I turned to look at him. He looked beat-up and out of gas. Still, I loved looking at his handsome face. I loved the way he was looking at me.
“Apologize for what?”
“For being such a rude bastard. For losing my temper today. For being inconsiderate to you.”
“Colin, you’re not that bad.”
“Nice of you to say, but I’m trying to apologize, for Christ’s sake. I need to.”
“Well, all right, then. I accept. You bastard.”
He laughed. I did, too. I forgot how achy and hungry and fatigued I was. Laughing with Colin was a new experience, and I liked it. A lot. I stepped in a little closer, and Colin put his arm around me, rested his hand at my waist. My arm went around him too.
And Colin kept talking.
“I want you to know something about me, Brigid. About ten years ago, when my daughter, Rebecca, was nine, something went wrong. We took her to our family doctor and then to the best neurologist around. And then to another neurologist in London. That was where we got an explanation for her headaches and seizures.
“Rebecca had a brain tumor in a very bad place. We were told it was inoperable, but I didn’t accept that. Well, why would I? I loved her, dearly. And I had this genius brain and my very talented hands.”
I nodded, and we kept walking north, our own path between the wall and the road. The streaked sky was like sundown over an ocean, or so I imagined it. The waning sun mirrored the sadness in Colin’s voice.
“I looked at her films,” he said. “I consulted with the cowards who refused to do the operation, then I signed the disclaimers and did the operation myself.”
He said, “Rebecca died on the table. It was horrible. I couldn’t bring her back, and, trust me, I did everything imaginable. After that, my wife divorced me. And from that point on, I divorced myself-from feeling anything.”
And then he stepped away from me, shook his head, wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.
“No excuse for bad manners, Brigid. But there’s the backstory,” he said.
I was looking for the right words to thank him for trusting me, to tell him that I was sorry for what he’d been through. I was forming some questions, too, but I never got the chance to ask them.
Chapter 11
ONE MINUTE, Colin and I were walking along the wall, toward the village. A moment later, trouble sped out of the dark. Tires squealed, and high beams bounced and flashed over the ground. The sound of whooping male voices and bursts of gunfire got louder as the all-terrain vehicle headed directly toward the gate to our settlement.
Which meant that it would drive right past us.
My feet wouldn’t move. I was utterly frozen in the headlights, but Colin, thank God, had wits enough for us both. He pushed me down and fell on top of me so that we were against the wall, faces to the ground. The deadly chattering of gunfire, the war whoops, and the roar of the motor were too close, and too real.
I didn’t think to pray. I was remembering the stacked bodies outside our gates, and then, while bullets pinged into the wall right above my head, my mind was flooded with vivid images of people I would never see again.
The gunfire amped up and seemed to come from all directions. Shouts turned into screams, and then the racing motor struggled, as though the vehicle was trying to get traction in the dirt. Wheels spun furiously, and then, finally, the wheels grabbed the ground, and the vehicle sped back the way it had come.
There was total silence. My eyes were still covered. I was still pinned by Colin’s body, and now I was aware of his breath on my cheek, his elbows in my back, the whole weight of him.
And then he rolled off me.
“Brigid. Say something. Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
He helped me up, and boys from our camp flowed around us, all of them bright eyed and exhilarated.
The one grabbing at my arms was Andrew.
“Did you see? We stopped them. I shot one of them. I shot out the tires, too.”
“Thank you, young men,” Colin said. “You saved us. You saved our arses.”
I was still panting from adrenaline overload, and blood was hammering against my eardrums. Colin was talking to me, but I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.
I looked into his eyes, and he said it again.
“I’m sorry, Brigid. I’m a damned fool for taking you out here. You should get the hell away from me.”
And then he put his arms around me and held me against him from hip to toe and back up to where my cheek rested against his collarbone.
He said, “I’ve wanted to do this from the moment I first saw you.”
I didn’t say it, but I’d had the same thought since the moment I first saw him.
Chapter 12
THE YOUNG men and boys circled back, jumped up and down around us, laughing, one of them, Nadir, shouting out, “Ba-bam. Ba-bam-bam. I got you. I killed you, dead.”
Nadir was about fourteen, spunky and irrepressible, even in a place as hopeless as this. He had befriended the doctors and often went on supply runs to the village with Colin and Jimmy. Now he volunteered to escort us back to the gates.
“Doctors. Stay close to me. Please pick up your feet and keep up.”
“Right behind you, Nadir,” Colin said. “Lead the way.”
Nadir said, “Dr. Whitehead. Next time we go for a run, I sit in the front seat. Shotgun, right?”
“Okay.”
“You fixed my arm. You remember?”
“I’ve fixed a lot of broken arms,” said Colin.
“Look at it again.”
Nadir pulled up his sleeve to show off a shiny scar. Then he made the scar jump when he flexed his muscle.
“Nice,” said Colin. “I did a pretty good job.”
By the time we had walked through the gates, my heart rate had slowed. Nadir waved good-bye and drifted into a pack of other young men. Colin took my hand, which caused my heart to pick up speed again.
We walked the dirt track toward our compound, acknowledging the waves and hellos from people crouched outside the tukuls at the edge of the track. But I couldn’t think of anything to say to Colin that wouldn’t sound forced or lame.
When we got to the women’s dorm, Colin took both my hands and looked at me as though he was looking into me. I thought maybe he would kiss me again. Maybe he’d come up with an awkward excuse to come inside my toaster oven of a room.
But, no.
He released my hands and said, “See you in the morning, Brigid. Sleep well.”
“You too, Colin.”
I watched the target on his back recede, and when Colin had rounded the corner of the building, I went inside. I washed and prepared for sleep, and I pushed thoughts of Colin Whitehead out of my mind. I prayed.
Thank you, Lord, for giving me another day, for saving Colin and me and all of those brave little boys. Please bless this camp and give us the strength to care for these good people. And please speak a little more plainly. I’m not sure what I’m meant to do.
I had just said amen when there was an urgent knock on my door.
Was it Colin?
I cracked the door. It was a little girl in a thin dress, her hair in braids, a very worried look on her face. Jemilla.
“Honey, I’ve told you. I need to sleep, and I really can’t rest when you are in bed with me.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “The BLM soldiers have pulled up their tents and left, Dr. Brigid. I found this stuck between the links in the fence. I don’t know who to give it to.”
On a sheet of plain paper was written the letter Z. This was the signature of Colonel Dage Zuberi, the leader of the Grays, the man who had directed massacres across sub-Saharan Africa and the one who was behind the recent slaughter of our BLM soldiers.
The note was stark and unambiguous. We were marked for death. I opened the door wider, grabbed Jemilla by the arm, pulled her into my room, and shut the door.