Escape Under the Forever Sky Read Online Free

o’clock, and pray Mrs. Kassai wouldn’t tell my mother.
    â€œThanks, Dawit, but you don’t have to take me home. Our driver is already coming for me.”
    â€œMrs. Kassai said bring you home now.”
    Something in his voice told me the situation was hopeless.
    Tana grabbed my hand and squeezed it. She knew that between this and what had happened at the market, my mother would probably send me to my room for the rest of my life and post a marine guard outside my door. Everyone’s parents make these kinds of threats. The difference is my mother can actually follow through on them.
    As we pulled into Tana’s driveway, a thought occurred to me: How had Dawit known where to find us? But before I had a chance to ask Tana, she climbed out with one last sympathetic look.
    â€œI will e-mail you,” she said.
    â€œMe too,” I promised. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. My pathetic life was about to get even worse.
    After a couple of minutes I opened my eyes againand looked out the window. The neighborhood didn’t look familiar.
    â€œUm, Dawit?” I said. “This isn’t the way to my house. I live in the American embassy compound.”
    â€œIt is a shorter way,” he said. I could see the scars over his eye in the rearview mirror. “There is too much traffic in the middle of the city at this time of the day.”
    I pressed my eyelids down with my fingers, trying to stop the tears of self-pity that were threatening to spill out.
She’s going to ground me until I go to college
.
    I looked out the window again. We were definitely in a part of the city I had never seen before. My heart started pounding, and I sat up straighter, trying to get a better view out the front.
    â€œDawit?”
    He didn’t answer. My whole body went numb.
    â€œStop the car
now
, Dawit.”
    Nothing. We sped past a cluster of shanty houses and a few random shopping stalls, clearly not headed anywhere near the American embassy. I looked frantically for a traffic light where he would have to stop, but there weren’t any.
    â€œLook, Dawit, you don’t know who you’re dealing with! My mother is the United States ambassador, and you’re going to be in big trouble. Stop the car
now
!”
    Suddenly Dawit swerved to the side of the road and braked so fast the tires squealed. I flung open the car door, but I couldn’t get out. A man I had never seen before was blocking my way. He shoved me back inside and started to climb in after me.
    â€œGet away from me!” I screamed.
    I lunged for the other door, but the man grabbed my leg and yanked me back. Clutching a fistful of my hair with one hand, he stuffed a dirty rag into my face with the other. I couldn’t scream anymore, but I kicked and twisted as hard as I could until he jammed his knee into my hip. All I could see of him were his crooked brown teeth. Gasping for breath, I kept struggling even as I felt myself slipping away, out of my body, out of the car, into the air.

Chapter Four
Night One

    I T HURTS . E VERYTHING hurts so bad. It’s so hot I can’t breathe. There’s a stink like sour milk. And I can’t . . . I can’t see. . . . Why can’t I see?Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. I have to SEE!
    It’s a blindfold
.
    No! Get it off! Get it off!! GET. IT. OFF!!!
    But I can’t move my arms. WHERE ARE MY HANDS???
    My hands were tied behind my back, so numb I could hardly feel them. Furiously, I rubbed my face against the scratchy pad I was lying on, trying to inch off the blindfold. My right cheek was scraped raw before I finally worked it off.
    What I saw in the dim light was petrifying:
I am nowhere
.
    Nowhere was a small room. A dirt floor, tin roof, scrap-wood shack with a mat, a crate, a kerosene lamp. And me.
    Lying awkwardly on my side with my arms pinned behind my back, I gazed up at the ceiling, tears streaming from the corners of my eyes. The salt