The next morning found Riyad sitting beneath the grapevines' shade. He'd left the apartment in the earlier hours of the dawn when he found his eyelids growing heavy while sitting on the floor beside the sleeping girl's bed so Riyad had gone for a walk to keep himself awake. Once the threat of falling asleep disappeared, he made his way back up the third story apartment, careful to avoid the voices he heard in the nearby tent. If he saw him, Farhan would question why he was not with the wife he'd been tasked with monitoring.
He did not recognize anything unusual in the silence of the apartment. Riyad was becoming accustomed to the sound of only his breath and footsteps filling the peaceful space. Interestingly, he found the presence of another in utter silence rather enjoyable. He washed his face and arms in the sink of the bathroom, preparing for the morning prayer as the sun rose in the window across the living room and painted an awakening shade of orange over the space.
Moving past the closed door, Riyad laid out the rug in front of him and raised his hands to either side of his head, seeking solitude in the tranquility that fell over his mind when he lowered his forehead to the ground. It served as his daily meditation in the same way that his occasional morning walks with Ta'ira helped soothe his anxieties and chase away his worries. Without Kader to fumble around him, Riyad's focus remained sharp and cunning until he placed his hands on his knees and turned his head to either side, finishing the two segments of prayer before the girl woke.
Riyad folded the carpet and placed it on the chair's arm. His attention shifted toward the girl who continued sleeping in her room, wondering if he should wake her to eat or wait until she stirred on her own to make them breakfast. If she didn't wake up soon, he would be called down by Farhan then the opportunity would be missed.
He slowly pushed the bedroom door open to peek inside. Perhaps a quick look at her would give him an idea of just how much longer she planned on sleeping. But, when his cautious gaze caught on the empty bed, Riyad's worries returned.
She was not sleeping.
He whipped his head around in search of the girl in the empty apartment but he'd been here for thirty minutes and he'd seen every room except the one she was supposed to be sleeping in. Now, standing as the only person in the space, Riyad realized the girl had left the apartment before he'd even come up. It filled his chest with dread.
With a hushed curse, Riyad rushed down the steps to the door that peered out onto the soulless street in front of him. Farhan needed to know. If they all searched for her, they were much more likely to find the wandering girl than if Riyad took it upon himself. He rushed toward the camp to find Kader sitting boredly in his assigned position by the third tent.
At the sight of Riyad, he shouted a greeting. "Where are you off to in such a hurry at this time?" Kader asked, abandoning his post and chasing after Riyad curiously.
"She's gone," he replied, making a beeline for the second tent where he knew he would find Farhan and at least one another man of the group. He wasn't sure how long it had been since she escaped but surely they'd be able to catch up on horseback.
"Who's gone?" Kader questioned, struggling to keep up with him.
"The girl. I went out for a bit and the apartment was empty when I returned," he spoke quickly, unsure if the emotion that ground his teeth together was anger or worry. All Riyad knew was that he did not like it so he took it out on the entrance to the tent as he flew through it. "We need to find her before-."
Amer shouted in disappointment when the chess pieces in front of him tipped over from the powerful gust of wind that blew in with Riyad. "Come on, man!"
Riyad's voice trailed off when he saw the girl sitting across from Amer, flinching at the sudden appearance of the loud man. When she realized it was Riyad, her widened eyes relaxed and a softness overcame her expression before she returned her attention to replacing the chess pieces in front of her. A pile of white pieces sat on the floor beside her while only three black pawns stood next to a dedicated Amer.
"You're playing?" Riyad's question was spoken in an unsure murmur.
"I'm teaching her," Amer replied, his eyes knit in determination as he scanned the board in front of them with his nails caught between his teeth. Kader stumbled in behind him to find the same girl sat on the floor across from them. Her eyes filled with amusement when they looked between Amer and the board of their game. Riyad's brows knit while watching the behavior of hers that was light and completely contradictory to how she'd been the days and night before. Now, she seemed completely unaffected.
Farhan's voice spoke with a pointed tone when he asked, "who do we need to find?" He raised an eyebrow at Riyad from the left side of room where he'd been trimming his fingernails with the same metal clipper he refused to replace. In his distraction, Riyad had failed to notice the man who carefully watched him from the corner.
