Window of Time--Mission: Oasis de Huacachina

Window of Time--Mission: Oasis de Huacachinga Chapter 2 (Part 4)

Dan couldn't believe it. He'd tried to dissuade his courier from getting involved, but even he couldn't ignore this many feminine eyes staring hopefully at him.

"It appears so." Lucy put the gun away.

"Three. What are we going to do with three girls?"

"I have a pretty good idea what they were going to do with them." Lucy pointed at the girl from the bed. "Put your shoes on." Then she studied the girl from the bathroom. She was also barefooted. "Hablas inglés?" The girl shook her head.

"Jessica no depreciates English," the girl from the bed said as she kneeled on the floor.

"Jessica—whats?" Dan asked, standing at the open door.

"Yo no hablo inglés," Jessica said, hugging herself, making her thin frame look even smaller while she stared at the man on the floor.

Lucy found another pair of shoes under the bed and gave them to Jessica. "Ponte tus zapatos—rápido." Jessica took the gold-toned sandals, but she hugged them to her chest instead of putting them on.

"What's your name?" Lucy asked the girl from the bed as she grasped the bad guy by the arms and dragged him into the bathroom. Before she closed the door, she pushed in the lock.

"My name am Sophia," the girl said, enunciating each word clearly while sliding her feet into her blue, bedazzled sandals.

"Lucy, we need to hurry." Dan stayed at the door, watching for the other guy to come back. He didn't know whether the creep had gone out to meet another contact, or to bring back food for the guy Lucy had laid out. When she'd told him she could do more than he thought, she hadn't been kidding.

"You've decided to help me get these girls to safety?"

Dan grinned as he lifted her pack from the floor, finally giving in. "Just call me Sancho."

Nodding, Lucy stared at Isabella. Her tears had stopped flowing, but she still looked frightened. Who could blame her? Certainly not Dan. With no definite plan of escape, running away seemed like the right course of action. Anywhere else had to be better than where they were right now.

"It's clear." Dan held the door open. "We'll go that way—" He pointed to the right, opposite the way they'd come. "There's a door at the end of the hallway. It's best if we don't have witnesses to our abducting of the abducted."

"You wax poetic, Sancho," Lucy said, smiling for the first time that morning. Waving at the girls, she told them it was time to go. "Vámonos!"

All three immediately moved to the door, like puppies scrambling for their mother, with Lucy directly behind them.

Dan looked down the hall before he grasped Isabella's hand and took off at a fast pace. Sophia kept close behind them, but Lucy had to take Jessica's hand, pulling her along. They were out of the door and onto the sidewalk surrounding the hostel within seconds.

"My rental is parked near the bus," Dan said, pointing down the road.

"Jessica—zapatos!" Lucy told the girl to put on her shoes as she looked around. "We can't stay on the paved road back to Ica. That would be the first place I'd look. But we need wheels." She motioned to a couple of sand-rails parked across the street. "Those should do."

"And then what, Lucy?" Dan didn't move. "What are we going to do with three kids?"

"They're not kids. They're frightened young ladies." When Dan gazed into Sophia's tanned face, the squinting light brown eyes looked a little more angry than scared. "Let's get someplace safe, and then we'll figure out our next step."