I had suddenly felt rather guilty for not thinking of Rafaa more often in the past few months. She had been with me the first night I had arrived in Umm Qais in Jordan up until the point she had been dragged away from me because she had spat on Faizan's face back in the cave. It felt as though she had been nearly wiped away from my memory.
"Rafaa...where were you all this time?" I asked softly. She did not look as though she could handle much noise. The vivaciousness was utterly sucked out of her and she presently amounted to nothing more than a dying soul.
Rafaa looked awful.
She wore an abaya without any sort of head covering, revealing dark, matted hair. Her eyes were gloomy and sullen. I remembered her with eyes that were once lined with kohl, but now they were lined with dark circles. The skin that covered her gaunt cheekbones was tremendously dry and looked as though she had been picking on the fresh scabs and sores on her face. Her lips were fully chapped and she could not even pluck up the energy to moisten her them with her tongue.
I wondered if she could recognize me.
"R-Rafaa, it's me, Hayat. Do you remember me, from the schoolhouse?" I croaked as she faintly squinted in my direction to get a better view. Watching her eyes widen led me to assume she did indeed know who I was, but her expression was not one of slight happiness upon seeing a long lost friend.
It was one of fear.
She struggled to form words because of her parched throat. "H-Hayat...I..."
"Wait," I interrupted, holding up my hand. "You need water and I have some. Just give me two minutes and I'll be right back."
Without waiting for her response, I raced down the corridors so as not to waste time, and was relieved to find Saad safe and sound asleep. I scanned the corner of the room for the water bucket and food bag Faizan had brought. Doubtful, I eyed the items with suspicion.
What if he laced the water with something? Or perhaps he had poisoned the food?
The food did not look as appetizing as I had thought of them to be when I had first laid eyes on them. Trying to save time, I hurriedly grabbed the first fruit I saw, a fig, scratched the surface with my nails, and brought it up to my nostrils. It smelled rather normal, surprisingly, and so did the others. Before leaving the room, I briefly gave Saad a glance and saw that he had stirred in his sleep and was curiously searching the room for a familiar face. Dropping everything, I rushed over to him and knelt by his side.
"M-mam...mama," he said sleepily, stretching out his tiny, chubby fingers towards me.
For the first time in a long time, my heart froze in a good way. Saad probably had no idea what he had said, but it meant the world to me. My eyes filled with tears of joy. "Shh baby, I'm right here," I assured him tenderly, rubbing his little head. "Mama will be right back, I promise."
After firmly kissing his forehead and cheek, I patted his stomach lightly, which, in Saad's case, was a good method to get him to fall asleep. It pained me to have to leave him alone yet again, but I hastily wrapped the bag around my wrist, gripped the water bucket, and scurried back to Rafaa, shutting the door behind me.
"Here, drink," I told her, dragging the bucket by her side. I watched as she tried to reach out for it, but her slumped and battered form could not manage such an effortless task. I took it upon myself to sweep water into my hands and bring it to her mouth. She gratefully accepted, not caring that the transparent fluid was running down her chin and neck. When she seemed to have had her fill for the time being, I collected what little strength I had to rip open a pomegranate from the bag and offered to her.
"Slowly now," I warned her, the scarlet liquid running down her knuckles and wrists. "The juice might sting your lips." But, Rafaa did not seem to mind at all.
"H-Hayat," she called out to me once she had regained her voice. "I need to show you s-something." Wincing in pain, she motioned towards the lower half of her body and I tried not to stare at the soles of her feet, which were cracked and caked with dirt. "Lift."
"Lift?" I asked with doubt. "You want me to lift you up?"
"No, no," she said breathlessly. "Abaya. Lift abaya."
Unsure of what she wanted me to achieve by lifting her abaya, I knelt down and picked up the end of the robe at her ankles.
"Pull it up more," Rafaa instructed faintly.
I obeyed, but with an uneasy stomach.
Her heavily bruised calves were reduced to the size of my forearm. Crusted blood was in dry patches all over her pallid skin, while bluish welts had formed around her ankles, knees and thighs.
My eyes widened and I was speechless. "Rafaa, what happened to you!"
Tears had made their way to her waterlines. "Keep going."
How much farther does she expect me to go? The next place up is the pubic area.
Fighting the urge to vomit at what I had already seen, I protested. "But Rafaa-"
"Keep going," she insisted firmly and exhaling deeply. Again, I listened and slowly lifted the cloth beyond her hips, not dwelling on her bloodied underwear, and then I stood frozen.
Beginning at the base of her left hip, a long and gruesome scar extended diagonally all the way to her back. The foot-long gash was horribly stitched, as though done by an amateur or by someone who simply did not care, and even looked to be infected, as far as I could tell. The scar was a few centimeters in width and whoever was responsible for this terrible wound just slashed around Rafaa's body as though her purpose was to be discarded like waste. I wished there was a way to un-see the image that was already thickly embedded into my disturbed mind, but there was not.
