Emerge: The Captive: (Book 3)(24)
“Fine.” Jayesh crossed his arms over his chest. “We will land in a few hours along the southern coast of India. We will travel into the rural countryside to one of the most ancient regions of the country. Your training will begin at dawn the day after we arrive. You will train for six weeks. It will be brutal. Mother Raghavan will oversee everything while we are there. When she deems you have successfully completed your training, we will leave and I will return to my team, who are currently ensuring the peaceful transfer of power in a war-torn African country. I should be there now. But instead I’ve been conscripted to babysit a pampered tween with an attitude problem.”
“I’m not the one acting like a child,” Sasha said.
“We are done here, angel. Go back to your seat, I have important work to do while I still have the chance to do it.” Jayesh shouted for his soldiers to escort the sisters back to their seats. He rattled off something in his unfamiliar French dialect. Something about “keeping the brat away from him for the rest of the flight.”
“You will speak to her with—” Imogen began, her eyes blazing in fury.
“I got this, Gen,” Sasha said calmly.
“Need I remind you that I have little patience for questions and prattle?” Jayesh said.
“First. You’re a dick,” Sasha began, deciding she was going to make his life difficult at every possible interval. “Second. Don’t ever call me ‘angel’ again. My name is Sasha and you will use it. You don’t know me, so don’t judge me. Third. I am Haitian born and my native tongue is French so you should watch what you say when you think you’re having a private word with your men. I don’t care if you have a low opinion of me and my ability to embark on this training I never asked to do. And fourth. Tell me—and tell me now—exactly what this training will entail.”
“Ask your sister, angel. She’s been through it,” Jayesh said, nonplused by her demands. “The Senate seems to think you’re capable of hitting the most impossible targets. That’s the only thing about you I’m interested in.”
Sasha sat back in a huff. She could land any shot as long as she made a connection with the target. She had to see it with her gift. When that happened, she could shoot with her eyes closed and still see the target in her mind. But that didn’t always happen, particularly when she was anxious or stressed.
“You won’t be joining my team until I have a complete understanding of your gift.”
“Why do you care? You’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t want me on your team.”
“I don’t want an untested girl on my team. But if your gift is as good as they say, I’ll get over that. We’re done with questions.” Jayesh rose and left them sitting at the table alone.
“He is a dick,” Imogen muttered.
“What was he like when you knew him before?” Sasha asked.
“He was always a jerk and rather full of himself, but we were friends.” Imogen shook her head in confusion. “That man … he’s not the man I remember.”
~~~
Sasha watched the landscape roll by, her eyes glazing over, lost in the turmoil of her thoughts. This country was so beautifully ancient. She could feel the history in her bones. She might not have been born of her mother’s body, but Naeemah’s lineage was still rooted in her blood through the bond that made them mother and daughter. This was her mother’s country.
Sasha prided herself on her ability to rise to any occasion and bend circumstances to her will, but she was losing her confidence. Lately, each time life threw a curveball at her, she just fell apart.
She sat quietly beside her sister in the back of the large black SUV. They had arrived at a rural airport in Tamil Nadu in the early evening and were traveling to some temple in the middle of nowhere. As they neared the Nigiri hills, a fertile valley rich in vegetation, lying between the Eastern and Western Ghat mountains, Jayesh slowed the vehicle and turned onto a winding path through the foothills.
“We’re nearly there,” Imogen whispered. She’d been quiet and tense in the hours since they left the airport.
“How long ago did you train here?” Sasha asked.
“Another lifetime.” Imogen smiled. “It is not a bad place. There are things about the mother and the Chola Valley temple. Things I cannot tell you until we are there. It will be hard. You will suffer. But you will find good in what the mother can teach you. She is hard, but she is also kind.”
“And I have you,” Sasha said.
“Exactly. A friend was not a luxury I had the day I entered the temple grounds.”
“You made one while you were there,” Jayesh said quietly from his perch behind the wheel.
“True enough.” Gen nodded, but Sasha wasn’t so sure these two counted each other as friends any longer.
“We hike the rest of the way,” Jayesh announced, pulling the SUV to the side of the road. His soldiers were still with them and would be returning to nearby Coimbatore to wait for them.
Sasha grabbed her duffel bag, careful to keep her concealed bow secured by the handles. With a deep sigh, she followed Imogen and Jayesh into the rolling hills of the fertile valley. Steps rose along the slope, following a path that led to the higher hills in the distance.
The light grew dim in the twilight evening as Sasha stepped up one crumbling stair after another. Her brow beaded with sweat and her heart hammered in anticipation. After hours of hiking with her somber companions, she couldn’t take the silence anymore.