Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,35

happened?

The haze in Wara’s mind suddenly drifted away and she dragged herself to sitting. The guy with coffee-colored skin stalked over to a backpack in the corner, yanked out a gray t-shirt and pulled it over his head. He eyed her, then lowered himself to sitting at the other end of the sleeping bag.

“My name is Paulo,” he said. “You should sleep.”

There was no way she felt like going to sleep right now. In this tent, with him.

“Someone said something about a bomb,” she blurted out, needing to understand what kind of situation she was in here. “Please at least tell me what’s going on.”

Paulo pressed his lips together and folded his arms across his chest, looking even more dangerous. Wara fought not to shrink back. “There was a bomb on the bus,” he said finally. “It was in a package that we mailed freight to La Paz. You and Noah had nothing to do with it. You were an accident. You weren’t supposed to be there.”

Wara stared, dumbfounded. “But, why? Why would you…what…?”

How could she say, Why did you do this to us?

Paulo sighed. “There are a lot of things I can’t explain to you. You weren’t supposed to be there, but you were. And now you’re a witness.”

Icy fingers ran down Wara’s arms.

So, what? They were just going to kill her?

“So you’re just planning on killing me too. Like right now? What are you waiting for?” That came out sounding much too hysterical, but Wara was really scared.

Paulo’s eyebrows lowered even more and he uncrossed his legs and rested his forearms on raised knees. “I would have had the guys just leave you on the road, for someone to find and take to the hospital. You never would have known a thing.”

Was it her imagination or did he actually wince hearing his own words?

“But you got brought here,” he continued, “and so now everything is more complicated. If we let you go, that causes some major problems for us. I’m going to do the best I can to think up a solution for this, ok? But no promises.” She just then noticed that this guy called Paulo had a water bottle in one hand, which he held out to her.

“Take these.” Wara felt her eyes narrow in suspicion at the sight of two huge white pills on his palm. “It’s Ibuprofen,” he said, mouth twisting wryly. She took the medicine silently, draining half a bottle of water. She was so thirsty.

“You’re sure you’re not bleeding?”

The question made her furious as she thought about Noah: where he was, if he was hurt right now.

Bleeding.

She was just fine. For now.

But when Paulo pulled on a sweater and stretched himself out on the tent floor as if to sleep, claustrophobia set in. “I’ll have to wake you up every hour,” he informed her. “Since you could have a concussion. And just so you know, we have motion detectors around our camp. Don’t try to escape. We’ll catch you.”

And Paulo switched off the camping lamp. It was pitch black in the tent, but she heard his even breathing, imagined him already sleeping, not affected at all by the way he had just destroyed her life.

Sorrow gripped her chest like a vise and she let herself sink back into the sleeping bag. She twisted the silver ring on her finger, feeling she was really in a dream.

In the real world, girls like her didn’t survive bus crashes and get dragged off by a bunch of crazy guys as their prisoner.

In the real world, nice guys like Noah didn’t still love girls like her when they found out who they really were. Or give them silver rings.

Noah. Oh Noah. How could you do that?

She felt herself sinking into the ground, asleep in the tent somewhere under the stars, and in her dreams she was back in Cochabamba in Café Amara with Noah.

It was three in the afternoon a few months ago, and the café was nearly empty. Bittersweet chocolate and coffee from Coroico scented the air, fairly dripping from the lime green silk plastered on the walls. Sweet corn mixed with white cheese and anise wafted from the kitchen, where Dona Filomena, the Quechua lady who wore perpetual smile creases around her obsidian eyes, was boiling humintas in an enormous dented pot. Wara always imagined her in there, praying under her breath in tongues while she cooked or washed dishes, wide velvet pollera skirt swaying against the counter.

Across from Wara at a smooth wooden