Chapter 13
Here, in the caves, every sound becomes amplified. You learn to ignore it. But before dawn, I can almost pretend the muffled snores which filter from the adjacent barracks come from my little sister, safely asleep in her pink bed. I stare into the darkness, the anthracite ceiling. You can feel it pressing down on you. It feels like being trapped in a womb, waiting to emerge. And then what?
Why am I really here?
I slip down out of my bunk to pray before the bugler blows morning revelries. I finally understand what the Colonel tried to tell me the day we met. No white knight is going to ride in on a white horse to save us. Our last hope of chivalry died with Lionel. If I want to rescue my little sister, I need to do it myself.
I kneel and begin the pre-dawn adhan.
"There is n
