Do you need anything? And they all did. More than any one person could give. But nothing was worse than nothing, and that was the sum total of indifference.

Lily felt she’d waited a long time before the patient replied. Then, without warning, the girl let out a short, high-pitched squeal that sent a shiver of alarm through Lily’s body. She grasped blindly for the girl’s fragile hand through the mosquito netting. When she found it, she squeezed it gently in an attempt to reassure her. Only then did Lily realize that the girl was dreaming, caught up in the tangled web of her own terrible past.

She continued to squirm and cry out for a few minutes longer. After what seemed like an eternity, the moaning began to subside. Then it stopped altogether.

Once Lily was finally sure that the girl was asleep, she closed her eyes and permitted herself a deep, weary sigh. She was mentally and physically exhausted and knew that the strain was starting to show. Even as she acknowledged the truth of this, though, she silently rebuked herself for being so weak. What business did she have complaining about her minor aches and pains when the people in this very room had lost so much? The sleeping girl whose hand she even now continued to hold was a perfect example of the terrible things taking place in the region.

Only sixteen, Limya Sanoasi had lost her mother, father, and two younger brothers one week earlier, when their village was razed by the government-backed Janjaweed militiamen who terrorized the non-Arab population of Darfur. Their methods were notorious. Rape, torture, and murder were all considered acceptable tools of war-and since they had the support of the country’s ruling party, they were virtually unstoppable.

Lily freed her hand carefully, doing her best not to wake the girl. Then she got to her feet and started back down the aisle in her foam-bottomed clogs, heading for the building’s single entrance.