Chapter 16
289words
Lena's heart raced. She descended the slope carefully, trying to reconstruct her tumbling path from that day.
"This is where he pushed me..." she murmured.
Hassan followed, sweeping a simple metal detector across the ground.
They searched all afternoon without success. As the sun began to set, Hassan suggested returning tomorrow.
Lena shook her head. She felt certain they would find it today. She dropped to her knees like a supplicant and began clearing sand and pebbles with her bare hands.
Her fingernails split and bled, but she showed no sign of pain.
"Lena, please..." Hassan tried pulling her up.
Just then, her fingers struck something cold, hard, and angular.
She froze. Then, like someone possessed, she began digging frantically.
Minutes later, a bent, heavily oxidized metal tag emerged. A press credential with a faded photo—Liam's silhouette still recognizable. Below it hung a smaller, equally corroded piece of metal—a dog tag.
With trembling hands, she wiped away the dust with her shirt hem.
A line of engraved text, weathered but defiant, revealed itself.
LIAM REID
It was him.
It really was him.
Lena clutched the cold metal, now smeared with her fresh blood and dirt, and finally broke. Kneeling in the Syrian wilderness beneath a blood-red sunset, she released a primal, heart-wrenching wail three years in the making.
Hassan stood behind her, silently removing his headscarf. Facing the sunset, he offered a wordless prayer for his departed friend and for the woman who had finally found her way back.
