No Turning Back by Kaylea Cross Read Free Book Online

image of him, trying to focus on the one in the middle.
    “Sir, you need to get back in that bed and stay there.”
    He didn't dare risk shaking his head. “I'm leaving.”
    “No, you're not.” The enraged doctor marched over and grabbed his upper arm.
    Fighting down the sudden spike in his temper, Luke merely broke the hold instead of throwing him on the floor.
    The doctor's expression turned wary.
    “I. Am. Leaving .” He straightened, trying to look down his nose at him.
    The doctor's lips compressed in displeasure. “If you leave, it will be against my medical opinion.”
    “Fine with me.”
    “You can't even stand up.”
    The hell he couldn't. Luke let go of the railing, wobbled a bit, but managed to stay on his feet out of sheer force of will. He raised a taunting brow while his stomach did hula-hoops around his ass. So there, you little puke.
    The doctor glowered. “We still have to run more tests. If you push it too fast, you could end up with permanent brain damage.”
    “Just get me the release forms.”
    “Stop trying to be a hero. You're not going to be able to function.”
    Luke narrowed his eyes. “What the fuck do you know about being a hero?” The doctor blanched, but he just kept on talking. “I needed to be in Baghdad six hours ago. The terrorists you see blowing up people all over the world? I'm this close to nailing one of their top commanders. Every second I sit here on my ass costs lives, so you need to let me the hell out of here. Right now.”
    The speech, delivered while standing on shaky legs, left him queasy as hell. He gagged, and when the doctor thrust an empty bowl in front of him, vomited up his breakfast. When he finished, the pain in his head almost laid him out flat on his back. Sweating, he wiped his clammy forehead with his shoulder.
    The doctor gave a resigned sigh. “You're in no shape to go anywhere, let alone after a terrorist, and you know it.”
    Luke glared at him and concentrated on staying upright. “Just get me the damn paperwork.”

Chapter Four

    Baghdad, late evening
    Sam crept back to her hidey-hole a few minutes after eleven that night, completely exhausted. She was so tired she almost gave in to the tears clogging her throat, but choked them down. Crying wasn't going to help anything, and it wasn't going to change the fact she was still alone and on the run with the prospect of another sleepless night ahead of her, jerking awake at every tiny noise because it might mean someone had come to kill her. It was definitely not going to free her cousin, or magically make Ben appear in front of her to gather her up in his strong arms and make it all better. She blew out a breath and forced the wistful thoughts away.
    The streets were relatively quiet, the marketplace with its tiny shops and restaurants all but empty except for a few male patrons. Keeping her head and face pulled deep inside the shadows of her headscarf, she made certain to keep out of the light, ears pricked for any suspicious sound. Her eyes restlessly scanned for other movement.
    Having moved south away from Sadr City and the heavily Shi'a populated areas of Baghdad to avoid any sightings by the Mahdi Army, she'd worked her way into the comparative safety of the Sunni region. She planned to keep traveling southeast until she neared the Iranian border, if she could stay free that long. Her tail was still out there somewhere, but she didn't know who or how many. As it stood now, she couldn't risk depending on anyone for help until she knew exactly what the Islamic group holding Neveah wanted from her.
    The very real possibility that it might be Farouk Tehrazzi made her feel sick.
    The light-skinned, green-eyed Islamic militant mastermind had far-reaching tentacles, even into the mountains of Afghanistan where his adopted grandmother had been born. The same grandmother he'd had his bodyguard behead because she'd betrayed Bryn McAllister's location in the Syrian desert.
    Right after the bombing of the