Catching himself before he could expose his mistake, Riyad shook his head. "Nobody, I was speaking to Kader about something unrelated."
He looked between the both of them with his hawk-like green eyes, able to catch even the smallest dishonest flicker in the features of those around him. It was evident he noticed the way Riyad avoided his gaze to glance down at the girl who made her move without a single hesitation, but Farhan did not push further. "Your wife," he began in a way that caught both Riyad and Harakat's attention. "-has been playing Amer at chess for the past hour. I'm surprised you didn't accompany her down."
Riyad nodded. "Yes, well, I was in the shower."
"Were you?" Farhan asked. "In the shower?"
Riyad hummed in response, making his way into the tent to casually drop onto the floor-level couch beside Farhan. One questioning glance from Farhan and Kader hurriedly turned to return to his assigned place for his remaining time. With a sigh, Riyad settled back into the comfortable cushions to watch Amer scratch the back of his neck. Over his shoulder, he saw the girl eyeing the battling chess pieces in front of them before her attention shifted up to the boy across from her. Riyad let the relief of her assured presence sink in; she hadn't escaped, she was playing chess.
"Keep a closer eye on her, Riyad," Farhan whispered, his eyes on the two attempting to converse in front of them—one with her hands and the other with his wide-eyed expressions. "I told you the girl is your responsibility now. Her very presence beside you as a member of The Resistance places her in a compromised position. Don't put her in danger because you're comfortable. You of all people should know how quickly a situation can take a turn for the worst."
The unexpected reminder knocked into Riyad like a rocket met unsuspecting civilian homes, crumbling them to the ground. His expression hardened seriously when he turned to his friend. In moments like these, when Riyad knew it would be best to say nothing, his silence seemed to be the loudest of all. Amer and Harakat both seemed to stop, shifting their attention to the lack of words being spoken between Farhan and Riyad before Riyad pressed his hands into the couch to push himself off the ground. He bit his tongue on his way out of the tent, his entire body growing warm.
His feet carried him quickly away from the camp and between the grapevines because Riyad felt the rage rising into his throat. He recognized the purity of Farhan's intentions with the warning, but this knowledge didn't keep his rising anger from bubbling in his hot veins and force his fingers deep into his palms.
"Calm down," his voice spoke Riyad's clenched teeth as its own entity, calling for a decline in the fit beginning to overpower his body. "Calm down!" Riyad hissed, his feet continuing to pound against the dirt beneath him to move him further away from the camp. "He's not blaming you. He's not attacking you. Calm down!" He lifted his hands to his head, trying to prevent the overflow of his rising temper.
But it didn't work. It never did.
Riyad's enraged shout cracked through his throat and his tightened jaw as he buried his face into his heads and fell back against a tree behind him. It shook and poured leaves over him. The shock of pain only seemed to reverberate through Riyad's bones when he sunk to the ground, his fingers digging into the bark in front of him. He tried to control himself, he tried not to break the tree, but his body craved a release for the building rage.
He closed his eyes and buried his fingers into his hair in a painful effort to even his breathing. Riyad began counting in his mind, reciting what the Sheikh had taught him, doing whatever he could to slow his racing heart.
The response was always involuntary.
Any moment that reminded him in the least of what had occurred in the field between the borders of both countries drew such a reaction. How his misplaced trust had become the reason himself, his brother, and so many others couldn't flee to freedom. Riyad's instinct was to blame himself for the foolish mistake he'd made. The foolish mistake that had killed his youngest brother in front of him.
"It's not my fault," he whispered to himself when he felt his lungs beginning to tighten, needing to be filled with air but refusing any amount larger than that which came from a single gasping inhale. "It's not my fault."
Riyad remained in his place, holding his heart and closing his eyes with a tightness that grew a pulsing ache behind his temples. He took himself away to listen only to the rustling of the leaves, chirping of the birds, and softness of the soil beneath him. He counted every flutter of flying wings above him until the tightness in his chest eased, giving way for a full breathe of oxygen that dimmed the pain blossoming in his skull.
Once he'd taken a filling breath, Riyad opened his eyes to drop his head back against the tree behind him. He rubbed his forehead with a heavy sigh, reclaiming control of his body's first instinct to rush into a fit of guilt and rage.
