A burqa.
He watched in horror as she willingly donned the symbol of female oppression so many in the West who were Muslim apologists claimed was a religious symbol, though wasn’t at all, it instead cultural.
“Who are you?”
Bobby turned his attention to the driver. “I’m her brother.”
The man waved his hand in front of him. “Not part of deal.”
Bobby bristled. He hadn’t intended to go, though that was when it was his choice. He’d be damned if this man was going to tell him what he could and couldn’t do. “Where she goes, I go.”
“No! No! No!” the driver fired rapidly. “She will be living with us. You, there will be too many questions.”
Bobby’s eyes narrowed.
Living?
Something was going on. “If I’m not going, then neither is she.”
“But I have to!”
Bobby stared at his sister, unrecognizable, anonymous in her burqa.
“It’ll be okay, Bobby. Don’t worry.”
“No, it won’t.” He lowered his voice, leaning closer. “How can you trust these people?”
“We go now, or deal off.”
“But you’ve already been paid!”
“What, you think there is money back guarantee? You the problem, not us. He stays, you come, or no one come. Don’t care. We paid either way.”
Mary looked at Bobby, only her eyes visible, eyes that were pleading with him. “I’m going.”
“Don’t do this!”
She stepped back. “I thought you were on my side!”
“I am, but Mom and Dad are right. This is insane!”
“So what, all this time you’ve been lying to me? You were just going to try and convince me not to go?”
He frowned, not sure how to answer. He decided a white lie was better. “No, I was coming to protect you, but now that they won’t let me come, then yes, I’m going to try and convince you not to go.”
There was a definite harrumph from behind the face covering. “Well, it’s no use. I have to go.”
“What? To find your friends? Then what? Who comes to find you?”
She leaped forward, hugging him hard, and he couldn’t help but return the embrace, tears filling his eyes. “You worry too much,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll be okay.” She broke the embrace, grabbed her backpack, and hurried to the truck, tossing it in the back. She blew him a kiss then climbed into the front of the truck, sitting in the middle as the driver climbed in after her. The passenger made a display of eyeing her as she climbed in then gave Bobby a lecherous grin as he rounded the front of the truck, licking his lips suggestively.
“Mary, no!”
Bobby sprinted toward the truck as the passenger climbed in, gravel kicked up at him as the truck roared away. He chased them for a few moments but soon stopped, it hopeless.
Oh, God, Mary, what have you gotten yourself into?
4 |
One Court Square Queens, New York City, New York
William Todd released the run trigger, the upright floor polisher hopping to a halt. He leaned and stretched his aching back, digging the palm of his hand into the small of his spine, grinding it in a semi-circle. It did little good, merely transferring the pain to his also sore arms. He sighed, gripping the handles of the polisher and squeezing the trigger, the rhythmic motion beginning anew, a motion he was so sick of, he’d consider throwing himself out one of these windows if they weren’t sealed in like sardines.
He hated his job.
And he really hated the fact he had been doing it for over ten years.
They used to have a good life in Detroit before the auto plant had laid him off, the jobs transferred to Mexico. Over twenty years of the good life, the first twenty years of his adult life, had been secure, well-paid employment with ridiculous benefits. And it had left him with no clue what the real world was like.
Unemployed with no prospects, they were forced to leave Detroit, the city now a whisper of its former self. It had been his home since he was a boy, his father moving them from New York City to work in the booming auto industry, its glory days behind it as well.
His son would never work in the industry, and that was fine with him, though he had no idea what the boy was doing with his life. Environmental Engineer? What the hell was that? He had no time for this global warming garbage his children bought into. To him, it was simply a wealth redistribution program, proof of that in his own job, redistributed to the poor Mexicans.
What about us poor Americans?
His brother had taken them in, getting him a job here on the cleaning crew. Minimum wage. He had worked his way up a few more bucks an hour, but that was it. His employer loved the fact he was always on time and always did a good job, though only so much.
“We can almost hire two guys for what I’m paying you. I’m sorry, Will, but there’s no more money in the budget.”
