by Kishan Paul
Eddie crept up the steps to the second floor. Wassim’s bedroom was the last door down the hall on the right. When he got halfway down the hall, Wassim came running out, bag and gun in hand.
The target froze at the sight of him and his gun. A wave of emotions washed over his face from relief to confusion and then to fear. “Hassan, she is a liar. Whatever she told you is not true.”
Eddie didn’t respond. This was the part he hated.
Tears welled in the man’s eyes, and he shook his head. “I have a family. Please, don’t kill me.”
Fuck.
An explosion from outside rocked the house before Eddie could respond. Pictures on the wall crashed to the floor as the home shook. Eddie stared through the large windows on the front wall of the building as a second bomb detonated. Tall red flames and plumes of black smoke rose to the sky. By the time he looked back, Wassim was gone.
He stared at the bedroom into which the man had probably run and then out the living room window where the blaze from the car bombs continued. Terror consumed him as the black cloud colored the sky. Alisha was supposed to be in that car.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
AADAM
A few feet from her destination, Ally stopped short. Bashar sat on a stack of bricks, chewing on a straw. She scanned the space for Aadam, and the chill of horror raised goosebumps on her when she finally laid eyes on him.
Barefoot, the child stood atop the ledge of the well. A wooden beam sat on either side of it with a third log secured to the tops of the two. Aadam looped his arm around the post beside him while he swayed on the thin lip of the well. He bent over, looking into the waters below, and talked into the darkness.
She sucked in a breath. Not wanting to startle the child, she walked quietly toward him, in the hopes of pulling him off before he realized what she’d done.
“It looks like we have company, little one,” the man announced.
Aadam looked over his shoulder at her and waved. “Sara Mommy, I’m on the well,” he said in Urdu.
A shudder ripped through her when his little foot missed the ledge. Aadam held tight to the pole and regained his balance as she got to his side.
Ally wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing his back to her chest. “You are. Tell me why are you up here?”
“Look at that. She understands Urdu.” Bashar laughed. “You had us all fooled this whole time.”
Ally ignored him and kept her focus on the child.
Aadam pointed inside the cavity. “Ammi is swimming.”
Her stomach twisted as the meaning of his words sunk in.
“He wanted to see his mother. How could I deny him?”
Ally looked down to where Aadam pointed, praying she misunderstood. Acid rose up her chest, and she swallowed it down while she stared at Alyah’s feet protruding above the dark waters below.
“Hi, Ammi!” He waved at his dead mother.
She should have never told Alyah to leave. Hot tears burned her eyes. Ally hugged the child and stared at Parsa, who lay a few feet away. The woman’s face was blue. A deep red line encircled her neck.
She cleared her throat and kept the smile on her face. “Aadam, do you remember the little chipmunk we saw yesterday? The one whose home was under the tree back there?”
“Aha.” He stared in the direction she described.
She picked him up and lowered him to the ground. “When I was coming here, I saw his wife and babies running around.”
The little guy’s eyes widened.
She squatted to his level. “Why don’t you go find them? But you have to sit quietly by the tree and wait a long time. Because he’s scared. Can you be patient?”
Aadam nodded. A second later, the little boy ran down the trail in search of the furry creature.
Ally stayed on her knees tracking him. “Why did you kill her?” A smile was still glued to her face in case he looked back.
“Which her?”
She rose to her feet and clasped her hands behind her back. “Both.”
He shrugged and tossed the straw to the ground next to his gun. “Why not?”
Ally twisted the ring on her finger. “Why are you even here?”
He laughed and stretched out his legs. “Shariff asked me to keep an eye on the boy until things calmed down.”
“Letting a three-year-old climb on the well’s ledge is how you kept an eye on him?” she asked as she inched closer to him.
“He didn’t climb. I put him there.” The man grinned. “Shariff’s the one who told me to finish him.”
She slid the two gems of the ring together until they snapped. “Well, he changed his mind. He sent a car for us.”
His smile widened. He pulled out his phone and pressed the keys. “I wouldn’t count on the car if I were you.”
Ally felt the edge of the blade and imagined slicing his grin in half. Before she could ask why, an explosion rocked the area. A second later, another one blasted through. The ground and the trees around her shook. She looked in the direction of the sounds. Black smoke mingled with red flames streaked the sky. Her body shook at the sight. It was in the same direction as the gate.
Razaa.
“I bet that was the car he sent. Good thing you weren’t in it.”
Terror shuddered through her as the smoke floated higher and higher in the sky.
She turned to run toward it but stopped when the man laughed.
“It’s too late, unless you plan on super gluing all his pieces together. Even then, there’s no guarantee you’ll find his parts.”
Ally’s fists clenched at the way his brows rose. The white flash of his teeth when he grinned tipped her over the edge. Tears and hate flowed through her. She lunged at him.
The force of her weight made him fall backward with Ally on top of him.
While he dug his nails into her face, she stabbed the ring’s blade into his eye. His screams were her reward. She sank it as deep as she could and pulled it out. When she tried for a second time, he grabbed her wrist, and twisted it until something snapped. Immobilizing pain shot through her, blinding her. He shoved Ally to the ground.
