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  A Missing Peace

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  A Missing Peace

  Beth Fred

  A turbulent, emotionally charged YA novel that breaks down barriers and challenges the status quo...

  Angry, seventeen-year-old Iraqi war refugee Mirriam Yohanna hates her new life in Killeen, Texas, where the main attraction is a military base, populated with spoiled army brats like Caleb Miller.

  Caleb has much to be angry about too, including Mirriam who turns him down flat in front of everyone. Eager for retribution, Caleb agrees to a dare that will see him take Mirriam to the prom and regain his pride.

  But their relationship soon moves beyond high school antics. Mirriam and Caleb are bound together by more than location, and as they are forced to work closely together on a school assignment, they start to uncover an explosive story that has the potential to ruin lives — and both of their futures. One single truth changes everything and strengthens their bond.

  When Mirriam's family discovers their relationship, they decide it's time to arrange her marriage to a proper Iraqi man. Caleb must convince Mirriam that he is in it for forever — or risk losing her for good.

  About the Author

  Beth Fred is a full-time mum and part-time writer/blogger/writing instructor. She is represented by Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyons Literary Agency. She is the author of The Fate of a Marlowe Girl and The Other Marlowe Girl. To learn more about Beth Fred, visit her online.

  Email: [email protected]

  Blog: www.bethfred.com

  Twitter: @bethfred08

  FB Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/bethfred08

  Acknowledgements

  So many people go into the making of a book, and this book brought some really great people into my life. But the first person I have to thank is my little ELF (Emily Lace). I started this book 9 months pregnant and only had 19 pages written before a horrible birthing experience and eventually a C-section. But I refused to miss my self-imposed deadline, so when we came home from the hospital Emily laid in my arms with her head in the crook of one elbow and her tiny feet dangling off the opposite arm as I typed the next thirty pages. For the most part she was still. Thank you, sweetheart. If you had moved we would have both had a problem. Special thanks to my husband, Emil Fred, who paid for the mediabistro class the first hundred pages of this was written for, and then an editor.

  Very special thanks to Nova Ren Suma who critiqued the first one hundred and four pages of this manuscript. Her critique style was both critical and supportive, striking exactly the right balance. I think her early comments probably saved me a whole draft. And special thanks to my friend Kelly Hashway. She’s so supportive of my career, always willing to answer a question and give advice. She’s also the editor of my self-published books and her feedback is always helpful with a quick turn-around time.

  Thank you, Kate Cuthbert, for your willingness to take a chance on me, and your enthusiasm for this project. Your suggestions improved the book, and were things I would have never noticed on my own. And Danica Fehrenbach for all of your meticulous edits and the things you pointed out that I would have never noticed. Thanks to all the people at Escape.

  Thank you so much Kathleen Rushall. You are an amazing and supportive agent.

  And thank you to Patrice Caldwell for stepping up to help me start the Peace Battalion and all the book bloggers who helped to promote this book. You guys are awesome. I owe you so much.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  For my little ELF. Happy birthday, sweetheart.

  Chapter 1

  Caleb

  With the AC all the way up, I still baked in the stifling heat. The other guys probably were too, but they didn’t complain. I followed the black Toyota in front of me as it curved into the pot hole covered parking lot of Killeen High. The number in the minute column flipped. We’d be late. Again.

  My phone buzzed against the console and I flicked my eyes to find it.

  “Hey, I got it. Try not to get us killed,” my best friend, Josh said.

  “Sorry? Who is it?” I asked as the black sedan stopped in front of us. A girl with tight black curls down her back climbed out of the car. Her ankle-length khaki skirt stood out in the sea of barely dress code legal miniskirts, and even in this heat, black sleeves covered her arms all the way to the wrists. The shirt hugged her body in all the right places, and her skirt shifted to the contours of her hips as she moved. At least from the back, this girl was hot. She had to be new or I would have seen her before. The school wasn’t that big.

  “Man, did you hear me? Are we goin’?” Josh asked.

  “Huh?” I looked at Josh.

  “The text was from Kevin. He’s having a kegger Friday night. Are we goin’?”

  “Yeah.”

  As I took my foot off the break, mystery girl stepped into the parking lot instead of going toward the building.

  “Oh my God!” I stood up on the break and the jeep halted without the sound of bones crunching under my tires or the impact of rolling over a person, but I didn’t see the girl anymore either.

  “You’re okay, man. We didn’t hit her,” Josh said.

  I didn’t dare take my foot off the break until she resurfaced. What was she doing? Was she insane?

  When she popped up clasping her hands in front of her, I gasped. “What an idiot.” She still didn’t go toward the building. Instead, she dropped to her knees in the grass stretching her arms in front of her. A turtle crawled out of her hands.