He pulled himself off the ground after a few more minutes, glancing around to ensure he'd been in his own privacy while fighting for control of his own mind. In the distance, he saw a stray chicken that clucked and roamed freely through the fields but nobody else. Riyad dusted himself of the leaves that had fallen onto his hair and clothes then began his way back to the camp, fully contained.
Farhan wasn't in the tent when Riyad returned only to find Amer putting away the chess board and humming the tune of a song he'd been playing all day yesterday. The girl was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Harakat?" Riyad asked.
"Who?" Amer asked, dropping the separated pieces into the same bag because he'd lost the other bag after a competitive scuffle with Kader only a few days after buying it.
"The girl. Where has she gone?"
Amer nodded. "Oh, right. I'm not sure."
"You're not sure?"
"I thought you'd know. She left after you ran out so I assumed she'd followed you or something. You know, behaviors of a proper wife and such," he murmured but, when he glanced up to see the seriousness plastered over Riyad's expression, Amer shrugged. "Ask Kader. He's the one who's monitoring the camp so he should know."
Riyad shook his head. "Kader's not at his post."
Amer placed the game down and rose, his brow knitting. "What?"
They both seemed to take a shared pause, processing what Kader's absence meant. Then Riyad and Amer hurried out into the camp's center to search for any of the missing three people that had disappeared. "Farhan's with Hamza. They were going to the Northern Camp to meet with Hema. Kader was supposed to be watching the prisoner and now you're wife is gone, too. What if that man got loose and took her?"
Riyad's eyes shifted between Amer's as he absorbed every fast-spoken word that flew through the teenager's lips. Together, they quickly hurried to the third tent to ensure the prisoner hadn't escaped in Kader's absence as Amer had predicted but a shout from within confirmed the man's presence within. Amer's feet slid to a stop. "They're fighting."
"Move," Riyad pushed past him and into the tent to separate the two men, but he did not find both men. Instead, the found the soldier climbing over Harakat to push the dagger in his hand toward her throat but the girl's previous kicking ceased as she gripped his wrist, wrestling to keep the sharp blade away from her.
"Harakat!" He raised his voice almost as if he was scolding the girl before sprinting forward to wrap his arm around the man's neck. Riyad threw them both back onto the floor and Amer rushed to pull her away from the soldier who'd broken away from his chains to attack her. He trapped the man's arm under his leg, tightening his arm around his neck to weaken him into unconsciousness.
Still, the soldier managed to spit out a few more insults. "We killed you once, we'll kill you again, you... bitch. No getting away this time- no one to protect you... you'll die...."
Beside Amer, the girl held her bruised neck and gasped for a clear breath. Riyad only released the man when he was sure he would not wake again, reaching for the rope to tie him up again. It laid properly on the ground, not ripped, not broken. Untied.
"Hello? What's with you?" Amer asked.
Riyad turned toward the two to find Harakat's eyes widened in panic, her fingers trembling against the bruising forming around her neck. He dropped the man from his arms, ordered Amer to tie him up, and rushed over to the girl to calm her uneven breathing before she iced everything out again. She'd only just returned to normal.
"Harakat," he sat onto the ground in front of her and gripped her face between his hands, forcing her panicked gaze to meet his. Her eyes moved quickly over his then back to the man then to Riyad's arms, and over the entire space in a frantic scan for the danger that had just thrown itself onto her. "He's out, it's okay. You're safe now. Look-," he recognized the daze that fought to take control of her once again and shook her head in his hands to knock it away. "Look at me!" Riyad demanded.
She hiccupped in a painful breath but met his gaze.
Riyad leaned closer so she could only see him and nothing else around them. "You didn't get hurt. You defended yourself. I'm here. You're safe. There's no reason to hide away, okay? I told you I'd protect you, didn't I?"
One of her hands lifted to her neck again but Riyad gripped her fingers against his palm before they could brush the tender skin in a painful reminder. "You're okay," he whispered to her, his tone gentle but firm. "You know that, don't you?"
Harakat gasped in another breath of air before it broke out through her lips, demanding a coughing release before she'd been prepared to exhale. But her attention focused on Riyad and the way he dramatized his breathing so that she might copy him, inhaling the air he exhaled and breathing what he drew in. Continuing to grip her hand against his chest, Riyad watched as the panic in her features slipped fully away, her eyes dipping to watch the contact of their hands.
