, and for one beat of my heart, I froze. Then I was kicking.

"Stop. They're dead." A large, gloved hand gripped my arm and pulled me past the death.

Then the light faded, the hand dropped, and I smelled night air.

In his deep voice that was too quiet to be called a whisper, the American SEAL gave me an order. "Stay on my six."

I did not understand. Not any of it. My anne's death, why the American was here, how he had found me, why I had not been sold like all of the other young women who had been taken.

But all I could ask was "What?"

"Stay against my back."

My clothes filthy, my body dirtier, I did not protest, but I felt both shame and relief as I pressed as close to him as I could get without touching.

"Ready?"

I did not know for what, and I did not care. "Yes."

"Moving." The muscular American with the large gun and blue-gray eyes slipped into the night.

I followed.