Impossible Odds

thoughts when fear seizes you. The best I could come up with was the notion that if unimaginably bad things can strike against all odds, then the chance of some sort of miraculous escape must also exist. I had to find ways to live long enough for one to appear.
    When it came to petitioning the universe, I learned I can scream bloody murder without making a sound. Without moving a muscle, really.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    FBI Agent Matt Espenshade made arrangements for a special crisis counselor to meet with Erik. She began the conversation by letting him know she had previously met Jessica through their work and thought highly of her. The fact that she was an admirer of Jessica’s was a bonus for Erik. While they talked, he felt reassured by her quick mind and evident compassion. He had already quit one therapist who just didn’t resonate with the situation in a way that was helpful, but this time he sensed someone who could help him work through the acid drip of his outrage over the situation.
    He explained to her that he was tormented by feelings of guilt for not fighting harder to keep Jessica at home. First there was his concern for what she was going through at that moment, but just behind that was his fear of alienation from her when she made it back home again. Would she feel somehow betrayed by his failure to stop her from taking the trip? Would she think he had abandoned her by not going after her, once everything went bad?
    The therapist’s manner was consoling. She offered assurances, but they were much like those expressed to him by friends and loved ones, all of them good to hear, but somehow ineffective against the gnawing sense of failure that just wouldn’t leave him alone. He agreed to check back with her again in a couple of daysto let her know how he was feeling then, but couldn’t imagine how things could be much different then unless he got word Jess was safe and on her way home.
    •  •  •
    Jessica:
    After they separated me from Poul and took him to the rear car in the caravan, the engines all started up again, and we pulled away. We moved along the bumpy ruts of a road and I used the way the car threw our bodies around to sneak glances back and see if Poul’s car was following us. I couldn’t get a solid look, though. At this point my first full-blown anxiety attack hit me with a vengeance.
    I called to Abdi to have the driver stop the car, gesturing to them I was going to be sick. I didn’t expect them to care, but I hoped they didn’t want to ride with vomit on the floor. They let me out long enough to run to the nearest bush, fall to my knees, and empty my guts out. The fear and my sense of outrage combined to eject what little food I had in my system. After that came the dry heaves while the emotions twisted through me. When my body calmed down a little bit, Abdi appeared with a diesel can and told me to hold out my hands. He splashed diesel-tainted water over my skin to replace the smell of vomit with the smell of petrol. It was an improvement. What can I say.
    An odd air of compassion came over Abdi, unexpected and unreliable but no less welcome. He understood separating me from Poul had caused my panic, and quietly assured me the car holding my colleague was right behind us. Then he surprised me by asking if I wanted milk or meat to make me feel better. It was the first real food I’d been offered by these goons, but I was still too sick to have an appetite. I asked if there were any soft drinks around to help settle my stomach; he shook his head. But I’d seen otherswith them. Either they didn’t have any more or I had reached the limit of his empathy.
    Abdi tried to calm me down by asking if I had any children, which seemed a bit out of place under the circumstances. But something perked up in me; his questions contained an opportunity. I seized it and began to lie. Because Abdi’s culture places a far higher value on mothers than upon more “disposable” single women, I spoke my first lie to him and replied yes, I have a one-year-old son. He asked my “son’s” name and I was about to make one up when I realized they might make mention of my “son” in the negotiation phone calls. They could easily discover the ruse.
    So instead I gave the name “Smulan,” our dog. I’d pulled Smulan out from under a parked car, starving and crusted with dirt. He was now a loving member of our household, and I figured if there was any mention of my “son, Smulan,” instead of