I did not get to spend so much of my solitude with thoughts of my parents because Tala came back a day later, bruised and battered.
She had shuddered when I had tried to console her by patting her back, which left me wondering just how much Faizan had tortured her if she had flinched at a mere touch. Seeing as there was no other way I could help her, I had saved a good portion of food and slid the food bag towards her. Tala had eyed the bag uneasily, but slid her arm into the opening and nibbled on a loaf of bread.
I did not go out of my way to tell her where the food was from, nor did she ask. From the time she had arrived, she did not speak a single word to me. She had resorted to scratching the dried blood off her pallid skin with her nails when she wasn't eating or sleeping. Bluish welts were scattered across her bare arms and she struggled to breathe. I wanted to cry after observing her sickly, weak state, but fought the urge to do so.
There were a few scattered branches, remnants of useless firewood, on the floor and she preoccupied herself with etching the concrete floor and the walls. She would often sit back and observe her random sketches from every angle, without speaking at all. This went on for days.
Saad was thinning as his bottle of milk and our food portions were gradually decreasing. I began to worry when he stopped crying so much. While the screeching was a bit bothersome at times, a purely silent baby was never a good sign, medically. I forced myself to make him laugh, giggle, or even smile. I took a piece of bark and scraped the floor, writing out the English alphabet and urged him to repeat the letters after me. A motherly beam spread across my face in the midst of this disastrous misery; Saad was beginning to recite the letters to near-perfection.
"A," I said slowly, allowing him to watch the movement of my mouth while I pointed to the letter etched on the floor.
"Aaah," he babbled. Close enough.
I grinned, kissed his cheek, and elongated the next letter for him to pronounce easily. "Be."
"Be! Bee! Beee!" He clapped his little hands together when he saw I was proud of him and suddenly blurted, "Beee! Baba!"
Baba?
Not once in the past month did Saad give any sort of reference to his parents. But where did 'baba' come from?
...Or perhaps I was thinking too much into this and Saad was merely playing around with a new sound.
"Baba!" He began shrieking, slamming his palms on the cold floor. "Baaaabaaaaa!"
Maybe I should quickly introduce 'C' to him...
"Baba, baba, baba!" Saad smacked his hands on the ground with more force than before, demanding his Baba to come.
"Who's Baba, Saad?" I asked him, ridiculously expecting him to understand a question in English at age two. "Baba who?"
He stared at me intently for a few seconds before slapping his face, covering all of his features except for his eyes.
Uhm, okay then...oh, maybe he wants to play peek-a-boo?
I wasn't in the mood to laugh or to make someone laugh, but for Saad, I struggled to put a very un-genuine grin while covering my face with my hands. He was not pleased at my disastrous attempt at playing peek-a-boo.
"Baba!" Saad smacked the ground harder and his cries echoed throughout the room.
Sighing, I attempted to gently reprimand him. "Saad, please calm down. I'm too tired for this."
Before he could cry out again, I shook my head and wrote down the letter C when Tala gasped from the other side of the room; it was the first sound she's made since she came back from being with Faizan.
"Tala, what's wrong?" I lifted Saad off of the ground, placed him on my hip, and walked over to where she was. "You okay?"
She stood in the opposite corner of the room with a medium-sized branch in her hand and gawked at the wall at eye-level in front of her.
"Tala?"
"Look," she whispered hoarsely, pointing to the wall. When my eyes followed hers, I drew in a sharp intake of breath as well.
"Oh my," I let out.
With all her etching and scraping on the wall, which I thought was done out of boredom, Tala had actually scratched enough of the cement between two cinder blocks to reveal the outside world. She had carved a hole into the wall, not a large hole, but it was slightly bigger than the peephole in my apartment door.
"What exactly is outside?" I mumbled, leaning towards the newly-constructed peephole.
"I think that's the inner courtyard!" Tala exclaimed, finally having enough energy to articulate a full sentence. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"If we're on the same wavelength, then I certainly hope you're actually not planning to make that hole bigger."
"Not quite," she whispered. "See, I kept scraping the cement where these four cinder blocks meet. The church is ancient and crumbly anyway, let alone the dungeon, so with a bit more scraping, I can easily scratch off enough dry cement, pull out the cinder blocks, and we can escape!" A certain sparkle gleamed in her eyes and I felt sorry for her; she actually believed her plan would work.