  She nearly caused me to run her over to save a turtle. I wanted to be angry, because that was so stupid. But if she hadn’t darted in front of my jeep like that, I would have killed a turtle. And what kind of girl risked being flattened by a truck to save a turtle? I shook my head pushing the near accident to the back of my mind. One way or another I would meet this girl today.

  When I got to my locker, Kailee, my ex-girlfriend, stood in front of it with her arms folded over her blue tank top, tapping a white shoe on the linoleum floor.

  I gave her a brief nod and focused my eyes on the numbers on my lock as fast as I could.

  “I called you yesterday,” she said.

  “I must have missed it.” Take a hint, already Kailee. I’d been ignoring her since we broke up, and she refused to acknowledge it.

  “Oh.”

  There was silence as I tossed my backpack into the locker and grabbed my biology book off the top shelf.

  “Are you going to Kevin’s party Friday night?”
/>
  I turned to face her. “Yeah, probably. Hey, I have to run.”

  “We could go together,” she said.

  The turtle saver crossed in front of us, but she had held a piece of paper out in front of her, and from this angle I still couldn’t see her face. My eyes followed her, waiting for a glimpse of the mystery girl.

  “Caleb? CALEB?” Kailee asked.

  “Oh, what did you say?”

  She shot a look at the dark-haired girl before glaring at me. “Drop dead, Caleb.”

  “What did I do?”

  Kailee flipped her bleached blonde hair over one shoulder and stomped off.

  At lunch, I threw my stuff down on our table and headed for the lunch line. Matt and Josh sauntered in a few seconds later, tossed their stuff on top of the table, and followed me.

  She stood right in front of me—the girl with the tight curls who’d saved the turtle—her back to me, still. I kicked myself for being so excited over a girl. I would only be around for a couple more months. What was the point? Then a voice in the back of my head said, “You might as well have fun while you can.” I grinned. That was the point.

  “Señorita, eres bonita,” I said. She didn’t move, or reply at all, simply stood with her back to me.

  I let a few seconds pass before trying again. “Can’t you say hello?”

  Finally, she turned to look at me. She had sharp facial features and deep brown eyes. She was beautiful but not in the way I expected.

  “I didn’t realize you were speaking to me. My name isn’t señorita or bonita.” Her accent wasn’t Spanish, but she was exotic all right.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mirriam Yohanna.” Her tone told me she’d rather I had not asked.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Not Mexico.”

  She knew Spanish. She just didn’t answer me. “So where are you from?”

  Mirriam

  Captain America behind me was so annoying. He was six feet of muscle. With a chiseled jaw and a small dimple on the left of his face, he was cute enough. If you were into All-American guys which I wasn’t.

  When my eyes connected to his golden brown teddy bear eyes, a wave of déjà vu washed over me.

  “Where are you from?” he asked like he was shocked I didn’t answer him in Spanish.

  It was probably better to be hit on by annoying guys than immediately made an outcast, but he’d assumed I was Mexican. He called me beautiful and he knew nothing about me. I hated guys like that. For once, I wished my older brother Abrahem, was with me.

  I sized him and his band of All-American boys up, a group of buzz cut guys in khakis with tucked in shirts. No barbells sticking through their faces anywhere. None of the ink stains that were so “cool” in America ran down their arms. These were decent guys. It disgusted me that decent guys here could walk up to a girl they’d never seen before and instantly turn her into an object. For a moment, I missed home even more than I did every second of every day.

  Paintings were beautiful. People had depth, or at least I did.

  “Where am I from? The birthplace of humanity.” I turned away from him again. “Zmal,” I spat the word out. No way did any of the boys behind me knew what I said, so my tone must have been enough because two or three of them laughed wildly and another one said, “Smooth, Caleb. Way to go.”

  “Where exactly is the birthplace of humanity, and what are you so bent out of shape about?”

  “Hmm. Maybe, it’s frustrating that someone would approach me in Spanish. Every brown person in the world is Mexican, right?”

  “I’m sorry. It is Texas. It’s usually a safe assumption.”

  “And why would you walk up to a girl you don’t know and call her beautiful? It’s so disrespectful, not to mention cheesy.”

  The guys beside him laughed. I glared at them with raised brows, and the tallest of the three held up his hands. “Sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” All-American Boy said. “But where exactly is the birthplace of humanity?”

  I stared at the floor for a minute or two. I wasn’t embarrassed of where I came from, and people were going to find out sooner or later. But once they knew, life would be harder. It was an army town. Ommy must have been trying to get us killed when she moved us here.

  I looked up at him. “Mesopotamia.”

  “Where is that?”

  Might as well get it out. “Iraq.”

