This was the consequence of the choices she’d made. Knowing she walked a razor’s edge between life and death was one thing. Being about to die was a whole other reality. That reality inched closer when sandy footsteps shuffled over the ground and someone stood in front of her.

They untied her hood, pulled it off, and ripped the tape from her mouth. It tore her skin, and cut her lip. She wanted to scream, but needed air more, and gulped it in.

Her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

A bearded man in white cleric’s robes stared down at her—his face sculpted and forged by atrocities and the desert sun.

She recognized Abd al Hashim.

The ISIS leader had serpent eyes, which gave off a fury that pulled her into them as much as they repelled her.

She’d heard that one’s life flashed before their eyes at the moment of death. Hers didn’t. Instead, her mind flooded with the history she’d compiled of Hashim’s life. The paradox of it. He was a shy and courteous child, more courteous than the average. As opposed to bin Laden, Hashim grew up poor, and according to the few locals who had been willing to talk with her, poverty was central to fueling his passion for equality. And violence was the quickest way to be heard. That’s when she’d discovered rumors that maybe oil wasn’t all of what had attracted those who wanted to conquer Iraq, and what their leaders had been so fierce in protecting through jihad.

She’d been told of artifacts Hashim was said to be hiding in the desert, protected by the Djinn—spirits who lived in places not inhabited by man. While many denied their existence, their origins could be traced to the written words in the Qur’an, and the spoken words of the Sunnah, a verbal record of the teachings passed down from the prophet Muhammad. No one knew where these artifacts were. And perhaps they were just lore. But they were said to contain sacred information. She’d not believed these fringe creeds, but had held onto enough of their possibilities that she left space in her mind to consider them at some point in the future. There was no longer that future. And so what once had occupied the edges of her mind crept closer, as the sacred replaced the reality of what was coming down.

A teenage boy Hashim motioned to, slid in close by his side. Hashim called him Nazir.

Nazir was slim and strong, with luminous skin, like rich earth, and clear intelligent eyes. Dominique thought if jihad was attracting young men this sensitive, it meant there was much more to fear than anyone could imagine.

She watched Hashim rip the hood off Julian’s head.

His face was swollen and bloodied, but she could see he was calm, and she studied Julian as his eyes scoped the situation.