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Chapter 6

Layah dreamed of Khalil.

They’d met in Damascus, at the university where she attended medical school. He was studying law. She used to sit and read beneath an olive tree near her favorite café. She’d noticed him watching her one day, and she liked what she saw, so she’d left her book behind. He’d picked it up and followed her.

That was before he joined the Free Syrian Army. Before everything fell apart.

In her dream, she was following him. He was weaving through the crowded market, staying one step ahead of her. He skirted around traffic and ducked into an alleyway. He was tall and broad-shouldered, easy to spot but hard to catch. She ran after him and found a dark-haired stranger in his place.

She fell to her knees and wept.

Then his strong arms wrapped around her and she was safe again. She hugged him closer, clinging to his lean form. She pressed her lips to his warm neck. He inhaled a sharp breath.

She woke with a start, her limbs tangled with his. Her mouth on his skin. Only it wasn’t Khalil. It was Hudson. The two men were about the same size, with rangy builds, but they didn’t feel the same. Hudson’s body hummed with energy, as if he had a live wire inside him. A spark of passion, ready to ignite.

They didn’t smell the same, either. She didn’t remember what Khalil smelled like, but this wasn’t it. This was a heady combination of rough wool and male heat and earthy minerals. She moistened her lips, tasting salt. His grip tightened on her upper arms. A vein pulsed at the base of his throat, where her mouth had touched.

Sleeping with Hudson was a bad idea, but it wouldn’t ruin her reputation. Her marriage to Khalil had already done that.

She eased away from him, moving as far as she could in the cramped quarters of the tent. Although she’d attempted to keep as much distance between them as possible, they’d drifted together in the night.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was dreaming.”

“About your husband?”

“Yes.”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. It was chilly inside the tent, especially now that they’d separated. “How did he die?”

“He was shot on the outskirts of Palmyra with a group of opposition fighters.”

“He was in the rebel army?”

She nodded, swallowing past the lump in her throat. “He left the university to join them a few months before graduation. I begged him not to go. I said he would get shot the first week.” She sat forward and reached for her boots. “He lived more than a year.”

Hudson braced his weight on his elbows, watching as she tied her laces. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Her emotions were on edge, she was sore from the hike and she hadn’t slept well on the hard ground. He seemed impervious to discomfort, but he’d been trained for extremes. She couldn’t imagine the conditions he’d endured in the torture cell.

He didn’t ask any more questions. She unzipped the front flap and looked out. Aram was awake, keeping watch as dawn broke over the horizon. She could see her breath in the cold air. Before she left the tent, she grabbed her wool poncho.

It was still difficult to speak of Khalil, to dream of him and remember him. She’d loved him so much. After his death, she’d buried herself in work at the hospital in Damascus. They’d needed all the help they could get. The day of the air strikes, she’d stayed on duty for forty-eight hours. She’d seen things she could not bear. And, like many medical professionals before her, she’d fled the carnage and never returned.

She’d walked to Jordan. She’d worked in a tea house to pay for room and board. The weeks had passed in a blur of nothingness. Then she’d received the devastating news about her brother and his wife. She’d picked up the broken pieces of herself and returned to Syria, for Ashur’s sake. She’d planned to bring him back to Jordan, but the roads had become impassible. They could travel only one direction, toward their ravaged homeland.

She pushed aside the memories and collected water for breakfast. Hudson thought the refugees were ill-equipped for this journey, and they were. But they wouldn’t give up. Everyone here had a story of hardship and loss. A lifetime of diaspora. They were all seasoned warriors, the same as him.