Enemies in Embrace: Episode 23 – Before the World Told Us We Couldn’t Be

 

“Even the pain?” he asked.

“Especially the pain,” I whispered, because it meant we were real.

 

By Julia M Cross

 

The next morning, the sun burned over Amman like a secret exposed. I lay awake beside Yousef, the thin sheet tangled around our legs, the air conditioner clicking like it, too, was out of breath. He was still sleeping—his chest rising slowly, his lips slightly parted. I stared at him, counting each breath like it might be his last. I was afraid to blink. Afraid that if I did, he might disappear.

I got up without waking him, tiptoeing across the small hotel room floor to the window. The city looked golden from this height, but under the glow was a restlessness I could feel in my bones. We weren’t safe yet. We had fled Gaza, crossed through tunnels and blood and lies, but the world hadn’t forgotten us. We were still fugitives from more than borders. We were fugitives from memory.

I turned on the tap in the bathroom. The water ran rusty for a few seconds before it turned clear. I washed my face and stared into the mirror. The reflection looked like Leah Ben-Ami but didn’t feel like her. My curls were frizzed from heat. My lips were cracked. There were faint bruises on my hips from where I had slept on uneven floors, bumps on my arms from mosquito bites, shadows under my eyes from weeks of nightmares. But my eyes—they weren’t afraid anymore. Just tired. Just done with pretending to be anyone but the woman who chose Yousef.

He was awake when I came back. His eyes met mine, sleepy but alert.

“I was dreaming,” he said softly.

“Of what?”

“You and the boys. You were at the beach. I was watching from the water, too far to reach you, but close enough to see your smile. It felt like home.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. “Maybe one day we can have that again.”

He reached out, brushing my thigh with his hand. “We will.”

I wanted to believe him.

But by noon, belief got harder to hold on to.

Nadav called. His voice was clipped.

“You need to leave that hotel today. They’re asking questions. I don’t know if they traced the van or one of the guards talked, but word is out. Someone’s looking for you.”

“Do you know who?” I asked.

“Israeli intelligence. Maybe even internal Palestinian sources. I don’t know yet.”

“What about the boys?”

“They’re safe. Still with the host family in Eilat. You can’t go back there yet. Not until we know who’s tracking who.”

I pressed the phone tight to my ear. “So what do we do now?”

“You disappear again. I’ll send you coordinates. You’ll go to a safehouse in Ajloun. It’s in the hills. Quiet. Nobody will find you there.”

“And then?”

“And then we wait. Maybe for a week. Maybe a month.”

Yousef was beside me by the time I hung up. I didn’t need to explain. His eyes told me he heard everything.

Ajloun felt like exile. It was green and still, too peaceful for a heart like mine, which beat like a bird trapped in a cage. The safehouse was made of stone, the walls thick enough to block phone signals and thoughts alike. There was a fireplace in the corner, a small garden out back with thyme and basil and lemons. But the silence clung to us. We whispered even when alone. We tiptoed like ghosts. Every sound outside felt like a boot, a knock, an ending.

One night, while Yousef was sleeping, I opened the window and climbed onto the rooftop. The stars stretched wide above me, cold and ancient. I hugged my knees and let the breeze slap my skin.

I missed my sons.

I missed knowing what day it was.

I missed not being hunted.

I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me until they stopped just a breath away.

“You’re cold,” Yousef said, draping his jacket over my shoulders.

I didn’t answer.

“I used to come here as a child,” he said, sitting beside me. “My father took me hiking in the Ajloun Forest once. I was eight. I remember thinking the trees here must be older than the wars.”

“Maybe they are.”

He looked at me. “Are you angry at me?”

“No.”

He waited.

“I’m angry at the world,” I whispered. “I’m angry that loving you cost me everything.”

He nodded. “Me too.”

“I lost my parents. My country. My name. Sometimes I think I lost myself.”

“You didn’t lose me.”

I looked at him. “But what if that’s not enough?”

He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “If it’s not, then we’ll build something more. A new name. A new home. A new way to live.”

I leaned against him.

“If we get caught,” I said, “what happens?”

“They’ll take you back to Israel. Maybe put you on trial.”

“And you?”

“They won’t give me a trial.”

That silence was heavier than anything.

We left Ajloun two days later.

Not because Nadav told us to.

But because the silence started to feel like a grave.

We took a car, moving only at night, zigzagging toward the Syrian border. Nadav’s plan had changed again. Syria was unstable, but there were places there where no one asked questions, where records vanished. He had people. Contacts. Promises.