"Oh my God." My hand flew to my mouth at the sight and I suddenly forgot how to speak properly. "Who did this to you!"
"F-Faizan," she whimpered with pain.
I should not have been surprised at all, but still, I could not even fathom the amount of horror that one man was capable of committing out of choice.
"You know what he d-does, Hayat?" Rafaa said through tears. "His purposes for even being here are for money and power. It's not even a religious issue. He buys and sells people of all ages just for money, but lately he's very much absorbed with the organ black market!"
I stared at her in shock. "The organ black market...?"
"Yes! They sell organs illegally and for so much money. It's over a thousand American dollars for certain organs" She choked and cried even more as her hands went to her waist.
He didn't want me to gouge out Aqsa's eyes just for the heck of it. He wanted to sell them!
"He drugged me a few weeks ago and when I woke up, I was in the worst pain anyone could ever experience," she explained, her chest heaving with agony. "He took my kidney!"
My own eyes filled with tears.
How could he? He can't be human, he just can't!
Was this the worst of it, or is there more?!
"Wait." Something clicked in my head. "You were here this whole time?"
"Yes," she admitted, wiping her face. "After we left the cave, he brought me here before you had arrived. I was here since. He force-fed me occasionally just to keep me around, but he's stopped that too now."
So it wasn't a jinni that I had heard a few weeks ago.
It was Rafaa who had awoken from being drugged, only to find out that Faizan had surgically removed her kidney.
"Rafaa, I don't even know what to say," I mumbled weakly to her, clasping her hands in mine. "I don't know w-what to do anymore."
She slipped her hands out of my grip and bleakly stared ahead. "Hayat, I am so sorry."
I folded my hands in my lap and slouched. "What for?"
"I know this is t-too much to ask for, but p-please say you'll forgive me."
My head shot up and I narrowed my eyes at her new tone of speaking. "W-what...what are you talking about?"
"I am not even worthy to have you listen to me. I brought this upon myself. I brought this upon you. I brought this fate upon us all!"
"Rafaa," I began, the pace of my heart going slightly faster with immense tension. "What are you going on about?"
"Hayat, in the short time we've known each other, you were only sweet and kind to me. Even now, you did not hesitate to bring me food and water without even asking for my story." If possible, she slumped on the floor even further than she had done before. "I am horrible. I am so horrible."
"Rafaa, speak your mind!" I exclaimed with anxiety, raising the tone of my voice an octave.
"I know Faizan."
"Unfortunately, I do too." I nearly scoffed. "But what does he have to do with what you're talking about?"
"Everything. He has everything to do with this." Rafaa paused for a second, gazing in my direction, but stubbornly did not meet my eyes. "He was my everything."
My world stood still.
"What?" I croaked, hoping that I had heard wrong and that my hearing ability was just not up to par.
"He's always keeping an eye on me." Rafaa looked delusional and even probably mentally insane. "Always."
Always?
If so, then that means Faizan should be around somewh-
"Ah, Hayat." The devil spewed out my name and I spun around, knowing very well who I would come face-to-face with once again. "I see you've taken some time to reconnect with an old friend, or should I say, soon-to-be ex-friend."
My eyes widened slightly as Faizan strolled into the room, scanning the premises thoroughly even though the room was completely vacant with the exception of the three of us. He ran a hand down the rifle that was thrown over his shoulder.
Faizan's other hand flew to his heart, or at least, over the area where most people had one. "Oh, did I interrupt a story? I apologize."
I swallowed as I stood up, backing myself into the stone wall as much as I could, while Rafaa shot daggers at Faizan.
"Oh, Hayat, how sweet of you to stand up before me! Seems like your manners have improved after all! Please sit, I insist, as I have quite a story to tell you myself. Shall I start off with a brief summary?"
I couldn't muster up the strength to say anything. This man had no mercy, judging from the countless people he had killed and tortured. Not to mention, he was incredibly strong and had a gun in close proximity. If I took any action against him, he would retaliate before I could even blink.
"Well, I shall take your silence as a 'yes'. So let's see," he said, taking a step forward and tapping his chin dramatically. "Once upon a time, a girl named Rafaa fell in love with a man named Faizan. Now, this girl was so desperately in love that she was willing to do anything for the man in order to win him over. One day, the man wanted to make cash quickly and he knew the human trafficking market was a thriving business."
Faizan took a few steps closer while I had nearly forgotten how to breathe. "So then, it was Rafaa who came up with the suggestion that the man could sell off some children and a fresh young woman, named Hayat, in one go. But then, Rafaa's brother, Yassar, overheard and was vehemently against betraying the trust of many, so the man decided to take it upon himself to finish Yassar off. The man, very much interested in Rafaa's plan, seized the opportunity to do just that." He stopped right in front of my face, just a mere few inches away.
"The end," Faizan said with a sneer, his hot breath fanning my frozen face.