His Princess (A Royal Romance)(7)

The truck slows to a crawl as it ascends, for another hour at least. I could definitely jump off and run now, but then I’d be trapped in these mountains with no food, no water, and no way to call for help or contact anyone. The border is somewhere in the mountains and while I don’t think we’ve passed it, it must be close. I can feel its presence, like an invisible breeze gusting over my shoulders.





2





By the time we draw close to the camp, I’ve settled between two crates. A couple of times I look over my shoulder and see a thin line of dirt, some rocks, and a sheer drop of about five hundred feet and growing. They picked a good place to set up their camp. It’s too small to be accessible by air, and can only be reached by one narrow road. If they’re well supplied they could withstand an extended siege.

Or get blown to hell by missiles and bombs. I can’t believe this is happening. Penny, you stupid, stupid girl, of course you’d end up like this.

I’m never going home. When my parents don’t get their phone call next week they’ll call the church and demand an explanation, and a sincere, warm pastor with a buttery voice and a calm manner will tell them that the Lord works in mysterious ways and if they pray hard enough, he will see fit to guide me back to safety.

My mom will sit in the kitchen and tear towels apart with her hands and my dad will soldier on and keep going to work, like if he sticks to his routine hard enough, it will force the world to make sense again.

I’ve seen it before.

At five or six miles an hour, barely above idling, it takes hours to ascend the mountain slope. The road is cleverly concealed from below. You’d have no idea it was there if you didn’t know where it was. It saws from north to south up the steep grade. The truck groans and leans at the sharp hairpin turns before leveling out again, working its way up an almost vertical ascent.

Melissa holds Brad’s hand while we ride up. He smiles at her reassuringly and pats her hand, which for her is probably like a hand down her shirt. I can see her just melting under his gaze, and I half believe he’s completely sincere and thinks this is a great idea and doesn’t realize the danger he’s put us all in.

We’re all going to die.

The road levels out again. Ahead there’s a pair of men smoking cigarettes, milling around a wooden gate. The truck driver waves and they pull the big rickety gates open, and we slow. The truck drives very slowly over a little wooden bridge that’s clearly designed to collapse if something heavier rolls over it, so whatever it is will get stuck in a trench. On the other side of the gate, machine guns that look like they came off the set of a World War II movie sit on tripods, aimed at the gate. Bored-looking soldiers in a mishmash of military garb, sweat clothes, and rags shiver behind them.

It’s maybe fifteen degrees cooler in the mountains. I’ve started to shiver and goose bumps have raised up on my legs. Melissa is fine in her long dress. Brad doesn’t seem the worse for wear at all. She leans in under his arm and strokes his chest, forgetting herself as he toys with her hair.

She looks really happy. I hope we don’t all get blown up over this.

The truck rounds a bend, threading between big rocks. More fighters mill around above, walking obscured paths with slung rifles and cigarettes glowing in the dark. There’s a second gate and then the camp.

It’s smaller than the village and aid-worker camp we left, more tightly packed, an assortment of tents of different colors and camouflage patterns under a huge ceiling of netting held up by poles and wires. The only thing poking out is the antenna on a radio shack nestled up against the rocks.

As far as I can tell there’s some barracks tents, some metal prefabs that look to be Cold War vintage, and one big tent, probably the mess hall and whatnot. The truck pulls to a stop and five or six of the fighters walk up with their Kalashnikovs on their backs and and start unloading the boxes. Brad jumps down and offers Melissa a hand.

I step down on my own, ignoring his offered help.

“When they get it unloaded we’re going back to camp, right?”

Brad eyes me. “Sure. This way first. Let’s warm up in the tent. I need to talk to some people. Stay close by me. You’ll be fine as long as they know you’re with me.”

I frown. That sounds like a warning. Why wouldn’t we be fine if we weren’t with him?

When I look around at the fighters, I get an inkling why. These guys are eyeing us both like pieces of meat, and I wish I’d worn something other than shorts. Their gaze on my legs makes my skin crawl, and Melissa whimpers when one of them passes close to her. She tucks up to Brad’s back as he walks toward a tent at the far end of the camp. I stay a couple steps behind, my head on a swivel.

The pressure in my skull grows with every step. This isn’t right. We’re not supposed to be here. My instincts are screaming shrilly at me: run, run, you dumb bitch, run now, but there’s nowhere to go. Brad got us in and I have to trust him to get us out.

That’s just great, Penny.

A metallic taste twists my mouth when I remember how I got here: at gunpoint. I lost track of the guy who waved the rifle at me back at camp. Nervously rubbing my arms, I duck inside the tent, close behind Brad.

It looks like the set of a cheesy eighties action movie. Faded map on the wall, cheap folding wooden tables and chairs, and some kind of officer in a more uniformy uniform seated behind the desk, poring over a different map with little pins stuck in it. He rises and offers Brad a hand but gruffly shouts at him in Kosztylan.