Page 32 of Ozzie

“Lightning, wake me in three hours.”

“Got it,” he responds.

I close my eyes and am out. But then there’s a loud sound, and my eyes open. I listen as it continues. The call to prayer. I sit up. Lightning is waking, and Harding is watching us.

“Why is it going in the middle of the night?” JB asks as he sits up.

Harding stands up. “It’s the Fajr. First prayer of the day. It means we have less than two hours before daylight.” She grabs her phone and makes a call.

“I thought you’d been in Turkey a few days. Haven’t you heard this before?” I ask.

“I was usually passed out by now,” JB says, grinning, but when none of us return his smile, it quickly drops.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Harding says to whoever she’s talking to. She opens the door, and I step up behind her. There is a lot more snow on the ground than I expected.

“We need a car. I don’t care if you have to rent a damn snowplow,” Harding says.

Whoever is on the other end of the phone is talking fast but not loud enough for me to make it out.

Harding slams the door closed and pulls the phone from her ear. “Fuck!” She turns around. “Instead of a light dusting, it snowed several inches. Since the city isn’t used to this, everything is shut down. The good news is that we are likely safe here for now. The bad news is we need to get distance between us and JB’s abductors.”

Lightning sits up. “Can we hike to the nearest airport? If we go midday, it shouldn’t be too cold.”

I check the weather on my phone. “I don’t think that will work. It’s about eight degrees outside right now. Midday doesn’t look much better.” I turn it around so they can see.

Lightning walks over so he can read it. “Okay, so we’re stuck here for now. How long till it passes?”

I click to see the daily weather. “Snow should stop late today, but the temperatures don’t get above fifteen degrees Fahrenheit for at least five days.”

JB paces the room. “How can this be? It doesn’t snow in Istanbul,” JB says. “I can’t sit around in here for five days. I’ll go crazy.”

He’s right. Five days here with him, and we’ll all go crazy.

“It’s rare, but they sometimes get snow,” Harding says.

JB stops. “Wait, I know what to do.”

We all look at this kid. Well, technically, he’s a nineteen-year-old man.

“My dad is loaded. Just ask him to send a plane for us. I’m sure there’s an empty parking lot or field nearby.”

Harding lets out a loud breath, and it looks like she might lose it.

Lightning stands up. “I’ll take this one.”

He turns to JB. “How much of Istanbul have you seen?”

JB shrugs. “I glanced out of the car on the way to the hotel.”

“And did you see a lot of large parking lots or fields?”

He frowns. “No.”

“And you won’t find one until you get to the actual airport, which is too far to walk.”

Harding stares at her phone. “All flights in and out of Istanbul have been grounded due to the weather.”

“It looks like we’re here for a while,” Lightning says.

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