"You do realize that Al-Tho'baan has militants all over the church grounds and we'd never be able to really run off, don't you?"
"Surely they'll go to sleep sometime." She shook her head, completely being illogical. "We won't be able to run off for at least a few days anyway because this little hole itself took some time to drill through. After that, we can do it!"
"Are you crazy?" I stepped away from the wall, fearing the worst. "The idea of escaping is great, really, but what if we get caught?"
"What if we don't?" She snapped and glared back at the hole.
I set Saad back on the ground as though the weight of the whole world was suddenly thrown onto my shoulders and I was unable to continue carrying him. "Tala, the chances of that are so slim. Can you imagine what would happen if they caught us? They'd do every worst possible thing!"
"You are here alone, so you can say that," she muttered, beginning to sound more hostile. "But I need to find my sister, so I can see why escaping isn't a big concern of yours."
I clenched my jaw together and she could tell I was losing patience, but continued to prattle.
"You're an American. Your parents are probably rich enough to scoop you out of here," she scoffed. "I'm a Yazidi, an absolute minority. Do you think anyone will try to help me out? I'm so terribly sorry if you're so used to being waited on hand and foot, and that your parents do everything for you. Meanwhile, me? My parents aren't even alive so obviously I was never entitled to such special treatment-"
"Tala!" I yelled. Gosh, she completely exploded at me all because I told her it wasn't a good idea to escape! "I'm not coming. If you want to run off, then fine, but there's no need to spit out nonsense!"
Annoyed, I plopped down on the ground and tried to preoccupy myself with Saad. It was only midday, but his eyes began to droop as he sleepily motioned for me to place him on my lap. I complied, shifting him onto his normal sleeping position with his head on my chest. A hand fell on my shoulder.
"I-I'm sorry," Tala sputtered, her whole body shaking. "I am so sorry. I'm just...I don't know what's gotten to me. I'm so sorry for saying such hurtful things, I really am."
"It's okay," I said quietly, patting Saad's head lightly. Tala sat down on the floor next to me, blankly looking at the ceiling.
"I want to leave, I can't stay here any longer," she said, more to herself than to me. A few solemn minutes had passed before she confessed, "I want to kill Faizan."
Don't we all?
"But, my desire to run away is greater." Tala cocked her head to the side. "Why don't you come? You don't have to follow me; we can go on separate paths at some point. Surely, it's better than staying here."
I wanted nothing more than to go back home, to sleep in a comfy bed, to eat wholesome foods, to breathe fresh air...
Running away sounded extremely tempting.
But, would it be worth it?
The chances of getting caught were ridiculously high considering Al-Tho'baan had control of the entire area, not just the church campus, but the majority of Syria altogether and some nearby territories. Perhaps, if we fled to Turkey, just above Syria's northernmost border, we could actually be free. Then, I'd be able to go to the American embassy there and tell them everything, and I'd be able to board the next flight back to New York!
I nearly smiled in spite of myself, and then frowned when I realized the downsides of the plan.
While the American government might be lenient on me and let me go home without official documents because I had been held hostage, there was another issue. What about Saad? Where would he go? My frown deepened when I realized I definitely would not be able to take him with me.
I wish I didn't get so attached to him because now it will be terribly difficult to let go.
"Hayat?" Tala's voice broke through my train of thought.
"Huh? Oh, well, I guess maybe we can try. But if I'm able to go back to America, what about Saad? I don't think I'd be able to take him with me."
Tala's face scrunched up, deep in thought. "Turkey is actually not very far from where we are right now. If we make it there, perhaps we can send him off to an orphanage and go on our way."
Even though the dreadful idea was lingering in my head, it broke my heart to hear that from someone.
"Or," she continued, after observing my dreary countenance. "You can choose to stay in Turkey and keep Saad."
Why did I have the worst options available?
"We can send him to a reputable orphanage. That way, the administrators can provide a proper education for him and everything else he needs. He won't realize what was lost. You should take his future into consideration too."
It killed me to admit it, but she was right.
I shifted my sleeping Saad onto my shoulder, with the anterior of his head at the base of my neck. I clutched him tightly, not willing to let him go as though an invisible force would snatch him away from my grasp. His breaths tickled my skin and I periodically rubbed his back, soothing him as much as I could while I still can.
