Page 43 of What Remains (John Worthy #3)

Now.

The book inside the bag was thin. He’d managed to smuggle out seventeen in all, thanks to special pockets Mami had sewn into his trousers, kameez tunic, and thick sheepskin chapan coat before they fled.

As with the game he’d played with Mr. White, all the books were short. Too many pages was a deal-breaker.

He’d taken the books he listed for Mr. White and thirteen others he’d not read yet.

Novels like The Giver, Lord of the Flies.

Catcher in the Rye . These were all in English.

If ever he was caught with a book, chances were good he could lie about the plot.

Not many could read English, much less speak it.

Out here, well, no one could even read. That included Amu.

He was re-reading Anne Frank, probably because, like him, she was trapped and had to hide what and who she was. Of course, things ended badly for her and her family.

But I’m different. The times are different. Well, in some ways. If he stayed in Afghanistan, he would be condemned by what he was just as Anne had been.

He checked his mother’s cellphone. Only six-thirty.

Plenty of time. In fact, maybe he’d read a bit before his bath.

Just a page or two. Tucking the cell back into a pocket, he sat on his favorite part of the flowstone: a natural, butt-sized depression about half a foot from the wall.

Being this close to the stream, the wall was also pleasantly warm, and he’d often imagined that the long-ago artist who’d left that handprint might have chosen this very spot to sit and dream.

He found where he’d left off: Anne’s diary entry on October 20 th , 1942.

That was the day a carpenter nearly discovered where Anne and her family were hiding.

He could practically taste her fear. He knew what it was like to hide, to always take such care not to slip up.

He wasn’t hiding the way Anne had been but close enough.

The same men who’d probably caught up to Mami would be just as happy to kill him.

Or they just might do something else that was, in its way, even worse.

There were rumors about men and boys in Sarhad: men who bought, borrowed, or paired young beautiful boys with men old enough to be their grandfathers.

The prospect made Poya light-headed and sick with fear.

Given his body, even bigger problems waited in a future that wasn’t as distant now as it had been only five years ago.

On second thought, maybe he would bathe. Skip the book for a day. He didn’t need to read about near-misses.

He slipped the paperback into its plastic baggy and zippered that shut.

Wriggling his left foot and then his right from their boots, he peeled away his socks then stood to shuck his coat.

Pulling the hammer and then his flashlight from their slings, he placed those on his coat and then went to work on his belt.

Hooking his thumbs under the waistband of his trousers, he shoved these down to his feet.

Slipping out of his vest, he gathered his tunic in both hands to pull over his head?—

Just as, from the darkness to his left, something moaned.