The shoulder above her injured wrist slammed into a bricked side of the well, sending further currents of fire through her limb. She slid toward the watering pail as her body shuddered in pain.
He rose to his feet, a hand covering his bloodied eye.
Her fingers wrapped around the rim of the steel bucket as she waited. When he lunged at her, she slammed the pail at his head. Bashar grunted in pain and fell to the ground. Ally climbed to her feet and ran for the gun. She only made it a few steps before he grabbed hold of her ankle. She toppled to the earth face first.
“You think you can hurt me?” His grasp on her legs tightened as she tried to kick his hands away. Bashar pulled her closer and planted his knee on her back. He bore down all of his weight on the one knee, forcing the breath out of her.
Pressed against the earth and immobilized, Ally rested her cheek on the ground and cried. She cried not only because of the pain shooting through her body, but also because of Razaa.
“Do you know what it feels like to clean up your brother’s blood?” he asked as he reached for the gun, which lay a few feet from her. “It’s not something I can ever forget.”
He shifted his knee farther up her back. “Sometimes I can even smell the scent of it. Feel his brains on my hands.” When he grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled, she cried out. He stuffed the long barrel of his weapon into her mouth, silencing her cries. “Do you know how that feels?”
The cylinder stabbed at her throat, making her gag.
“Do you?” he sneered.
She stayed frozen, her fingernails dug into the earth.
“I do. And today. I’m going to feel it again. But this time it will be your brains in my hand.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PRAYERS
No!
The two-letter word screamed on repeat in his head as Eddie ran down the sta
irs and out the door. He raced toward the burning cars while he pleaded with God. He was not a religious man, but at this point, he’d pray to whatever was presented to him if it would save her life.
By the time he got to the site, fire consumed the vehicle and thick black smoke surged to the sky. The beeping of car alarms were the only sounds he could hear. His fists clenched and unclenched as he watched. His mind fixated on only one thing. She couldn’t die.
He covered his mouth and nose with his hand as he ran into the fire. The heat scorched his skin before he ever reached the vehicle. His lungs filled with the black smoke making him cough. When the fumes began to overtake him, he had no other choice but to fall back.
Eddie fell to his knees and tried to catch his breath as he watched it burn. Pieces of metal and other debris lay strewn across the grounds. There was no way anyone could have survived the blast—not even her. The smoke burned his eyes and tears streamed his darkened face. He’d failed her. Again.
“Hassan!” Eddie pulled his attention from the burning car to see Aadam running to him, the dog by his side.
He kept a hand on his gun and scanned the area for others but found no one. After wiping the soot off his face, he stayed on his knees as the child ran into his arms. “Why are you here, little man?”
The kid pointed toward the garden and talked in child words he couldn’t comprehend.
Eddie shook his head. “Who is with you?”
Aadam grinned. “Sara Mommy.”
Eddie ran through the gardens toward the well, only stopping when he was a few feet away. He crouched behind the trees, and everything went silent while he took in the scene. The maid from the house lay dead, red strangulation marks evident around her neck. Also on the ground, next to the well, was Alisha. Pinned on her stomach, Bashar had his knee pressed into her spine. Blood streamed from his closed right eye.
But none of those were the reasons Eddie’s veins turned to ice. The man’s gun was positioned inside her mouth as he talked to her. Eddie moved in for a cleaner shot, willing the asshole to remove his hand from the weapon. Something moved to the right of them.
A bloodied Razaa held a brick over his head and ran at the target. Eddie’s pulse sped. The kid had no clue about the gun in her mouth or that the man’s finger was on the trigger. One wrong move and she’d be dead. And there was nothing Eddie could do to stop the scene from playing out.
Razaa slammed the slab over Bashar’s head. He shoved the man off Alisha and pulled her away. By the time Bashar rose to his knees, Eddie put a bullet through his head.
He turned to find Razaa hugging an upset Alisha, telling her what had happened. The kid had never been in the car. He’d gotten his ass kicked by the one guard Eddie hadn’t been able to find. The man took his car then died a second later in the explosion, which left one body unaccounted for.
Eddie scanned the perimeter. Wassim was somewhere out there. He turned to tell them they needed to leave when Alisha pressed her good palm on the kid’s bloody nose.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Eddie shook his head. Her broken hand hung in a highly unnatural angle, there were claw marks all over her face, and a gun had just been shoved up her mouth. Yet, she was asking Razaa if he was okay.
It was only then he realized his body shook. Eddie leaned against a tree and wiped the sweat off his forehead, unable to take his gaze off her. She was alive. Up until a few minutes ago, he thought she was gone, and the reality of how close she’d been to death was sinking in. He rested his head on the trunk and thanked the heavens above for letting her live.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
NEGOTIATIONS
Ally sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the sofa shoved against the dingy wall across from her. A few mysterious spots stained its cushions, and there was a rip across one of the pillows. Although it wasn’t as nice a hotel as the one Shariff brought her to days before, it served its purpose. Lines creased her forehead when her brows rose. Days? Was that all? It felt like years. She considered all the events of the past fifty odd hours. So much pain. So much loss.