I didn’t believe any of them.

But I followed because there was nowhere else to go.

We reached the border checkpoint outside Daraa just before dawn. The man at the gate looked at our papers and squinted.

“These are old,” he said.

“They’re what we have,” Yousef replied, steady.

The man shrugged and waved us through.

And just like that, we crossed into a new kind of exile.

The Syrian desert spread before us like a riddle. Nothing but dust and wind and sky.

We drove for hours, only stopping to refuel or rest. At one point, the engine overheated, and we sat under the shade of the car hood, sipping warm water and watching the mirage on the horizon twist into shapes that looked like cities and people and hope.

“You know what I wish?” I said suddenly.

“What?”

“I wish we could go back to Fontainebleau.”

He laughed. “The hotel?”

“The moment. The pool. Before all this.”

“Before we became us?”

“Before the world told us we couldn’t be.”

He took my hand. “I wouldn’t undo it. Not one second.”

Even the pain?

Especially the pain. Because it meant we were real.

Later that night, in a small roadside inn outside Suwayda, we made love again. It wasn’t hurried. It wasn’t desperate. It was quiet. Intentional. Two people touching to remember they still could.

His hands moved over me like prayer. My breath caught in my throat like a secret too sacred to say out loud.

And when it was over, I cried.

Not from sadness.

But from release.

He held me.

We fell asleep like that, our bodies folded into each other like pages of the same story.

When morning came, I knew something had changed.

The air was different.

Something was coming.

But I didn’t know what.

 

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Friday at 8 PM.

 

 

 

Enemies in Embrace: Episode 22 – The Last Tunnel to Freedom

 

“Daylight exploded through the hatch, and for the first time in forever, I could breathe. I would have followed Yousef through hell if that’s what it took to reach that light.”

 

By Julia M Cross

 

The shot cracked through the silence like lightning ripping the sky. I didn’t know if it was close or far. Didn’t care. My body moved before my mind caught up—I grabbed Yousef’s arm and dragged him down into the mouth of the tunnel. He staggered, his weight folding over mine, and for a second I thought he had been hit.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he grunted, limping as we ducked low beneath the collapsing beams and walls of dirt and clay. “It missed. Keep moving.”

We didn’t stop to check. We couldn’t. The tunnel groaned above us, the ceiling wet and sagging like skin over broken bone. I reached ahead with one hand, flashlight shaking, the other gripping Yousef’s fingers like I could fuse us together. My lungs burned. My heart thudded so loud I thought it would echo through the walls.

Behind us, footsteps.

Fast. Angry.

They knew we were gone.

“We’re not going to make it,” I whispered.

Yousef squeezed my hand. “Don’t say that. Not to me. Not now.”

We stumbled deeper. Mud squished beneath our shoes. The air grew hotter, heavier, like we were walking into the belly of the world. I thought of our sons. Their tiny hands. Their soft breath at night. I had to get back to them. I had to get him back to them.

A light appeared up ahead—a glint of something metallic. A gate.

“Run,” I said.

“I’m already running,” he rasped.

We reached it—rusted steel and bent hinges—but locked.

Yousef looked at me, eyes wild.

“They’ll catch us,” he said.

“No,” I said. “They won’t.”

I pulled the wire cutters Noor had tucked in my robe and began to cut.

Snap. Snap.

The footsteps grew louder. Voices now. Arabic shouts bouncing off the tunnel walls.

Two more wires. One to go.

“Leah—”

“Not now!” I hissed.

The final wire broke loose.

Yousef kicked the gate.

It groaned, then gave way.

We fell through into another chamber—this one wide, scattered with broken crates and the remains of a camp. I smelled gas. Oil. Blood.

“There,” I pointed to a ladder. “Up.”

We climbed, breathless, every second a gamble. The hatch above creaked as I pushed it open.

Daylight.

Blinding. Burning. Glorious.

We burst through into the ruins of a market. The stalls were broken. Dust floated in the air like ash. No one was in sight.

“We need to hide,” he gasped.

“No. We need to vanish.”

I pulled him down an alley, my mind racing. I remembered Noor’s words. A van would be waiting. A blue one. Parked near the collapsed water tower.

We ran.

I think part of me flew.

My legs stopped aching. My chest stopped heaving. I moved like fire—uncontrolled, unbroken.

And then I saw it.