"What are you guys doing in here?" Kader appeared in the tent's entrance, scanning the area with wide eyes and drawn eyebrows. "What are you doing with the prisoner?"
Amer glared up at the newly arrived man. "Tying him."
Kader's expression filled with question at the response and he glanced between Riyad and Amer's gazes with a snort, positive they were only playing a prank on him. "What do you mean tying him?" He attempted a joke.
Riyad tugged Harakat off the ground. "Amer, please take Harakat up to the apartment. I need to talk with Kader." Though both men frowned in confusion, Amer ushered the girl out of the tent to leave Riyad with his closest friend, his words carefully measured to resist the rising irritation he felt toward Kader. "You abandoned your post."
"I went to the bathroom-."
"You abandoned your post," Riyad repeated, refusing to be interrupted. "You left the prisoner unattended then he freed himself. Without your eyes on him, he could have made a run for it but he didn't. He came into contact with the girl—my wife—and attacked her with a knife that he somehow acquired also in your absence. She cannot speak, Kader. She could not shout for help. If Amer and I hadn't stumbled upon them while searching for you, she would have been dead and the soldier would have been gone!" His words had gradually escalated into an infuriated scolding that caught Kader off guard.
He nodded quickly in understanding. "I know, I'm sorry. I only stepped away for a moment to use the bathroom and rushed back as quickly as I could. I made sure he was secured before I left-."
Riyad spoke up with a harsh tone. "Then you should have called for someone to stand your place while you returned. That is protocol for a reason, Kader. Maybe it's time you became more aware of the reason our rules are so strict around here. Your carelessness could have created a complete mess of our camp."
"I couldn't find anybody to call on camp grounds. Farhan and Hamza had left, you'd disappeared into the grapevines, and Amer was nowhere to be found. That's why I checked on him before I left and, when that girl followed you into the grapevines, I assumed it would be alright to go for just a moment. How was I supposed to know she'd come back and enter the only tent Farhan had warned her not to go near?" Kader spoke in defense.
"Farhan never warned her."
"Yes, he did. Her first day here, while we were all trying to determine who she'd marry to stay, he'd made a firm point about telling her to stay away from this exact tent. I assumed she was trustworthy enough to heed the only rule he laid out on here."
Riyad's expression clouded at the word. "Trustworthy enough?"
Kader nodded. "It's just a bit strange."
"What's strange?"
"That I saw her follow you into the grapevines. I didn't think she'd wait for me to leave then make a move into the tent. If I had known that's what she'd been thinking, I would've stood my ground until you returned," Kader explained, motioning to the unconscious soldier with a nod of his jaw. "Poor girl was probably just curious what we were hiding from her then came face to face with that dog. I'm glad you found her in time."
Riyad's gaze shifted toward the soldier who was once again tied tightly back into his place with his head fallen forward. The tray of food that had been beside him was flipped onto its face, the rice within now spread across the ground in a mess. He moved closer to pick up the dagger and turned the freshly sharpened blade over in his palm, staring down at the glistening point that had only been a few inches from the girl's throat when he'd entered the tent with Amer. Shaking the image of the blood that may have stained the metal had he been only a few minutes later, Riyad tossed the weapon to Kader.
"Find out where he got that thing and make sure he can never reach another one again. When Farhan returns, I expect you'll give him a full report of what just happened on your own accord, or I'll have to do it for you," he turned to the man who refused to meet his gaze, his eyes lowered to the ground in shame as he scratched the back of his head.
"Of course," Kader muttered. But his hand darted out to catch Riyad's before he could leave the tent. "I'm really sorry, Riyad. Sorry about his potential escape and even more so the fact that he nearly hurt that girl. I can tell you care a lot for her."
Riyad pulled his arm away. "I care for her as I care for all our people."
Kader pressed his lips into a thin line and peered up at Riyad with narrowed eyes. Of all the people at the camp, Kader was the closest to Riyad so it was only fair to admit that he was also the one best at reading his hidden secrets. "You've never been dishonest with me, brother. Even now, your expression betrays your scripted words. It's not a sin to care for her. Don't say anything," he lifted his hand before Riyad could reply. "Just be careful with her. If she is curious in this way, she may quickly find herself at odds with Farhan. It is difficult to live in a kingdom as an enemy of the king."