“I have no idea.”
Emma unbuckled her seatbelt and twisted around, stretching to reach one of the bags in the back. “You’ve got everything back here. How did you get all of this together? You got out of the hospital five hours ago.”
Xander sighed. “You’re supposed to be navigating.”
“I am,” Emma said, still twisted, her voice shaking as they ran over a rocky patch of road. “I got you to this road, if you could call it that. Did I, or did I not?”
“Yes. Thank you very much. But…” He drew out the word. It had been a mistake to let her come along. “If you brought us to this road, then you should know what direction we’re going, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Emma said, muffled as she continued to rummage around the backseat. “The GPS says something different. That’s all.”
Xander locked his jaw and swerved to avoid a boulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Emma plopped roughly back down in her seat with a roll of toilet paper in her hand. She tugged off a square and wrapped it around the blob of gum.
“It means the GPS doesn’t match the map.”
Xander punched his foot down on the brake. The jeep skidded a few yards, the back of the vehicle turning to the side as it stopped.
“Give me the blasted satnav,” he growled and held out an open palm.
Emma shoved the device into his hand. She tried to hide it by looking out the window, but he didn’t miss her eye roll. Xander studied the screen. All it showed was a small car icon in the middle of a gray area, thin, white line slicing through it.
“Emma, you do realize it says no signal in the upper corner, right?”
Emma looked and scrunched her lips to one side. “Oh. No. Didn’t see that.”
Xander hit his fist on the steering wheel. “If we have to go back, I’m going to leave you on the highway.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Emma picked up the map and retraced their route with her fingertip. “Look, according to this, we should be about here.” She poked at it. “The GPS is stuck on whatever direction we were driving in when we lost the signal. Nothing to worry about.”
Xander took the map and inspected the lines. They were still on track. He dug a compass out of the glove box and set it on the dashboard. He’d have to do it the old-fashioned way.
“I know, you’re worried about Leila,” Emma said in a soothing voice, “but you’ve gotta hold it together.”
Xander pursed his lips, not in the mood to hear about his feelings and emotions from someone else. Hoping she’d drop the subject, he shifted the jeep back into gear and pressed down on the gas.
“She’s fine, don’t let yourself think otherwise,” Emma went on as she opened a granola bar wrapper. “I understand you won’t feel better until you actually see her, but maybe she found some help. Maybe she’s even making some new friends.”
“Thank you, Dr. Emma.”
“My pleasure.”
This was going to be a long trip.
CHAPTER 24
A small fire crackled inside a mound of sand like a miniature volcano. Gray wisps of smoke rose from the crater, filling the air with a woody fragrance. Leila huddled before it, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Amina sitting next to her. The chilly night air still seeped through. Leila drew the blanket closer.
Palm trees and shrubs grew around a small pond that reflected the glow of the fire on its mirrored surface. Three camels rested contentedly nearby, munching on their cud with the occasional growl, fully unaffected by the day’s events. After the incident with Tahir, Abdullah had taken the bottle with the journal pages from Amina. Then he chewed them out thoroughly for the entire one-hour journey to the oasis.
“I’m so sorry,” Amina said for the fiftieth time. “I never thought Tahir would do something like that. What if Abdullah hadn’t come? I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened. We would be in an awful, miserable, terrible—”
“But he did come,” Leila reminded her. She didn’t want to hear it anymore. “There’s no use in thinking about things that didn’t happen.”
Silence fell over them, the only sound the comforting crackle of the fire. Leila recalled the wrathful blaze in Abdullah’s eyes after he had flattened all of the goons, and another chill trickled down her spine. She never wanted to see that look again.
“Leila.” Amina’s voice softly broke the quiet. “I completely understand if you don’t want to do this. We can go back to camp and take you straight to Cairo instead.”
Leila gave her a sideways glance. Amina was giving her an out. She could see herself walking back into her apartment, sleeping in her own bed again, holding onto Xander… It all seemed like it was only possible in a dream now. But she owed Amina and Abdullah her life. Warmth stirred inside her. She didn’t just want to help Amina. She needed to.
“Saint Catherine is closer than Cairo,” she said, her voice threatening to crack. She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. “And I’ve already told my boyfriend I would be there. He could already be waiting for me.” Oh, how she hoped this was the case.
“Then we will continue to Saint Catherine,” Amina said, sliding a finger around the edges of a charred bullet hole in her aluminum pot. “But Abdullah was right. I shouldn’t have shown you the journal. It’s only brought us trouble.”
The flames danced and sparked. A piece of glowing ash floated away from the fire and slowly went out. Leila’s throat constricted. Without the journal, Amina’s dreams had once again been doused. Leila lifted her head and scanned the palm trees. They were alone.
“Where did he go, anyway?” she asked.
“He’s nearby somewhere.” Amina shrugged. “He prefers to be alone.”
Always angry. Always alone. “Is he always like this?”
“Pretty much.” Amina tossed the pot aside and picked up a stick. “He used to be happy, though.”
“Really? Hard to imagine.”
Amina straightened and glanced over both shoulders.