Had it been worth it?
The same question floated in her mind a dozen times in the past few hours. And each time she answered yes. She looked down at the sleeping child. Aadam’s knees were curled up into his stomach; his head lay in her lap, his thumb safely in his mouth. He had cried for Alyah, a mother who would never again hear his calls. It wasn’t until exhaustion overcame him that his tears ebbed, and even then he clung to Ally.
Asleep at the foot of the bed beside her was Razaa. Once Aadam fell asleep, he’d taken over and spent a good portion of the past hour begging for her forgiveness. Hugs and tears later, fatigue overcame him, but even then he refused to leave her side. Her broken wrist and the makeshift splint Eddie created for it rested on the young man’s shoulder as he slept. It throbbed, and the ache seemed to be getting worse, but it was the least of her concerns. Too many other problems plagued her. The most pressing of all, what happens to these two?
The man who had the answers was currently on the phone. She looked over at the closed bathroom door. Although she couldn’t see him, she could envision Eddie on the other side pacing the floor. Other than a “Yes, sir,” and “I understand, sir,” he wasn’t saying much, but she had a hunch things weren’t going well.
When the door finally opened, he walked out, rubbing the back of his neck. He dropped his phone on the table where his other cells rested but didn’t look at her.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Nope.” He lined the phones in a row. “When I get back, I have a meeting with my chief, his boss, and the director.”
“Are you going to be fired?”
He let out a breath and nodded. “I kept secrets and left the reservation. In the process, I put another agent at risk. None of which they are impressed with.” He walked over to the other side of the bed, behind her, and sat down.
“What are you going to do?”
“Not sure.” Eddie leaned his back against the headboard and stretched his legs across the mattress. “Farah and the baby are going to need some help settling in to their new lives. You know, new country and all. So I’ll probably stay with them until they kick me out.”
Ally played with one of Aadam’s curls. “And what happens to these two?”
There was a pause before he answered. She wound the child’s lock around her finger, giving Eddie time to break the news.
“Razaa is seventeen. He’s an adult, so he’s on his own.”
Ally felt the young man he mentioned stiffen at the statement. Clearly, he wasn’t asleep. She patted him as Eddie spoke.
“As far as the kid, since his biological parents, Sayeed and Alyah are both dead, they’ll have to look for relatives who can take him. Wassim legally has no rights over him, and even if he did, he seems to have vanished.”
Ally looked over at Eddie. “They who? And what happens if they can’t find his relatives?”
He nodded. “They are the Child Protection Bureau. An officer will be called as soon as you’re out of the country, and they’ll find him a good home. The Bureau specializes in helping children. They have a list of vetted families…”
While he praised the benefits of the bureau, Ally shook her head. Instead of it silencing him, her disapproval seemed to make him talk faster.
“Razaa stays with me, and I’m not leaving until Aadam is with his family,” she said in the middle of his speech.
Eddie didn’t respond for a while, and when he did, his tone was tired as if he knew what was about to happen. “And if they can’t find relatives willing to take him?”
Ally rolled her shoulders back and sucked in a lungful of air. “Then he’ll stay with me too.”
“That. Is. Not an option,” he hissed.
He was saying everything she knew he would. She smiled and was sure she was saying everything he thought she would, except for this one part. Ally returned to playing with Aadam’s hair. “Eit
her you make it an option, or this little guy and I will disappear.”
Silence fell across the room a second time. “You’re serious?”
She shrugged. “You know I am.”
Razaa cleared his throat. “And I will go with them since I am an adult.”
Ally grinned at the sound of Eddie’s teeth grinding.
“Alisha, look at me.”
His dark brows were raised so high that they seemed to float in the middle of his forehead. The bloodshot eyes and the day old stubble covering his jaw were the only evidence of the hell he’d gone through the past few days. “I have no control over this.”
Ally reached over and patted his knee. “You said the same thing years ago in Germany, and it turned out you were in total control.”
He slid his legs up and rested his elbows on his knees. “Total control?” He laughed. “If I had been in total control, Alisha Dimarchi would have died back then. You’d have had a new name, a new life like the rest of them. But your husband fought for you. Said you being stripped from everyone you loved would be something you’d never allow. That you’d find a way back to Philly.” He pointed at an invisible person in the room. “They, not me, decided to let you return to your home. Why bother going to the trouble of hiding you, if you weren’t going to stay hidden?”
She smiled as she thought of David. He’d never told her he’d done that, but it didn’t surprise her.
“And, for the record, I don’t regret splitting you all up. A group of seventeen people living together in one house is a lot harder to hide than seventeen people scattered over the world. Do you know how many countries they’d have to search?”
Ally stared across the room at the peeling paint while he rambled. He was trying to divert her attention from the issue at hand, but this time, she wouldn’t let him succeed. The future of two boys rested firmly on her shoulders. She’d already considered the options and knew there was only one. “This child has lost everything he knows,” she said, cutting him off a second time. “I won’t abandon him. He deserves a chance at a healthy life. If there is no relative to care for him, I’ll do whatever the Agency says, no arguments. As long as Aadam and Raaza stay with me.”