The van. Old. Dusty. Blue.

I pounded on the back.

It opened.

Nadav.

“Get in!” he shouted.

We leapt inside, the door slamming shut behind us. The van peeled out, tires screeching on broken pavement.

No one spoke.

Yousef collapsed onto the floor, coughing.

I fell beside him, my forehead against his.

“You’re real,” I whispered. “You’re really here.”

“I told you,” he said, voice ragged. “We made something the world can’t erase.”

Nadav’s voice came from the front. “We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before they start looking at exits. I hope you’re ready for another tunnel.”

I wasn’t. But I didn’t say that.

Because I would have followed Yousef through hell if that’s what it took.

The next tunnel was older, narrower. A smell of sulfur clung to the walls. It led under a stretch of farmland near the edge of Rafah. When we emerged, we were in a barn.

Three men stood around us, guns slung over their shoulders. One of them handed Nadav a black duffel bag.

“Money?” he asked.

“No,” Nadav said. “Passports.”

I stared at the bag. “Passports?”

“They’ll get you through Jordan,” Nadav said, opening the bag. “I have people waiting.”

He pulled out two documents. They were worn, fake, but good enough.

Leah Cohen.

Yousef Barakat.

It was us, but not us.

I touched the photo of my face.

“I don’t want to be her,” I said.

Nadav looked at me. “You want to survive?”

“Yes.”

“Then be her for a little while.”

The journey to Jordan blurred. More roads. More silence. More waiting in places that felt like ghosts of towns. We crossed the border at night, through another contact, with bribes and a car with no plates.

By the time we reached Amman, I could barely think.

A hotel room. Warm water. Food we didn’t taste.

And finally, finally, a bed that didn’t shake from bombs or boots.

Yousef lay beside me, silent. His hand found mine under the sheets.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” I whispered.

He turned his head. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere they don’t know my name.”

He kissed my shoulder. “Then we start over.”

I looked up at him. His face was thin. His eyes sunken. But his soul—his soul was still the man who’d brushed my hair behind my ear in a motel in Miami and told me not to be afraid.

“I almost lost you,” I said.

“You didn’t.”

I pressed my mouth to his.

This kiss wasn’t sweet.

It wasn’t gentle.

It was bruised and wild and full of everything we had survived.

He moved over me like a man returned from war.

And I let myself forget the past—for one night.

 

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Thursday at 8 PM.

 

 

Enemies in Embrace: Episode 21 – The Tunnel of Souls

 

“I will always come,” I said. His eyes, hollow yet shining, met mine through the dust and dim light, and in that moment, the war outside us no longer existed—only the promise that love could still find its way through rubble.

 

By Julia M Cross

Nadav didn’t look at me when he said the words, but they dropped like stones into a lake.

“I can get you in.”

The campfire between us crackled low. My sons were asleep, curled against each other under the heavy army blanket, their small chests rising and falling like gentle waves. The desert around us was still, except for the wind brushing sand across the metal sides of the hidden container we now called shelter.

I was silent for a long time.

“Where?” I asked finally.

“South Rafah,” Nadav said. “There’s a back corridor along the Egyptian wall. One of the tunnels still functions—barely. If the people I contacted hold their word, we can cross under.”

“And on the other side?”

He met my eyes then. “You’ll be on your own.”

I swallowed. My throat felt scraped raw. I hadn’t spoken to Yousef in sixteen days. Every night I dreamed he was calling out to me, but I couldn’t find him. Every morning, I woke up with my hand outstretched, like maybe I had touched him in my sleep.

“I’m going,” I said.

“You could die,” Nadav said plainly. “You know that, right?”

I nodded. “So could he.”

He sat back, exhaled. “We leave at dawn.”

We buried the satphone under a marked stone and erased our footprints as we packed. I didn’t cry when I kissed my boys goodbye. I didn’t let my voice break as I told them Mama had to go help Baba. Nadav arranged for an old friend, a schoolteacher’s widow, to watch over them in Be’er Sheva. He said she was safe. He said she had no political ties. I clung to those words like they were rope over a cliff.

The road to Sinai was rough and empty. At the last outpost before the border, Nadav changed our plates, turned off the lights, and drove without speaking. His face was hard with concentration. I had only seen him like this once before—when he thought we were being watched.

We reached the tunnel just after sunrise. A man with a thick beard and three missing fingers met us at the entrance. He didn’t give his name, just nodded and handed me a pair of heavy boots and a scarf to cover my hair.

