Page 164 of Rescuing You

How could he be gone?

“Inside, ma’am. You need to get inside.”

The one who’d pulled her into the boat now dragged her toward a door. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the flames still rising.

And she thought of the friend of Michael’s who’d brought her to this boat. And the other one, the one who’d rescued Jasmine. Both of those men had swum back to Waleed’s boat and climbed aboard.

Joining the team already there.

She and her sister were alive at the cost of all those lives.

Jasmine tugged her arm. “Please, sister. We must.”

Leila lost all her fight. She backed into the small glass-enclosed space and sat on a bench near a table.

A simple dining table, where people would eat lunch and plan excursions and play games. And live their lives happily unaware of the evil everywhere.

Where was God?

Was Michael in His arms now?

How could she lose the same man twice in one day?

Jasmine held her close. “It’s okay. They’re going to find him. Listen to me, sister. They’re going to find him.”

Who was they? There was no they. There was Jasmine and Leila and the one man on the boat with them.

Even if some of those men had survived, they would only find Michael’s body. Maybe. But he’d worn no life jacket.

He would sink. Sink to the bottom of the sea.

Leila was sinking too. Losing hope. Because evil had won. Evil always won. And no matter how she tried to escape, it always found her.

Jasmine was praying aloud for all those men, her words rattling off in Arabic. “Rescue them, Lord. Bring them all home. You are able. Bring them up from the sea.”

Leila wanted to join the prayer. She couldn’t make herself speak past her clogged and swollen throat. But she tried to focus on the prayer.

Yes, Lord. Please.

A voice outside the small room. A shout.

She looked past the glass as the man in the boat helped another onto the deck.

And then another. And another.

Not all dead, then. Thank God for that.

But none of them would be Michael.

She closed her eyes, unable to watch, unwilling to be sorry at the sight of every face that wasn’t that of the man she loved. Each one of them mattered. Each one had risked his life for her and Jasmine.

Forgive me.

Save them, Lord. Save them all.

A wet hand wrapped around hers.

Water dripped onto her head.