3. Kyra
3
KYRA
A s the first rays of dawn filtered through the canvas of Kyra's tent, she looked over the medical inventory list, her eyes cataloging the supplies they'd pilfered during last night's mission. Regrettably, antibiotics hadn't been part of the loot.
Six prisoners had been rescued, three of them with old wounds that appeared to be infected, and they didn't have the right stuff to treat them.
They had driven hard all night to get away from their pursuers, taking them on a wild chase until losing them in the mountains. The truth was that the pursuit had been half-hearted, and she was worried that they had been allowed to take the prisoners on purpose, and one or more of them had a tracker and would lead the guards to them.
Sitting beside her, Soran leaned over and tapped his pen on the list. "We'll need to trade for antibiotics."
"I have a contact in Erbid, but we can't risk sending anyone right now. I also think that we should move the prisoners out as soon as possible. This extraction was too easy."
Soran laughed. "It might have seemed easy to you, but there was nothing easy about it." He pushed to his feet. "I'll get us coffee."
"Thank you." Kyra smiled at him. "You're a lifesaver."
Shortly after he'd left, the tent's entrance rustled and Zara ducked inside. "The wounded have been tended to," she reported. "Hamid treated them as best he could with what we have, but we'll need the supplies to avoid complications. Or we can drive them a few hundred miles away from here and get them to a proper doctor."
"We can't drive them anywhere for at least a week." Kyra's hand unconsciously moved to the amber pendant at her throat, a nervous habit she was trying to overcome.
In moments of frustration, the stone provided comfort—in others, it guided her toward whoever and whatever she was seeking.
Perhaps this time, it could guide her to a stash of antibiotics her team could steal.
They needed so many things, and everything was so hard to come by. The lives of rebels were not easy, but what choice did they have?
To live under oppression was no life at all, and for women, sometimes death was preferable to the suffering they were made to endure under a regime that regarded them as less than human and took sadistic pleasure in trampling them under its filthy feet.
It wasn't only women, though. The men who stood by them and dared to voice opposition often found themselves at the end of a noose in the city square.
With a sigh, Kyra leaned in her chair and looked through the tent's open flap. The camp was coming to life, and she found solace in the sounds of conversations and laughter. Her people were comprised of rebels and rescued prisoners—political activists who had spoken out against the oppression. Some of them had been too traumatized to speak in the first days after their arrival, their eyes haunted by recent terrors, but soon hope rekindled in their hearts, and to hear them laughing and talking freely was the best reward she could hope for.
"Coffee?" Soran entered with a cup.
She took the cup and inhaled the brew. "You are my favorite guy in the world right now."
He chuckled nervously before turning around and walking out of the tent.
Soran had hinted on more than one occasion that he had feelings for her, and she'd had to let him down gently. Her excuse was that as the leader of their group, she couldn't fraternize with any of its members, but the truth was that she just wasn't interested—never had been, as far as she knew.
If she'd ever been with a man, it had to be before she'd lost her memory in the asylum. She didn't get periods like other women did, so she couldn't have children, which would have been her only motivation to get intimate with a guy.
Probably not even then.
The truth was that the very idea repulsed her. Perhaps she'd always been like that, or maybe something had happened to her in that place, as it had for so many of the other women she'd helped escape. There was no doubt in her mind that she hadn't been spared and had been violated like the others, but mercifully, unlike them, she didn't remember it.
There were other things she wished she could remember, though. Like that fragment of a recurring dream flickering at the edges of her consciousness. Golden eyes. A child's face. A beautiful girl that looked a lot like her.
The same golden eyes, the same chestnut-colored hair. It could have been just a memory from her own childhood.
"Kyra?" Soran's voice broke through her reverie.
She blinked, forcing her attention back to the present. "Yes?"
She hadn't noticed that the rest of her team had assembled in the tent, each holding a cup of coffee.
"What's our next move?" he asked.
Intelligence suggested increased military presence in the region, and after talking to the rescued prisoners, she'd learned that the elite team they'd encountered at the compound had arrived along with a high-ranking commander of the Revolutionary Guard.
The only reason for them to be stationed in this remote area was to fight the rebels. That meant that the window for operations was narrowing, and from now on, their missions would be more dangerous, and the stakes would be higher.
"We can't keep running defensive operations forever," Hamid argued, spreading a worn map across the makeshift table. His finger traced mountain passes and strategic points. "We need to strike first and eliminate this new threat."
Zara's hand came down firmly on the map. "We're not an army, Hamid. We're a resistance. We can nip at their heels. That's all."
The debate was familiar. Kyra listened, her mind both present and distant. Something about how the light caught the map, the specific angle of Hamid's finger—it tugged at a memory just beyond her reach. Or was it the amber pendant trying to tell her something once again?
After more than an hour of futile arguing, she called the meeting to an end. When everyone had left, she drank the last remaining drops of coffee in her cup and closed her eyes, finally alone with her thoughts.
Who was she?
Kyra's memories were fractured like broken glass, sharp edges that cut whenever she tried to piece them together. A restlessness settled over her. The dream from the previous night—that child with eyes of gold refused to fade.
"Something troubles you." Soran entered the tent. After fifteen years of fighting together, he could read her better than anyone.
Kyra smiled, but she knew that the smile didn't reach her eyes. "Just thinking."
"Dangerous habit," he teased, but his eyes were serious.
The amber pendant pulsed again, a rhythm matching her heartbeat.
A reminder.
A warning.
But of what?