“She goes alone from here,” he said to Nadav.

I stepped forward. “How long will it take?”

“Two hours if you don’t panic.”

The tunnel was narrow, damp, and cold. The air smelled like mildew and rust. I moved forward with only a dim flashlight strapped to my chest. I counted each step. I repeated the names of my children in my head like a prayer.

Yitzhak. Eliel. Yitzhak. Eliel.

I thought of Yousef’s hands. I thought of the time he cried when our son took his first step, and he whispered, “We made something the world can’t erase.”

I didn’t panic.

I emerged into the collapsed edge of a schoolyard. Rubble was everywhere—old notebooks, shattered desks, charred wall panels with Arabic phrases I couldn’t read.

A man was waiting. Young, barely older than a teenager, with frightened eyes and a Kalashnikov hanging from his shoulder. He motioned for me to follow him without speaking.

We moved through alleys. Past buildings missing their faces. Past women cooking over barrel fires. Past men with bandaged arms and hollow eyes. I didn’t speak. I didn’t ask. I just followed.

We stopped at a building made of scorched concrete. The boy knocked four times. A panel opened. Then another voice.

“Leah?”

I turned.

It was not Yousef.

It was a woman.

Tall, veiled, maybe mid-thirties. Her eyes were familiar, though. Sharp, dark, searching.

“I’m Noor,” she said in English. “I’m the one who sent the USB.”

“You?” My voice cracked. “Why?”

“Because he saved my brother once. In Ramallah. When IDF tanks shelled the clinic. He didn’t have to. But he did. I owe him.”

She stepped aside. “Come in.”

Inside was quiet. Too quiet. No generators. No radios. Just silence and the steady sound of a ceiling fan barely turning.

“He’s here?” I asked.

She hesitated. “No. But I know where.”

I swayed a little, caught myself on the wall.

“He was transferred two nights ago,” Noor said. “They moved him from the prison wing to what they call the ‘bargaining house.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s valuable. So they’re holding him until they know who wants to trade.”

“Trade?” My voice rose.

“For what?” I asked. “I don’t have anyone to bargain with.”

She looked at me carefully.

“But I do,” she said.

The next hour passed in broken sentences and scribbled maps. Noor spoke of tunnels, checkpoints, names I didn’t recognize, currencies I didn’t carry. My mind reeled, but I kept nodding, kept memorizing every word like a sacred text.

I was led to a basement room and told to rest. “Tomorrow night,” she said, “we try.”

I didn’t sleep.

I thought of how Yousef used to whisper ashan nefshi—you are my soul—when I cried myself to sleep after the birth of the twins. I thought of how he held me in silence when I told him I didn’t know who I was anymore.

At dawn, I stepped outside onto the roof. The city groaned below. Smoke curled from somewhere far off. A single boy flew a kite from a broken balcony, its red tail dancing like blood in the wind.

I stood there until the sun was high. Noor joined me just before noon.

“It’s time,” she said.

We disguised ourselves in market clothes—dust-colored robes, scarves over our faces. I carried a sack of onions. She carried the gun.

We passed five checkpoints. Each one tighter than the last. Noor flashed papers, smiled, lied fluently. I said nothing. I barely breathed.

At the last gate, a soldier with tired eyes looked directly at me. My heart thundered.

“You speak?” he asked in Arabic.

Noor answered for me. “She’s mute.”

He paused. Nodded.

We passed.

The house was buried behind two bombed-out apartments and what used to be a clinic. Noor signaled once and disappeared. I was alone.

I crept forward. The front door was chained but loose. I squeezed through a side window and dropped into the hallway.

I heard voices. One male. One female. Arguing.

Then silence.

I moved forward, step by step.

There. Behind the door.

I pushed it open.

He was on the floor.

Shackled, bruised, but alive.

“Yousef,” I whispered.

He looked up.

His eyes widened. Then filled with tears.

“Leah?” he said, barely audible.

I ran to him. Fell to my knees. Held his face in my hands.

“You came,” he whispered.

“I will always come,” I said.

We didn’t speak after that. We didn’t have to.

I found the keys on a nearby hook. Freed him. Helped him stand.

We had ten minutes. Maybe less.

We moved like shadows.

Out the back. Down the alley. Into the tunnel Noor had told me about.

We were almost there.

Almost safe.

When the shot rang out.

 

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Tuesday at 8 PM.

