Chapter 25
Ben hovered over Isika, who slept with her less sore cheek cushioned on his knee. They had been captive for three days, and Isika was only a little better. Her head was cushioned on his knee and he sat with his back against the wall of the small, white marble room he had come to detest. There was nothing soft here, and the air was stuffy. The food they had been given was nearly rotting, the water was tepid and dirty. It wasn't a good place to heal, and Isika wasn't healing well.
Benayeem had never felt more tender toward his sister than he did in the last three days, as she lay sleeping, blood still on her cheeks and hands, one eye swollen completely shut, her lip split and bruised.
The day that they beat her, he had lunged at the priest who struck his sister, desperate to st