I would have to let my baby go.
"Think about it," Tala told me, patting my shoulder before limping back to her corner of the room and lying down.
I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to be with Saad, no matter how bad the situation was. But, that was entirely too selfish of me. He was only around two years of age, more or less, and had a whole life ahead of him. He deserved so much more better than the crap he's in now. Considering his ability to quickly grasp information at such a young age, like the alphabet, he'd even thrive academically. Lord knows I'd never be able to forgive myself if anything horrible happened to him when I had the opportunity to possibly ensure a bright future for the child.
I really would have to let him go.
Tears made wet tracks down the sides of my face before I was able to control them. Clear watery snot threatened to streak from my nostrils down to my quivering lips and I hastily wiped my face with my sleeve when the door slammed open, nearly knocking it off of its shabby hinges.
Five covered men stomped inside, startling both Tala and Saad from their nap. I silently prayed they would not notice the tiny hole Tala had engraved into the wall as I pushed myself back into the wall as though it would hide me from the men's view.
Five pairs of eyes scanned the room and from where I was seated, I was unsure whether or not Ahsan was one of them. Out of nowhere, one of the men swooped down to grab me by the arm and pull me to my feet. He grabbed Saad from my hands and strode out of the room before I even realized what was going on.
"No! Bring him back!" I screamed, running after the militant when a strong arm wrapped around my midriff. "Stop! Let me go!"
Tala hoarsely screamed her lungs out as the both of us were being dragged away in opposite directions. The men had lugged Tala's thin body off to a gloomy corridor and completely out of my sight. I struggled to slip out of the militant's grip, but he was entirely too forceful as he carelessly allowed me to tumble up the stone stairwell. When I eventually regained a proper sense of movement, I glanced sideways and gaped at the man's hazel eyes.
This is not Ahsan!
The stranger pulled me through a doorway until we had stepped foot on the church's courtyard where a whole array of jeeps were lined up just beyond the arch entrance, and other Al-Tho'baan militants proceeded to drive off in groups. Before I was able to process why I would be dragged up here to see this absurdity, the militant dragged me over to the last jeep in the line and hurled me into the passenger seat in the front. Someone was already in the driver's seat, crouched over the steering wheel, and jumped up when he felt the impact of another human thrown beside him.
Seeing that the militant who had dragged me into the door-less jeep had left, I used the golden opportunity to leap out of the seat when yet another hand yanked me back.
"Stop acting like a five-year-old and get back in your seat!" A familiar voice scolded.
"You?!" I exclaimed. "What is this! What the hell am I doing here!"
"Yes, me," Ahsan snarled, turning the key into the ignition. "We're going on a little road trip."
"What kind of sick game is this! That poor girl Tala had been brutally raped by Faizan just a few days ago and they've dragged her off again." I choked back as I said the next sentence. "They took Saad away from me and we're going on a damn road trip?!"
"How about you shut your smartass mouth and put on your seat belt or else your guts will spill out of the jeep, and I will continue to drive off as though nothing had happened."
I sunk back into the seat and reluctantly pulled the seat belt over my torso. "You're a horrible person."
"Trust me, I do not care." He looked at me briefly from the corner of his eye. "Why is your nose red?"
"I think you should stick to 'not caring'," I flared, crossing my arms over my chest and staunching fighting the urge to cry again.
He snorted. "Suit yourself."
"Why are we going on a 'road trip' anyways?"
"You'll find out when you get there," he muttered, keeping his gaze on the barren road ahead.
I hated that response.
Tightening my fists together to prevent myself from lashing out my anger, I asked, "How long will it take to get there?"
"Four hours."
"Can you at least tell me where we're going?"
"Palmyra."
An almost-brilliant idea dawned on me. If Tala and Saad were dragged off into one of the other jeeps that were also heading to Palmyra, maybe we could finally escape way ahead of plan! My mental map was blurred and useless at the moment, but if Palmyra was in north Syria, it'd be quicker for the three of us to jump into Turkey and we'd be free.
"Is that in north Syria or south Syria?" I asked him, failing to keep the excitement out of my voice. Ahsan sharply turned his head, noticing my sudden energy and I mentally slapped myself for blowing my cover.
"South," he said slowly, eyeing me with extreme suspicion. "Why?"
