Killing Sarai Read Free Page A

landmarks that I’ve seen are trees and the occasional stucco house or dilapidated building—it all looks the same as the compound.
    Thirty-two minutes in and I realize I’ve already lowered the gun at some point. My finger is still on the trigger and I’m ready to use it if I have to, but I was stupid to think I could hold it up pointed directly at him for longer than a few minutes.
    I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get tired. Thankfully the adrenaline is keeping me wide awake for now.
    “What’s your name?” I ask him, hoping to stir the silence.
    I need to get him to trust me, to want to help me.
    “My name is inconsequential.”
    “Why?”
    He doesn’t respond.
    I swallow a lump in my throat, but another one just forms in its place.
    “My name is Sarai.”
    Still no response.
    It kind of feels like torture, the way he ignores me. I’m beginning to think that is exactly what he’s doing: torturing me with silence.
    “I need you to help me,” I say. “I’ve been a prisoner of Javier’s since I was fourteen-years-old.”
    “And you assume I’m going to help you because I am also American,” he says simply.
    I hesitate before I answer, “I-I…well, why wouldn’t you?”
    “It is not my business to interfere.”
    “Then what is your business?” I ask with a trace of distaste. “To murder people in cold blood?”
    “Yes.”
    A shiver moves through my back.
    Not knowing what to say to something like that, or even if I should, I decide it’s best to change the subject.
    “Can you just get me across the border?” I ask, becoming more desperate. “I’ll—.” I lower my eyes in shame. “I’ll do whatever you want. But please, please just help me get over the border.” I feel tears trying to force their way to the surface, but I don’t want him to see me cry. I don’t know why, but I just can’t let him. And I know he understands what it means to do whatever he wants. I hate myself for offering my body to him, but like I said before about desperation….
    “If you are referring to the United States border,” he says and for some reason his voice surprises me, “then you must know the distance is longer than I care to have you in my car.”
    I raise my back from the seat just a little.
    “W-Well how long would you allow me?”
    I catch his dark eyes in the rearview mirror again. They lock on mine and this too sends a shiver through my back.
    He doesn’t answer.
    “Why won’t you help me?” I ask, finally accepting the fact that no matter what I say to him, it’s futile. And when he still doesn’t answer I say with exasperation, “Then pull over and let me out. I’ll walk the rest of the way myself.”
    I think his eyes just faintly smiled at me through the mirror. Yes, I’m positive that’s what I saw. He knows as well as I do that I’m better off getting dragged back to the compound than being let out of the car and on my own.
    “You will need more than the six bullets you have in that handgun.”
    “So then give me more bullets,” I say, getting angrier. “And this isn’t the only gun I have.”
    That seems to have piqued his interest, although small.
    “I took the rifle off the guard I hit over the head when I got past the fence.”
    He nods once, so subtly that if I would’ve blinked in that moment I never would’ve seen it.
    “It is a good start,” he says and then puts his eyes back on the dirt road for a moment and turns left at the end. “But what will you do when you run out? Because you will.”
    I hate him.
    “Then I’ll run.”
    “And they will catch you.”
    “Then I’ll stab them.”
    Suddenly, the American veers slowly off the road and stops the car.
    No, no, no! This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. I expected him to keep driving because he knew if he left me out here all alone like this that whatever happened to me would be on his conscience. But I guess he doesn’t have much of one. His dark eyes gaze evenly at me through the