"I apologize for not knocking." The corner of Faizan's lips curled upwards in a sly smirk.
The devil was in my room and I could not do anything about it.
"Ah Hayat, love, long time no see." Faizan's lustful, deep voice bounced off the barren walls of the dungeon and throbbed in my ears. "I believe the last time we met was on a lovely afternoon in the courtyard, just about a month ago. Do you recall?"
The day I was flogged.
Unbeknownst to Ahsan, my back still occasionally went through bouts of searing pain whenever I turned, bent over, or straightened up too quickly.
How could I forget?
"Why are you here?" I hissed at him, possessively lifting Saad from the cot while he was still asleep and clutching him close to my chest.
"Is that how you greet a friend after such a long time?" Faizan sighed, crossing his arms and leaning on the door frame.
"Friend, my foot," I muttered, tightening my grip on Saad.
"I will try to set aside some time from my hectic schedule to teach you some manners." Faizan, with his arms still crossed, took slow, menacing steps towards the cot, and shook his head. "Your mouth will get you nowhere, girl."
"In that case, you should have been long gone by now," I mumbled before I had realized what I had said.
Hayat, you idiot! Do you want to die right now?!
Faizan quickened his pace and I expected him to whip out a switchblade to slice my throat right then, but he didn't.
Instead, he laughed.
"You're lucky I find you attractive and funny, or else you would have been finished ages ago," he said, running a hand across his neck to imitate a beheading.
Oh, how I wish your hand was actually a knife!
My gut clenched at what I would have considered to be compliments in any other situation. The same words coming from Faizan just seemed to be a prolonged death sentence. The bastard made his way to the foot of the cot and plopped down, causing me to spring up slightly. I hastily brought my knees to my chin, sandwiching poor Saad between my chest and legs.
"Now, why do you do this?" Faizan clicked his tongue and frowned. "What have I ever done to you?"
My jaw crashed to the ground.
Did he just say that?!
"You drugged and kidnapped me, you killed so many people in front of me, you dragged me around to your stupid assignments, you treat everybody here worse than dirt, and you flogged me! That's what you did!" I yelled in one breath. "You're a liar, a murderer, and a monster!"
"I'm flattered that you give me so much credit." His eyebrows rose slowly as he pulled out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket. He took a long drag on it before continuing. "But credit goes to where it is due. I hardly carry out these things myself. I'm more of the mastermind."
"Makes no difference to me," I told him through gritted teeth.
"Again with the anger." Faizan rolled his eyes and had the audacity to blow out three consecutive smoke rings in my face. "Why are you so hostile? The people who died were nothing more than the scum of the planet, just kuffar. They were meant to die anyway; I just made the process faster."
"You deserve to die," I let out before realizing the contradictions in my statements. Wishing death upon someone, even if that person is Faizan, made me no different from the likes of Al-Tho'baan. However, I was not in the position to think logically.
"You think so? That's a far cry from the truth. If I deserved to die, I would've been dead by now." He reasoned. "Obviously, Allah is on my side."
He must be high on something.
"Was that a joke?"
He blew out another smoke ring and turned to face me, looking amused. "Oh, I don't do jokes, love."
Faizan made the word love have a wretched connotation to me.
He took another long drag on his cigarette and glanced at me with hazy eyes before another series of smoke rings came my way. I hated the very scent of cigarette smoke and went into the worst coughing fit I ever had. Poor Saad had to inhale the smoke and hear my booming coughs simultaneously. Faizan reached out a hand to pat my back when I abruptly smacked his hand away.
"Don't you dare touch me," I spat once I recovered.
Anger flashed in his eyes before he obediently retracted his hand, shrugging. "Later, then."
"More like, never." My face twisted with contempt.
"Trust me, I always get my way," he said with total confidence. "It's only a matter of time."
"Trusting you is the last thing I'd do, trust me."
Faizan's eyes narrowed and a vein throbbed in his neck. He reached into his pocket with his free hand and unsheathed a flat, shiny object. A knife.
I eyed it warily while trying to keep my expression guarded.
"Keep talking, love." Faizan threw the cigarette on the floor and smudged it with his boots. He juggled the bare knife in the air and I flinched, believing that it would land on me, but Faizan caught it with his naked hands. "Oh, what happened? Suddenly lost your voice? What a shame. I recently bought this and wanted to test it out to see how sharp it is."
I didn't dare speak up.
He fidgeted with his pockets once more and retrieved another cigarette. "Local cigarettes always taste like shit," he muttered to himself. "Oh, where are my manners?" Faizan held out one to me. "Do you smoke?"
I shook my head.
"Have you ever tried?"
And again.
