Page 28 of Steel Vengeance
“What’s going on?”
Aaliyah, the woman who ran the center, looked up, her face tense.
“Fatima’s not well.”
Sloane recognized Fatima immediately. She was one of the regulars in her class. The young woman sat hunched over a desk, clutching her stomach, her face twisted in pain.
“Fatima, what’s wrong?” Sloane asked in Pashto, crouching beside her. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Fatima shook her head, her skin pale and slick with sweat.
Sloane shot a glance at Aaliyah. “Was it something she ate? Or something she took?”
Fatima let out another agonizing cry, her fingers gripping the desk like a lifeline.
Sloane pressed the back of her hand against Fatima’s forehead—it was burning up. She stood, looking around at the other women. “We have to do something. Does anyone know what’s wrong with her?”
One woman, dressed in a full burqa, stepped forward. “She made a terrible mistake.”
Sloane frowned. “What kind of mistake? Did she take something?”
The woman shook her head, her voice barely a whisper. “No... she tried to get rid of something.”
Fatima let out a pained moan, shaking her head, “No!”
“You need help,” her friend said softly. She glanced up at Sloane. “She’s bleeding. She needs a doctor. Please?—”
Sloane’s gaze dropped to the floor, where a thin line of blood trickled down the leg of the chair. Everything clicked into place.
“You’re pregnant?” Her voice was hushed. “You tried to terminate it?”
The woman in the burqa nodded, tears filling her eyes.
“He wasn’t a real doctor,” her friend said. “He hurt her. I made him stop, but... I didn’t know what else to do. She can’t go home. Her husband will kill her.”
Sloane’s stomach twisted. Surely her husband wasn’t that cruel. “Why will he be upset?” Then she got it. “It’s not his baby?”
Fatima shook her head, her face crumpling in pain.
Shit.In that case, he might really kill her.
The bleeding was getting worse. She needed medical help, and fast.
“We have to call an ambulance.” Sloane stood up. “She needs a hospital.”
Fatima grabbed her hand, her grip weak but desperate. “Please, no.”
Her friend’s voice cracked. “If we take her to the hospital, they’ll notify her husband. So will any real doctor.”
Sloane bit her lip. They couldn’t leave her like this. She’d bleed out, and the baby—if it wasn’t already gone—would be next.
The women looked at each other helplessly, the room filling with whispers. Fatima’s cries grew louder, and more women gathered at the door. The lesson was supposed to start soon.
Sloane’s heart raced. She jumped to her feet.
“I know a medic,” She blurted the words without thinking.
Everyone turned to look at her.