 

 

Enemies in Embrace: Episode 20 – Between the Crescent and the Star

 

"He didn’t blink. He meant every word. And in that stillness between us, I realized trust isn’t born—it’s forced into existence when fear leaves you no other choice."

 

By Julia M Cross

The safehouse was a stone bunker carved into the hillside, barely visible from the road. Nadav killed the engine and stepped out first, scanning the horizon with quiet precision. Then he motioned for me to follow.

I lifted the boys from the backseat, one after the other. Their cheeks were warm from sleep, their hair damp from the heat trapped in the van. Nadav opened a steel door hidden behind a wall of stacked brush, and we stepped into a space that smelled like earth and dust and the faintest trace of bleach.

Inside, there was one cot, two folding chairs, and a small stove. A row of canned goods lined a wooden shelf next to a jug of water. No windows. No mirrors. No signal.

“This is it?” I asked, holding Eliel closer as he rubbed his eyes.

“For now,” Nadav said. “We stay here for seven days. If he doesn’t come by then, we move.”

I set the boys down on a blanket. Nadav pulled a crate from the corner and sat on it like he’d done this before. Like he had hidden people before.

“How do I know you’re not working for someone else?” I asked him. “Maybe you’re just keeping us here while they go after him.”

He didn’t answer right away. Then he pulled a silver pendant from under his shirt. It was a Magen David, but behind it, almost hidden, was a tiny crescent moon etched into the metal.

“My mother was Palestinian,” he said quietly. “My father was Israeli intelligence. I’ve spent my life not belonging to either side.”

“Why help us?”

“Because people like Yousef don’t stay alive long without help. And people like you don’t deserve to become collateral.”

I watched him closely. He didn’t blink. He meant every word.

The next day passed slowly.

The boys played with plastic spoons and the bottom half of a broken flashlight. I tried calling Yousef again from the emergency satphone Nadav gave me. No ring. No answer. Just the quiet of a system either off or crushed under pressure.

I cooked lentils on the stove. I bathed the boys with a cloth dipped in lukewarm water. I braided their hair, sang old lullabies my grandmother used to hum under her breath. And through it all, I waited for footsteps. For a knock. For a voice.

On the third day, I found Nadav sitting outside the entrance with a rifle in his lap.

“You expecting someone?” I asked.

“Always,” he replied.

He handed me a second radio—just a receiver.

“If something happens to me,” he said, “you use this to call the number taped on the back. Say only one word—Benamir. Then hang up.”

I nodded, but my hands were shaking.

That night, I dreamed of Fontainebleau. The swimming pool. The scent of sunscreen and sea salt. I dreamed of Yousef standing at the edge, holding our daughter—only we never had a daughter. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But she had his eyes.

The dream shattered with the sound of static.

I sat up, heart racing. The boys stirred but didn’t wake. I grabbed the receiver.

“—safehouse… compromised… repeat… he knows…”

Then silence.

I ran to the front room. Nadav was gone. His cot was empty. The rifle missing. The door slightly ajar.

Panic rose like bile in my throat.

I didn’t scream. Screaming wouldn’t help. Instead, I locked the children inside the back room and whispered to them through the door.

“Don’t open this, no matter what you hear. Stay quiet. Stay still.”

Then I turned back to the front door and stepped outside.

The desert wind stung my face. I scanned the darkness. Nothing but dunes and dust and stars.

I crept along the side of the hill, bare feet silent on the packed earth. Then I saw movement—a shadow against the stone. I crouched low, heart pounding.

It was Nadav.

He was dragging someone.

I got closer. Quiet. Careful.

The body was unconscious—maybe dead. A man. Hands bound. Face bruised. I couldn’t see clearly until Nadav turned and looked at me.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he hissed.

“Who is that?”

He hesitated.

“Tell me.”

“It’s one of the men who’s been following you. He was watching the safehouse from the ridge.”

“Who sent him?”

“I don’t know yet. But he had this.”

He tossed a small object toward me. I caught it.

A USB stick.

I stared at it. “We need to see what’s on it.”

“Not here. Not now.”

He pulled the man toward the bunker. I helped open the door.

We tied the man to the pipe in the corner of the main room. Nadav checked his pulse. Still alive. Barely.

Then he turned to me.

“Get the boys. We’re moving.”

I froze. “But what if Yousef—”

“We can’t wait. This place is blown. He won’t come here now.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream. But I knew he was right.

By sunrise, we were gone.