"Why are you...oh!" He stashed the knife away when he realized why I was silent. "No worries, love. I wasn't going to stab you anyway."
I didn't believe that one bit. I kept my face downcast and acted like an oppressed pushover. Even without looking up, I could feel his eyes on me.
"You've lost a tremendous amount of weight though. I liked you better with some meat." He scrunched his face up, deep in thought. "You know what, I will personally bring you a food and water supply weekly. I'd like for you to stay pretty, for me."
"Actually, no need. I'd rather starve," I told him, glaring at him with disgust.
His eyes darted to the new food bag on the floor that I had picked up from outside the room. "I see you found the bag I left for you. Still want to starve?"
That was from him?!
"Why don't you take a proper look to the contents and I will give you another chance to respond." When I didn't budge, his voice lost its fake sweetness. "Now."
Reluctantly, I bent over and retrieved the food bag, and a citrusy aroma filled the air the moment I untied it. Inside were the most beautiful fruits, at least, that was how they looked in my food-deprived eyes. Oranges, grapes, apples, pomegranates, figs - all the things I had once taken for granted a long time ago.
My mouth was watering.
But then I thought of something and composed myself. "Are you trying to win me over with food?"
"With food?!" Faizan burst out laughing again and I found his cackle awfully unbearable. "Love, I don't need food to do that. I have other ways."
"Well, those ways will be a complete waste of time."
"You will give in to me." It was an order.
"I will not."
"Ah, but you don't get to decide what to do, love." He leaned over with one arm that was resting on the mattress. "I do."
"The hell you will," I said with not so much bravery as Faizan sprawled on the bed next to me, crossing his arms under his head. I had sat upright and his head was at level with my hips, and while the idea of running off was tempting, my gut feeling was to stay put. Faizan sat up and quickly clasped his arm around my waist, and my heart instantly pole-vaulted to my throat.
"I've been out fighting constantly for so long that I almost forgot what this felt like," he murmured, bending his head into the crook of my neck and extending his arm up my chest.
NO!
In a frantic attempt to escape, I grabbed Saad and clumsily slipped off the edge of the cot, making sure that only I collided with the hard, stone floor, and not the baby. My shoulder was on fire with pain and Faizan sat on the edge of the cot with a smug look.
"The hard-to-get game, huh? Very well then, I'm in the mood to play." Without a warning, Faizan bent over, tossed Saad on the floor like a bag of potatoes, scooped me up in his arms, and threw me back on the cot. He made sure there was no way I could retaliate as he firmly sat above my hips and pinned my wrists together with one hand. Just as he was about to press his lips against my own, a figure appeared in the doorway. Relief swept over my face.
Oh my God, Ahsan! Your timing is perfect! Where the hell have you-
The figure came closer and as I squinted to get a better view, my throat went dry.
This was not Ahsan.
Even though this man donned the typical Al-Tho'baan attire with a balaclava, this man was definitely a head shorter than Ahsan. As I peered at the doorway again, more shadows made their presence known by stepping into the room. A gush of horror filled my mind.
Are they here to gang rape me?!
Tala's gruesome accounts of her experiences and the horrid fate of little Du'aa played out in my head and I wanted nothing more than to escape. Faizan was a mere few centimeters away from me and watched as an array of emotions revealed themselves on my face. He whipped his head around to where I was looking and his shoulders fell in annoyance.
"What do you want?" Faizan spat out.
The short man who arrived first responded with a shaky tone, his lecherous eyes briefly resting on me before darting back to Faizan. "Uh, the uhm...the medical examiner is here."
Medical examiner? Don't they perform autopsies on corpses?
"I'm busy," Faizan declared, turning to face me again.
"He said he's in a hurry," the short man tried to explain, causing Faizan to clench his jaw.
"And do you know what you're supposed to do?" Faizan asked, barely giving the man a moment to answer. "You tell him to wait."
"H-he told us he needs to go in three hours. If it's not done by then, he'll have to come another day and he's booked for the next few weeks." The short man explained with a shaky voice.
I regained a bit of freedom as Faizan heaved himself from me and spoke in hushed tones to the men at the doorway. Then, he bleakly glanced in my direction. I did not miss the twinkle in his eye.
"Hayat, follow me. I have something fun planned for you."
My mind told me that whatever Faizan had planned for me would definitely be miles away from fun.
***
All of the forty-something people who I had seen when I had first entered the church grounds sat obediently on the dusty floor where the mahogany pews were once standing. Some faces were unfamiliar and some old faces were missing. I wonder what had happened to them. Father Mikhail sat on the far corner with the men and stared straight ahead with the saddest expression I had ever seen. I followed his eyes and my face mirrored his.
