Page 112 of Down and Dirty

“I know you did. You’re a brave boy… I mean, little man.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m a little boy.” He hesitated, his bottom lip quivering. “Britta didn’t escape.”

“Well, now, we don’t know that for sure. We just haven’t found her yet.”

“They hurt her bad. Real bad.” He began to weep again. Between sobs, he revealed, “Sometimes… sometimes she let them hit her when they was aimin’ for me.”

That didn’t surprise Zach. Still, his eyes welled with tears again.

“She broke Daoud’s nose with my baseball bat when he came to capture us.”

Ah, so that’s whose blood it was.

“Her ankle mighta been broken. Do you think she coulda run with a broken ankle?”

“I think Britta could do anything she wanted.”

“We’re gonna get her back,” Sammy said, patting his shoulder as if he sensed his father’s despair. “I jis’ know we are.”

Zach wasn’t so sure.

“Oh, and I forgot to tell you. I hit Hakim across the shin bones with my hockey stick.”

“You did? What a brave boy you were!”

“Oh, I forgot another thing,” Sammy said. “Britta said to tell you somethin’ if… if she didn’t come back.”

It felt as if a vise were squeezing his heart. He didn’t want to know. Because if he listened to the message, it would be like admitting she was dead, and he wasn’t ready to accept that.

“No, Sammy, don’t tell me. Let’s wait for Britta to tell me herself.”

Sammy brightened at that scrap of hope.

Zach only wished there were someone to give him hope.

Home, not-so-sweet home…

Britta attempted to open her heavy lids, despite the pain that ravaged her body.

“Britta! Britta! Can you hear me?”

Son of a troll! It was Mother Edwina of St. Anne’s Abbey.

Either Britta was being plagued with that bloody dream again, or she had reversed her time travel. Both notions posed great threats to her sanity. So she did the only sensible thing: She succumbed to the pain-sleep again.

Whether mere hours or days had passed, Britta did eventually open her eyes again, and this time wider than a slit. She was still on an abbey cot, still in pain, but not so much as before. “Thirsty,” she choked out.

With Mother Edwina’s help, she sat up, propped against some rolled-up blankets, and drank thirstily from a cup of water. “What happened?” she asked through cracked lips.

“You fell off a cliff when you and Sister Margaret were on your way to Jorvik.”

“No, I mean this time.”

Mother Edwina tilted her head in confusion. “There was only the one time.”

“What? When did I fall off the cliff?”

“Three days past. You have been in a pain-sleep since you were brought back here.”