We drove south again. This time to a Bedouin outpost Nadav said he had used before. It wasn’t a house. It wasn’t even a shelter. It was a shipping container buried in sand with a solar panel strapped to the roof.

But it was hidden.

The boys played in the dust. I boiled water over a fire. Nadav sat on the crate, staring at the USB.

“We plug this in,” he said, “we could be lighting a signal flare.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “If it helps find him, do it.”

He nodded and inserted it into a portable tablet with no wireless signal.

Files appeared.

Photos. Maps. PDFs with dates and military headers. One video.

He clicked it.

It was Yousef.

Not speaking. Just staring into the camera. A bruise on his cheek. A shadow behind him.

Then a voice—distorted.

“You want to be a hero, Dr. Darwish? This is your price.”

The screen went black.

Nadav closed the tablet.

“They have him,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I think I know. But if we go after him, we all become targets.”

I looked at my sons. Then back at him.

“Then we go. All of us. Or I go alone.”

He studied me for a long time. Then nodded.

“I’ll make the call.”

I watched him walk away, phone in hand, face hard.

I sat down in the dust, pulled my sons into my arms, and closed my eyes.

The fire ahead was burning brighter.

And I was walking into it with open arms.

 

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Monday at 8 PM.

 

 

 

Enemies in Embrace: Episode 19 – Letters from the Fire

 

"That night, I hardly slept. A letter like that was never just a letter—it was a warning, or a challenge, or both, and I could feel its shadow breathing down my neck before dawn."

 

By Julia M Cross

At first, I thought it was a prank. A sick joke left by someone in the housing unit who had overheard whispers of my accent, caught the wrong glimpse of a scar or a glance too long at the news. But the handwriting was too careful. Too personal. The words were curved with the same kind of silence that follows someone who knows you better than they should.

You’ve made it this far. But are you ready for what comes next?

I read the line five times. Then again.

There was no name, no symbol, no threat—just that question. But it crawled under my skin like heat. I folded the note and slid it into the lining of my coat, away from the boys, away from the light.

That night, I hardly slept.

I lay in the cot between my sons, listening to their breathing, trying to match my rhythm to theirs. The motel walls were thin. I could hear the woman two rooms down arguing with someone over the phone. I could hear the faucet drip in the hallway bathroom. But none of it drowned out the buzz in my skull. A letter like that was never just a letter. It was a warning. Or a challenge. Or both.

The next morning, I tried to act normal.

I washed the boys’ clothes in the sink. I took them for a walk to the fence that overlooked the Sea of Galilee. We watched the birds chase the waves and ate bread from a brown paper bag. But my eyes kept scanning every face that passed. A man in a hooded jacket. A girl with mirrored sunglasses. A teenager on a bike who kept circling.

Yousef hadn’t called in five days.

I told myself it was nothing. That he was laying low. That he was protecting us by staying silent. But the truth sat in my throat like a stone. Something was shifting. Something was coming.

That night, another note came.

This one was taped to the mirror in the motel hallway, just outside the shared laundry room. Same handwriting. Fewer words.

You're not alone.

I snatched it down before anyone else saw. My pulse raced. My breath came out in short bursts. I rushed back to the room and locked the door behind me.

I didn’t want to scare the boys, but they saw my face.

“What’s wrong, Ima?” Eliel asked.

“Nothing, baby,” I lied. “Just tired.”

But I wasn’t just tired. I was hunted. I could feel it now—the invisible eyes, the footsteps that stopped when mine did, the hum of something unseen tightening around our small world.

The next morning, I went to the front desk.

“Has anyone asked about me?” I asked the young man behind the counter. His name tag read Omer.

“No,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “Why?”

“No reason. Just wondering.”

He gave a polite smile, but I didn’t believe him. Something about his answer felt rehearsed.

Back in the room, I turned on the old cell phone Yousef had given me before we separated. I stared at the screen. No new messages. No missed calls. I tried the number he’d used before. No answer. I didn’t leave a message.

By noon, I knew I had to leave.

I packed everything we owned—three bags, two stuffed toys, a plastic box of documents—and dressed the boys in layers. I didn’t know where we were going yet, but I couldn’t stay. I felt it in my bones. We were exposed.

I opened the door to step out—and found a man already standing there.

He wasn’t in uniform. No badge. No visible weapon. But he stood like someone used to being obeyed.

“Leah Ben-Ami?” he said.

My heart stopped. The boys gripped my hands tighter.

