So it wasn’t the house arrest guards who had taken her. It wasn’t the same people who were holding her parents that had grabbed her. And wasn’t that just something? Of course Turkey was in a political turmoil, what with all the factions fighting one another to take over as the ruling body. Even without all that going on, her father had made a lot of enemies. She was barely on talking terms with her father at all, but, for her mother, Zadie would do a lot.
And her mother’s health seemed to be failing, from little slips her mother had said about doctors and such. Sounded as if her mother needed medical attention, and she was unlikely to get the necessary care while she was under guard herself. If her parents had been left in exile, that’s one thing, but for the new government regime to keep them prisoner was something else entirely.
The new leader was also likely to prosecute her dad for crimes committed while he’d been in office. She didn’t know if he was innocent; she doubted it. Still, it was the perfect action of the new government to ensure that the old one couldn’t come back into power.
She shivered some more, knowing that her body was burning through every meager calorie her captors supplied, just to stay warm. She had already been lean, having practiced martial arts for a long time. Too bad she hadn’t kept it up.
She thought about her kidnapping, wondering if she could have done anything to prevent it. But they had used the element of surprise to drug her and to take her down.
An odd smell still remained on her skin and her breath, which her stomach hadn’t liked either. She had upchucked as soon as she’d initially woken up in her cell. Thankfully she made it to a bucket close by, but days later she still wasn’t doing well. And, while she slept that first night, her captors had removed the bucket. Which just meant that more drugs were in her system than she was aware of because she hadn’t woken up much since being jailed. Maybe the drugs themselves were part of the reason why she was so cold too.
Outside her cell she heard voices. She noted one window high up, with bars on the inside. Her door was solid with no windows or slits at all. She already knew that it would be useless to cry out, and the voices were from those who had no care for her. She didn’t even know why she was being held.
When a key clinked in the lock to the door, she forced herself to sit up, hugging her knees against her chest. She saw the tray come in first, and she hated the fact that she was so eager to get the food that she could forget everything else. But when two people came in, one in a white overcoat, she frowned. “Are you here to give me more drugs or something to stop me from freezing?” she said thickly, her tongue swollen and hard to operate.
The doctor immediately walked over and checked her vitals. “She is really sick,” he said to his companion. “She must have reacted to the drugs you gave her.”
The other man shrugged. “So what? It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” the doctor said. “If she dies on us, you will not get what you want either.”
“I’m not sure we should have taken her anyway,” her guard said. “Would have been better if we’d taken her parents.”
“Nobody cares about the parents either,” the doctor said. “This is another foolish venture of your brother’s.” At that, the guard glared at him. But the doctor shrugged and added, “You know I’m right.”
“He wants to get our father out of jail,” the guard said. “You can’t fault us for that.”
“By imprisoning another woman?” The doctor shook his head. “Especially this one. She is nothing but trouble. All you have to do is a Google search to see that!”
The analysis of her life up ’til now came down to those few short words. Nothing but trouble. “Is that all you think of me?” she asked. “I spent my life fighting injustice. And now I’m in the heart of it all.”
“And yet your father is the most corrupt,” her guard snapped.
She stared up at him. “I haven’t had anything to do with my father in many, many years. He was only president of the country for four years and leader of his party for two before that,” she said. “I haven’t lived at home for twelve, if not fourteen years by now,” she snapped back. “Are all children to blame for the sins of the father?”
“That’s what it says in the Bible,” the doctor said smoothly. He finished his tests and turned to the guard. “She needs something to warm her up. The drugs are having a terrible effect on her. She needs blankets, and she needs more clothing. Put that food down and go get her something,” he ordered.
The guard glared at him.
“She is too sick to even fight me off. Go.”
At that, the guard reluctantly lowered the tray to the floor and turned, but he locked them in as he left.
She stared at the doctor. “Thanks for that much, at least,” she said, her teeth chattering.
He looked at her, frowning. “I meant what I said. You are no good to us dead.”
“Apparently I’m no good to you alive either,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t understand why they would even kidnap me.”
“Prisoner exchange,” he said. “But I don’t think they chose their prisoner very well.”
She stared at that. “Who is running the show?” she asked. “And how long before I find out if it’s a deal or not?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “You might as well settle in for the ride. It will be a long one.”
He straightened when the door opened, and the guard walked back in, carrying a stack of blankets. He threw them at her. A large oversize hoodie was on top of it all. She immediately snatched that and pulled it over her head, tucking her knees up underneath. “I don’t suppose you brought any socks, did you?” And she pointed to her feet, turning blue.
He grumbled and disappeared but came back a little later with what appeared to be men’s socks. They had holes in them, but she took them. “Thank you,” she said gratefully, as she put them on. They came almost up to her knees. But it covered her feet, and that was what was important.
With the hoodie on, the socks, and the blanket wrapped around her, she just might survive. The doctor and the guard left. She leaned over to look at the tray they brought in. It appeared to be soup, a sandwich, and a cup of something. And now she didn’t have to worry about the food being drugged, what with her negative reaction to them. She was damn grateful to have the food. All she had to do was figure out how to get the hell out of here. She pulled out her phone and checked it, but she still had no bars to send a message. Probably why they let her keep her phone. They knew she could never use it.
Making as little movement as possible so she’d keep the blankets in place and the heat wrapped around her as much as she could, she pulled the tray onto her knees and settled back to enjoy her first meal in a long time.
Chapter 2
After Zadie finished eating, she put the tray on the floor and crawled up on the bed, pulling as many blankets as she could over the top of her head. She laid here, waiting. Afterward she pulled out her phone and started to write. She wrote down her experience since the beginning of her kidnapping. She took several photos to describe anything and everything that she could. She really wanted photos of her guard and the doctor. Somehow she had to take those when they weren’t looking.