  Chapter 2

  Caleb

  Mirriam walked through the door of my Government class with her head in that same piece of paper. It must have been a schedule. She surveyed the room and went for the seat at the very front table.

  Figures. She would be a suck up.

  “There’s your friend,” Josh said.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “Until she showed up,” Matt nodded toward Mirriam, “I thought I’d never see you get turned down.”

  “How did I get turned down? I didn’t say anything but ‘Hi’.”

  Josh shook his head. “Nah, man. You said, ‘Hi, beautiful.’”

  “Whatever.”

  I smiled as Kailee walked past, and she smiled back. “About Kevin’s party Friday night—”

  She laughed. “Caleb Michael Miller, are you serious?” “You’re in trouble for something,” Josh whispered.

  “What?” She was all about it this morning.

  “You got turned down by a raghead chick, and now you’re gonna come crawlin’ back to me?”

  Mirriam looked back at us. Had she heard what Kailee said? I wanted to tell Kailee not to call the girl a raghead, but I had my own pride to worry about at the moment.

  “I didn’t get turned down.” I shrugged. “But if you don’t wanna go, it’s cool.”

  She scowled at me but said, “I’ll think about it.”

  Josh and Matt both laughed. “You’re on a roll man,” Matt said. “And that’s sad cause Kailee...”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. I knew what he was thinking. Kailee’s easy.

  I was glad I didn’t defend Mirriam when Kailee called her a raghead. This girl had only been here for five minutes, and she’d already knocked me down. “I can still get any girl I want.” I leaned in, so Kailee couldn’t hear me. “Kailee and I will be at Kevin’s party Friday night.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything. Kailee will sleep with anyone,” Josh said.

  “And you don’t want her,” Matt added.

  I didn’t answer.

  “No way can you get any girl you want anymore,” Josh said.

  Matt nods. “He’s just another football player now.”

  “What girl can’t I get?” I snapped. I wasn’t used to being humbled like this, and it grated on my nerves.

  “Mirriam.” They laughed.

  “Fine. I’m not into Muslims, but before the year ends, Mirriam and I will go on a date.”

  Josh shook his head. “Take her to prom.”

  “Or?”

  “You owe me a thousand bucks, and you have to drive around with one of those stupid pink flowers on your gear shift and a fuzzy pink cover on your steering wheel for the rest of the year.”

  That was my entire savings from last summer, but it wouldn’t matter. I’d win. “And when Mirriam and I see you at prom, you owe me twelve hundred bucks and you’re driving around the same.”

  Josh laughed hysterically, and Matt echoed him. “It’s a deal, but just curious, how do I end up paying more?”

  “You don’t have to put with Mirriam all night.”

  The bell rang, and Mrs. Culpepper came in.

  “We have a new student today.” She walked to Mirriam’s table and asked for her schedule to sign.

  “I’m announcing projects at the end of class. I need someone from one of the three-person groups to move up with Mirriam, so she has a partner.”

  Josh nudged me. “You might as well go. Start working on your prom date.”

  “Hope she doesn’t grind you
,” Matt said.

  They were making fun of me, but they were right. If I got anything from Miss How-Dare-You-Call-Me-Beautiful, she was a guy grinder. I would need every opportunity I could get. It wouldn’t be like getting Kailee, where all you needed were flowers and candy.

  Since I was stupid enough to put a thousand dollars on it, I had to get Mirriam.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  Mirriam flung her head back and glared at me.

  The class discussed current events in the Mid East, and the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the difficulties of establishing a new government. Mirriam sat beside me, silently writing in a notebook. I didn’t think she was taking notes though.

  Someone in the back of the room asked how we ended up at war in Iraq and why the democratic government wasn’t working.

  Dumbass, don’t you watch the news?

  “We ended up at war because Saddam Hussein was a brutally cruel dictator,” Mrs. Culpepper answered. “The democratic government isn’t working, because these are people who have never had any rights before. Women had no rights. Minorities had no rights. Hussein’s family was brutal and committed crimes against civilians all the time. Democracy requires participation, and you can see how it would be hard to get an oppressed group of people to participate.”

  Mirriam

  I’d had it. That girl had called me a raghead before class started, and I didn't care. But this teacher was stupid. No wonder Americans were so ignorant. They were taught ignorance.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” I started to say, but then realized I’d spoken out of turn. My hand shot up, but Mrs. Culpepper kept going like she didn’t see it. I kept my hand up until she acknowledged me.

  “Yes, Mirriam?”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “What?”

  “Iraq. I lived there until two years ago. Honestly, we were all much safer before the bombing started. And I thought we were at war because the U.S. believed we had stockpiled nuclear weapons, which they never found?”

  “If it wasn’t so bad, why are you here?” the All-American jerk beside me asked.