Page 4 of Finding Lexie
“I can walk,” he complained weakly.
“Yes, sir,” someone said in a Danish accent. “But why walk when we can carry you just as easily?”
“Where are we going?” Dagmar asked.
“The best option would be to go straight to the ship waiting off the coast of Somalia,” one of the other soldiers said. “But your brother paid for a doctor to be flown to Galkayo. He’s been there for a month, waiting for you to be released. Your brother was adamant that you go to the hospital there as soon as you were rescued, to be checked over. Especially after he heard you weren’t doing well.”
“Perfect,” Dagmar said. “Yes, that’s better. I want to see my doctor. Not some stranger who doesn’t know my history. I’m sure Magnus knew the moment I started feeling poorly. Twin connection and all…” he explained.
Lexie knew all about Magnus and Dagmar’s connection. He’d talked about it several times over the last few months. She would’ve preferred to go straight to the ship, but then again, if she was as sick as Dag, and had someone who cared enough to send a doctor just in case she was released, she’d probably want to see them as well.
“Are you okay to walk?” Midas asked her.
Lexie nodded. “Yeah.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
“What?” she asked.
He shrugged. “You’re just really…calm.”
“I’m not really,” she countered. “Inside, I’m a mess. My legs feel like jelly and I’m having a hard time believing this is real. I’ve had dreams like this, you know. Where we were rescued. But I always woke up and was still here, under that tree, trying not to get fried to a crisp in the sun.”
“It’s real,” he told her.
The whirring of a helicopter sounded in the distance, and Lexie turned to look in that direction, even though it was still dark out and she couldn’t see much. She glanced back at Midas. “Are they all dead?”
He didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. “Yes. We had hoped to capture at least one of them to interrogate, but that didn’t happen.”
Lexie swallowed hard. When she and Dag had first been taken, she’d tried to not hate their kidnappers. She remembered hearing one talk about his family…about his newborn daughter. And how another was the sole support for his elderly parents. Her kidnappers were human, and many times circumstances drove people’s actions. Poverty, hunger, and feeling hopeless were all too common in the places she’d lived over the years.
But as time went by, and especially after they’d doubled the ransom amount, she’d had more difficulty feeling even a small bit of empathy for the men. Desperate or not, nothing gave them the right to hold her and Dag against their will and terrorize them for months.
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Midas asked.
Lexie shrugged and let Midas lead her away from the patch of sand she’d called home for the last few months and deeper into the desert. “They weren’t exactly nice, but they didn’t hurt me. Didn’t rape me.”
“They just held you against your will, belittled you, and made you feel as if you were worthless.”
Lexie stumbled, but Midas made sure she didn’t fall. “How did you know that?” she asked quietly.
“I know the type,” Midas said dryly. “When they got the first five million, they could’ve let you both go. Instead, they got greedy. Probably told you that it was your fault you weren’t already free. That if you were a better employee, if you were more important, the other five mil would’ve already been paid. Even made it seem as if it was your fault that they were greedy assholes who wanted more money.”
Lexie kept her eyes on the ground as they walked across the sand, toward where she guessed the helicopter would be landing to pick them up.
Midas wasn’t wrong. She’d been thrilled when the ransom was raised so quickly, had thought they’d be released. When they were informed that the price on their heads had increased, Dagmar had been furious. He’d lost his cool for the first time, lashing out, demanding that they let him go at least, since his family was the one who’d raised the five million.
Their captors just laughed at him.
And Lexie had felt terrible. Because he wasn’t wrong. It was her fault he was still stuck in the desert.
“Don’t,” Midas said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t let them get into your head. It didn’t matter where the money came from or how much it was. Once they got anything for their demands, it was only going to make them want more.”
Lexie supposed that was true. But she still felt guilty.