“I’m from the Department of Internal Security,” he added. “We need to talk.”

“I have nothing to say,” I replied, trying to close the door.

He blocked it with one foot.

“It’s about your husband.”

That stopped me.

“What about him?”

“He’s alive. And he’s in danger.”

He handed me a photo.

It was grainy, low resolution—but it was Yousef. Sitting in a cafe. Looking over his shoulder. Alone.

“When was this taken?” I whispered.

“Three days ago. West Amman.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Nadav. I’m not your enemy.”

“Prove it.”

He reached into his jacket—slowly—and handed me a small device. A voice recorder. He pressed play.

“…If you’re hearing this, Leah, then it means I couldn’t reach you. Don’t go back to the old places. They’re watching the borders. They know about the boys. I’m trying to get to Eilat. There’s someone I trust waiting there. But I need more time. Please keep them safe. I love you.”

I dropped to my knees. The boys rushed to me, confused, scared.

“What do you want from me?” I asked Nadav.

“Your help,” he said.

“I can’t help you. I’m barely surviving.”

“Then help him. Yousef’s trying to expose something. Something your government—and mine—wants buried.”

I looked up. “And what happens to us?”

“You disappear,” he said. “For real this time.”

We left Tiberias at nightfall.

Nadav had a van waiting—unmarked, nondescript. We drove south for hours, avoiding main roads. He gave the boys tablets loaded with games and headphones. He gave me silence.

Finally, near the Negev desert, we stopped at an abandoned bus station.

“We switch vehicles here,” he said.

I looked around. Nothing but sand and sky.

“Why should I trust you?”

“You trusted Yousef. And I’m the only one he trusted enough to call.”

He handed me a flash drive.

“What is this?”

“Evidence. Proof of what he found. Names. Dates. Maps. If anything happens to him—”

“Don’t,” I said sharply. “Don’t even say it.”

He nodded. “When we get to Eilat, we wait. One week. If he doesn’t come, we run.”

I stared at the flash drive in my palm. It felt heavier than it should have.

The boys slept in the back, their heads resting against each other. I pressed my forehead to the window, watching the stars blink above the desert.

I had run before. I had crossed borders. Changed names. Burned letters. But this felt different.

This time, the fire wasn’t behind us.

It was ahead.

And we were walking into it.

 

 

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Sunday at 8 PM.

 

Enemies in Embrace: Episode 18 – Crossing the Silence

 

Outside the booth, an older man in civilian clothes waited, his face kind but distant. He handed me a form and said softly, ‘You’ll be escorted to a processing center—held for 48 hours, then your case will be reviewed,’ but I already knew that freedom could feel like another kind of prison.

By Julia M Cross

The first thing I noticed at the border was the silence. It wasn’t the kind of silence that feels peaceful—it was the kind that squeezes your throat. The kind that makes children grip tighter to their mother’s dress, even if they don’t understand why. My sons didn’t say a word as we stood in the line outside the Jordan River crossing, just beyond the checkpoint near Sheikh Hussein Bridge. We had crossed the forest, ridden in the back of an old grain truck for hours, and walked the last stretch in sandals that were too thin for gravel roads. But the boys were brave. Maybe too brave. They didn’t cry. They didn’t ask where their father was.

They just watched me. Waiting for answers I didn’t have.

There were guards on both sides—Jordanian and Israeli. They stood like statues, rifles slung over their shoulders, eyes sharp beneath dusty helmets. Every now and then, one of them barked something in Arabic or Hebrew, and the line shuffled forward like sheep. My hands were sweating. I had braided the boys’ hair into tight rows, dressed them in second-hand sweaters that didn’t match, and scrubbed their faces until they glowed.

I didn’t want them to look Palestinian. I didn’t want them to look Israeli. I just wanted them to look like children.

My Israeli passport burned in my pocket like a match.

When it was our turn, a young female officer motioned me forward. Her hair was pulled tight in a bun. Her badge said Sergeant Galit.

“Passport,” she said flatly.

I handed it over. My fingers trembled.

She flipped through the pages, scanning each stamp. Then she looked down at my sons.

“Yours?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where is their father?”

“Gone.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Gone where?”

“Dead,” I said quickly. “Car bombing. In Syria.”

It wasn’t the truth. But it wasn’t entirely a lie either. In a world like ours, men disappeared more easily than smoke.

“Names?” she asked, tapping her tablet.

“Eliel and Ronen.”

