Operation: Dard and Devotion

37 | Lament & Lucid

"Well, that's the Cliff Notes version," I stated. "But, essentially, yes."

"Who's that other guy you mentioned?"

I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to remember. "Murtaza?"

"Yeah, him."

"I don't know much about him, except that he's Ahsan's friend."

"So what do you want us to do?"

"He can't be ex...executed." I pulled out the newspaper from my satchel and stood by Marc, pointing out the two familiar faces. "Both of them!"

He took a quick glance at the paper. "We can't do anything."

"Surely, we can appeal or something," I pleaded while struggling to keep my voice steady. "Please, Marc, you've interned at the United Nations headquarters back home. There must be some sort of law or policy to stop this from happening!"

"With regards to terrorists who've willingly chose this path and murdered many people along the way," he reasoned frankly, "No, there isn't a way out of this."

My shoulders fell.

Marc pulled up a chair and sat down, forming a steeple with his fingers in front of his mouth. He gave Nat a long stare. "Well, Miss Psychologist, what's your take on this?"

Nat seemed as though she did not want to bear the burden of responding. "I...I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Cut the crap, Marc," she said suddenly. "We're both thinking of the same thing here."

I felt my fists roll up at my sides. "And what would that be?"

"Stockholm syndrome."

"Is this some crude joke?" I glared at her. At the back of my mind, I had hoped that Nat would at least see things from my point of view.

She sighed. "I wish it was, but it isn't. You're exhibiting all characteristics of someone with that condition. You're sympathizing with your captor and expressing affection for him. You're even pleading to us to stop him from being executed." I saw the pain in her eyes as she spoke, but I was determined for her to look at things from my perspective.

"Nat, he helped me with so much! He gave me food when I had been starving and he had given me clothes when I had been nearly naked. He even took the time to stitch my wounds and to make sure they were taken out properly. If he was so horrible, then why didn't he just leave me out on the courtyard to die? Why didn't he rape me when I was so vulnerable throughout my entire time there? Why did he choose to take care of me?"

She watched me thoughtfully. "Okay, maybe its Lima syndrome instead."

"What's that?" Marc asked.

"The flipped version," she answered. "The abductor sympathizes with the hostage."

"Can you stop trying to label this as some sort of syndrome!" I knew my words cut deeper than I had intended when I saw that both of them were taken aback by my outburst. "This is just about someone who, yes, made plenty of mistakes and now wants to turn his life around. I've seen him when he was furious and I've also seen him completely broken. He is not the man I met when I first got here. Because of his sister's rape and death, he struggled with what was right and wrong. But now he knows. All this time, he was blindsided by people he had once trusted, only to find out that their intentions were not for good. He wants to get away from this corrupted mindset. That is why I think he should not be killed."

"His change of heart won't help him escape the death penalty," Marc said quietly.

"I agree that he made mistakes, but-"