"No reason," I mumbled, fixing my gaze on the dusty dashboard that suddenly seemed rather interesting.
"Tell me," Ahsan ordered, fully turning to face me. His tone deepened ever so slightly.
"I said it's nothing."
"I say you're lying."
"Well, I say you're a reckless driver who should keep his eyes on the road because there's a giant-"
Ahsan followed my eyes and quickly swerved the jeep, nearly flipping over in front of the large rock, until he regained control of the vehicle and veered back onto the road. After that, he exhaled heavily with relief.
"-Boulder," I finished my sentence, glaring at him as I pushed myself off from the dashboard. "Which idiot gave you a license?"
"Which idiot told you I had a license?" He retorted, acting as though we did not just have a near-fatal encounter with Death itself.
"Do you even know how to drive!"
"Can you shut up?" He snapped at me, gripping the steering wheel tightly. "There are worse things in the world for you to whine about."
"Yeah, and sitting next to you while you're driving is one of them! No wonder you told me to put on the seat belt earlier, my guts really would have spilled out!"
"Are you done yapping now?" His jaw tightened underneath his balaclava and I knew it was the perfect time to stop talking.
He drove on for miles, or kilometers as it is called here, and I was beginning to get drowsy when he abruptly called for my full attention.
"Hey, how did you just whip out that verse from the Quran?" He said in a more amiable tone.
"When?" I stifled a yawn. "What verse?"
"The one from over a week ago. It was about killing innocents is equal to killing humanity," Ahsan told me faintly.
"Oh, that." I nodded after the scenario came to mind. "You're talking to a hafiza."
"Really? Me too." He paused and corrected himself. "Well, not a hafiza, but a hafiz."
"What!" I choked on the dry desert air, which hurt just as much as choking on food or water. "You're a hafiz?"
"Yes."
"I can't believe this." I smacked my forehead as nothing about Ahsan made sense nor fell into place.
A cardiologist. A hafiz. An Al-Tho'baan militant. But overall, a moron.
"How can you be a hafiz, knowing all of the good and righteous things in the Quran, but still genuinely think Al-Tho'baan is right at the same time?" I questioned him.
He evaded the inquiry and muttered, "I think it's time for you to go back to sleep."
Why is he so observant?
I did not have the energy to carry on the dispute and decided to gratefully take advantage of closing my eyes for a little while, and dream of nice things...
"Get off of my shoulder before I throw you out!" Ahsan's piercing volume forced me to tear away from my slumber, leaving me with no idea of what I was dreaming. Startled to find that I was sleeping with my head on Ahsan's shoulder, I hastily straightened myself.
"Sorry," I mumbled, my cheeks reddened because of my oblivious foolishness. Rubbing my eyes to get a clearer view of where we were, I was shocked to find that we were right in the middle of an open area of ancient ruins with Corinthian colonnades all around.
"Whoa," I whispered in awe. The history buff inside of me did a happy dance and rejoiced.
Judging from the architecture, the columnar remnants were once part of some sort of worshipping center in its glory. I jumped out of the jeep, and hesitantly hovered my hand over the base of one of the crumbling columns. Such things were only seen in museums or textbooks, but to be right next to it was an indescribable experience in itself.
Every bit of sudden joy was drained out of me when a different recognizable voice broke through the silent air.
"Good evening, Hayat," Faizan addressed me cheerfully with some tools in his hands. A whole stream of militants, including Ahsan, trailed behind him and I was so absorbed with the ancient construction that I did not notice there was anyone else besides me.
I scowled at the monster. Faizan's eyes went cold for a split second, but then he resumed his joyfulness.
"Lovely view, isn't it?" He said, shoving a long, heavy object into my hand.
"What is this?" I asked cautiously.
"This, my love, is a sledgehammer." He beamed. "We're on a little mission and I'd love it if you'd inaugurate the business."
"W-what?" I croaked, not having the faintest clue of what this mission might be.
"We're going to knock off a few buildings and some graves. Efficient bombs are becoming quite expensive and tedious to make, so we shall resort to the old-fashioned method," Faizan told me as though he was simply giving a weather report.
"Y-you want me to-"
"I want you to help us with tearing down this trash of a temple as well as some tombstones," he ordered in a harsher tone. "You'd do that for us, won't you?"