She blinked. “Biblical.”

“Yes.”

She motioned to a second guard, who came over and spoke in low Hebrew. I caught a few words—“unaccompanied,” “mother only,” “background check.” My heart slammed against my ribs. My knees wanted to fold.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Traveling. Trying to get home.”

“From where?”

“Turkey. Jordan. Short stays.”

She eyed me again. “Why no return flight?”

“I ran out of money.”

“What about the father’s family?”

“There is none.”

She turned to the boys. “How old are you?”

The twins looked at me. I nodded. They answered together, “Five.”

She didn’t smile.

“We’ll need to verify your identity and relationship,” she said. “Step aside.”

A gray metal chair sat in a corner near the gate booth. A camera faced it. I sat down. The boys clung to my sides like ivy. A male officer entered the booth behind me and whispered into a radio. Galit stepped out.

I tried not to cry.

I focused on my breathing. On the scent of the boys’ hair. On the small scab near Ronen’s eyebrow. On the faded lion printed on Eliel’s sock. Anything to keep from unraveling.

Then came the second interview.

They asked for my family’s names. My childhood address. The date of my last menstrual period. They asked about my synagogue. My voting record. Whether I had ever posted political comments online.

I answered everything.

I gave them my mother’s birthday. My father’s army unit. The name of my piano teacher when I was eight.

Still, they hesitated.

The man in the booth looked over my file again and again. My name. My face. My children.

Then he leaned in. “You left the country in 2021. With a return ticket. You didn’t use it.”

“I stayed longer than planned,” I said.

“Two years longer?”

“I got married.”

His eyes flickered. “To whom?”

I paused. “An American.”

“Name?”

“John Darwish.”

He blinked. “Darwish?”

“D-A-R-W-I-S-H.”

“Muslim?”

“No.”

“Where is he now?”

“Deceased.”

He didn’t believe me. I could see it. But he couldn’t prove it either. He stamped my file and passed it to Galit.

“Proceed,” she said.

I stood up on numb legs and gathered the boys.

“Last check,” she added, gesturing toward a body scanner.

The machine whirred to life as we stepped in. My heart beat so hard I thought it would register on the monitor. But the screen stayed green.

Outside the booth, an older man in civilian clothes waited. He held a clipboard. His face was kind but distant.

“Resettlement?” he asked.

I nodded.

He handed me a form. “You’ll be escorted to a processing center. Near Tiberias. You’ll be held there for 48 hours. Then your case will be reviewed.”

“Can I make a call?”

He nodded. “One.”

They put us in a van with six other women and eleven children. Some cried. Some slept. The woman beside me held a photo of her husband folded into a Quran. She didn’t speak.

The drive took hours.

I watched the fields pass by—dry grass, olive trees, broken fences. This was my country. But it didn’t feel like mine anymore. I was a stranger to it. A refugee with blue papers and no name.

At the resettlement center, they gave us blankets and thin soup. The boys were placed in a cot beside me. I didn’t let them out of my sight.

That night, I dialed the number Yousef had written on the inside of my shoe—barely legible in black ink.

It rang once. Twice.

Then: “Hello?”

“It’s me,” I whispered.

“Leah.”

My name in his voice made me tremble.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Tiberias. The center.”

“Are you safe?”

“Yes. For now.”

“The boys?”

“They were amazing.”

He exhaled. “I miss you.”

“I miss you more.”

“We’re not done,” he said. “We’re not even close.”

“What happens now?”

“I don’t know.”

Neither of us spoke.

But the silence wasn’t empty this time. It was full of everything we couldn’t say over a monitored line.

Finally, I said, “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t disappear.”

“I won’t.”

The line went dead.

Two days later, we were moved to temporary housing. A crumbling motel on the outskirts of Tiberias with a peeling blue sign and rusted balcony rails. But it had clean sheets and a bathroom. And the boys laughed for the first time in days when they saw a working TV.

I tried not to think about Yousef.

I cleaned. I cooked. I read bedtime stories in Hebrew and Arabic. I applied for asylum. I told the government our story—most of it. I said my husband had died in Syria. That I feared persecution. That I needed help. I didn’t tell them about Fontainebleau. Or Ramallah. Or the hill house with the storm shutters. I kept those pieces for myself.

Weeks passed.

Then one morning, a letter arrived. No stamp. Just a folded page beneath the door.

It read: You’ve made it this far. But are you ready for what comes next?

 

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Saturday at 8 PM.