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.