Dictator s Daughter by Lorena Angell Page B

to. You’ve been
shot in the side. I had to stop the bleeding.”
    She took a shaky, shallow breath. “I’m sorry
for the trouble I have brought to your family. I never meant—” she
stopped.
    “Hey, we know the risks with taking in
defectors. Every crosser we have ever taken into our home brings
risk with them,” he reassured her.
    She turned her head back toward him, “My
situation is different than the general risks you’re used to
taking. I should have never tried to leave my country. I’ve only
ruined the lives around me.” She coughed a little.
    “You need to rest, try not to worry about
this right now. We’re safe.”
    “I’m so thirsty, and I hurt.”
    “I’ll get you some ice and painkillers.”
    When he came back, she had tears rolling down
her temples. He had brought a syringe of morphine with him and he
inserted in the IV. He didn’t know what to say to her, so he just
fed her ice chips with a spoon till she’d had enough. He put the
cup down and used the back of his fingers to wipe her tears away.
As he did so, she closed her eyes and he felt the warmth of her
skin.
    “Thank you,” she whispered, “there’s no one
else I’d rather be with right now.”
    The clock showed six o’clock. He changed her
IV bags as necessary and monitored her blood pressure and
temperature. She had reached ninety-eight degrees and he felt
relieved; but once it started to climb above that, he realized she
was probably in for a long haul. He went in the prep room and
looked through the medical books for ideas how to deal with
whatever was to come. The binder his mother had put together talked
about infection and antibiotics in a language he could actually
understand. He found what he needed and went back into the bedroom
with an antibiotic and injected it in her IV.
    He walked over to the dresser by the door and
rummaged through its contents until he found a pair of jogging
pants and a tee shirt to wear, then he went out to the kitchen and
poured himself a cup of coffee. He sat at the table and stared out
the window.
    It had been six hours now since they’d fled
the home. Why hadn’t anyone contacted him on the CB or phone? It
made him wonder what had happened back home. He knew better than to
call out, doing so would be too risky and might give their location
away. The strict rule of the cabin was, once you entered it, you
didn’t leave until someone contacted you or came to you.
Apparently, there had been problems with that in the past but Sean
didn’t know much about it.
    He got up and walked into the front room. In
these mountains, the radio reception was poor and television
reception was zero. He turned on the radio and scanned through the
static for a news channel he could hear. Once he found one, he
listened for a few minutes and turned it off. Nothing was said
concerning him, his family or Eliwese.
    Sean went back into the bedroom and sat down
in the armchair and laid his head back. His thoughts were swimming
and he closed his eyes. He had not meant to fall asleep, but he
did.
     
    “PLEASE DON’T KILL HER!” Her screaming
brought Sean out of his sleep and back to reality so fast he fell
out of the chair; he jumped up and scrambled to her. She was trying
to sit up and he pushed her back down noticing right away she was
hot to the touch.
    He glanced at his watch with horror knotting
up in his stomach as he realized he’d been asleep for four and a
half hours. It was eleven-thirty at night and the out of control
fever was his fault.
    She grabbed his wrists and pleaded with him.
“I’ll do anything, please, please don’t kill her!” She squeezed his
wrists hard with a terrified expression in her eyes. Sean was
confused and alarmed at the amount of heat coming out of her
hands.
    “Don’t kill whom?”
    She lay back breathing rapidly. “You have to
help me escape. I can’t take much more of this. I know you can do
it; you have connections across the border. I’ll pay whatever.”
    Sean picked