Militants lined up shoulder-to-shoulder at the entrance of the altar, hiding whatever was behind them. Someone tugged the end of my abaya and I ripped my gaze away from the men.
"You came here alone?" Tala's voice broke out from the silence.
"Tala, it's been so long!" I whispered to her hastily, sitting down by her side. While her body was fully concealed beneath her abaya, the right side of her face was still under raw recovery. I had Ahsan to help me, she had nobody. "Where have you been?"
She briefly rested a sorry gaze at the men and shook her head slowly, clasping my hand in her own grasp. "You were summoned here or that man brought you?"
"Man?"
"Yes, that man you always talk to. I don't recall his name."
I didn't always talk to him, did I?
"Ahsan? Oh no, I haven't seen for some...some time now." I swallowed, choosing to overlook the disapproving glint in her stare. "Faizan brought me up here, not sure where he went now, though I'm not complaining about his disappearance."
Her eye twitched at the mention of Faizan. "How much time is exactly 'some time'?"
"Uhm..." I tried looking around elsewhere, anywhere except her piercing eyes, but I failed. "It's been a few hours, I guess."
"You talk to him too much, abnormally too much. Do you trust him too?"
"I...I mean, I think he trusts me. Why do you ask?"
She ignored my question. "What makes you think that?"
"He told me about his past and that he had never told anyone else bef-"
"You do know that men are very good at luring girls with words, don't you?" Tala scoffed in the most obvious way, and frankly, I was getting slightly annoyed. "How do you know his story is even true?"
"He...he's not like that," I told her with a bit more confidence. "He always helps me when I get hurt, brings us food and checks up on us. Why are you so suspicious of him?"
"If he's so nice, why is he still in Al-Tho'baan?"
Good question.
"He's a grown man and considerably stronger than anyone else here, so obviously nobody is forcing him to stay. So why is he? Did you bother asking him that?"
I was silent.
"Hayat, I'm telling you this because I know what these men are like." Her face softened. "I know it's easy to fall for charm and sweet behaviors, but the bottom line is, he's an Al-Tho'baan militant."
I did not know how to reply to that, but I indirectly defended my point of view. "But, he cried in front of me! We went to see his mother and-"
"You what?" She hissed at me, her body giving off a furious aura. "You traveled outside with him! Are you in your right mind!"
"Nothing bad happened! We went to see his mother, she yelled at him a lot, and then when he dropped me off at the dungeons, I saw him cry at the bottom of the stairs."
Tala was not convinced. "What makes you think he didn't put on an act because he could sense that you would watch him leave the room?"
"Tala, I promise he's not bad. He's just-"
"Then why is he still here?"
When I didn't respond straightaway, her eyebrows skyrocketed. "I...I don't know."
"Hayat, I don't like the sound of him." She dropped my hand. "The mere fact that you say he's good, but he's still here says quite a bit. I think you should avoid him at all costs. He is not worth your trust."
She does have a point, but still...
"I-"
"Hayat!" A foreign voice shouted and the echo bounced off of the barren church interior. I whipped my head around, only to find Faizan in my periphery, standing quite fearlessly at the top step leading up to the altar. "Come here, I have something for you to do."
Knowing it would do me no good by disobeying, or any good by obeying either, I gathered my shaky self and hesitantly strode up to where the monster was standing. Upon the arrival, Faizan silently ordered the men to disperse to the sides of the altar, revealing a little girl strapped to the table. From a mere glance, she seemed vaguely familiar too. My eyebrows furrowed and I thought deeply, eventually coming to the conclusion that she was one of the children at the school house with me. Aqsa was her name! My eyes widened, thinking that the her somber frame was dead, but after observing her chest go up and down, it was evident that she was only sleeping.
Although, being alive may not be a favorable sign in this situation.
Tearing me from my reverie, Faizan shoved a cold object in my hand.
A spoon?
I stared at the silver as though it would morph into a snake any moment now.
Faizan was amused with my intent observation. "Alright Hayat, this is pretty simple and shouldn't take much of your time."
His last words lingered in the stale air, and he knew very well that my heart was throbbing painfully with suspense.
"See this girl right here? I want you to use the spoon to scoop out her eyes, as you would with, say, ice cream."
Everything and everyone revolved around a deadly standstill, even my trembling heart thudded against my chest slowly.
Faizan spoke again calmly, with a slight edge to his tone due to having to repeat himself. "I said, take the spoon and gouge out her eyes."
Bile disgustingly churned from within and I wanted to throw up.
Glossary:
~Kuffar (Arabic, Singular: Kaffir)- Usually translated as "unbeliever," "disbeliever," or "infidel".