That was four years ago, and he was lucky to receive a cost of living increase to help keep inflation at bay. Yet they were recovering. They had a decent apartment for their neighborhood, his wife Louise was working, one kid was already living on his own, finished college, and their daughter was almost finished, thankfully both getting scholarships to offset some of their student loans.
Oh, Mary, where did I go wrong with you?
While his son had chosen to study a profession he didn’t understand or respect, his daughter seemed to be studying how to be a professional agitator. Higher education today seemed to have been hijacked by Social Justice Warriors and the Political Correctness Police, the stuff she came home spouting the most ridiculous things he had ever heard.
And the Internet!
Filled with lies and half-truths, it manipulated young people who were too busy rebelling against their parents and a perceived establishment, to pay attention to the fact it was the establishment inciting them to rebel.
And she had fallen for it.
Every cause célèbre of the day, she jumped on, whether it was fighting pipelines, greenhouse gasses, Wall Street—anything lumped into the rightwing way of thinking. He had voted Republican his entire life, his wife Democrat, and the agreement from Day One was that politics weren’t discussed in the house beyond his grunting and jabbing a finger at the screen during the debates, his wife tsk-tsking at the counterpoints.
It had maintained their marriage for almost 25 years, and he wasn’t about to change it.
Yet their daughter, from about the time she hit 15, had been spouting off at the dinner table about everything political, and they were consistently left-of-left views, enough to make even his wife cringe at times.
And Bobby didn’t help, purposefully taking the opposite extreme, despite not believing most of what he was spewing.
The vitriol between the two of his kids at times was enough to tear the family apart, and would have if he and his wife hadn’t stuck to the agreement.
No political discussions.
The children had never been party to the agreement, and sometimes he looked forward to the day his daughter would move out so there could be peace in the home.
But now, this idealistic idiocy she had pursued, to try and find her two friends that had disappeared in Syria, had him at the end of his rope. He had never thought of his daughter as stupid, just intensely naïve like most millennials, and now her naiveté was putting her life at risk, as well as her brother’s.
Bobby was going with her to try and protect her, and probably to try and convince her to stop before it was too late, but she was pigheaded, and once her narrow little mind was set on something, it could rarely be changed, especially by her brother.
But if some Kardashian told her to stop, she would.
But her family?
Never.
He had lost any influence he had over her years ago, and it was his fault. He had been too busy and too tired to put in the effort, and his wife had indulged the girl’s fancies far too often. She had stopped going to church wi
th them almost a year ago, and when she wasn’t at school or out with her friends, she locked herself in her room.
Locked in her room!
If he had even been allowed to have a lock on his door when he was a kid, his father would have kicked the door down the first time he had used it.
But his wife had allowed her to install it, a simple chain.
And he hadn’t seen the inside of her bedroom until the other day when she had announced she was leaving for Syria.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and he killed the machine, removing his earmuffs. He glanced at the display, his heart racing as he took the call.
“Bobby, is everything okay?”
“I’m sorry, Dad, but I couldn’t stop her.”
He tensed. “Let me talk to her.”
“You can’t.”
He leaned his back against the wall, knowing what he was about to hear would be devastating. “Why not?”
“Because they already took her.”
5 |
ISIS Held Territory Syria
Mary Todd bounced around in the center seat, to call what they were traveling on a road, an insult to real roads. Despite the claustrophobic nature of the burqa she was wearing, she was enjoying herself, this the first time she had been in a pickup truck.
The only thing the excitement of the situation couldn’t overcome was the powerful body odor from her two companions. But this was a war zone, and she’d have to accept the fact deodorant, and possibly even soap, weren’t readily available.
She just hoped she’d find her friends. She had met Alia and Nala a couple of years ago, though never really became friends until a year ago, and since then they were inseparable, either hanging out together or messaging each other all the time. She couldn’t wait to see them. She knew where they had been a couple of months ago, Alia texting her their location, having arrived successfully, exactly as promised by those who had organized the trip. She was supposed to have gone with them but had chickened out, though when she had learned they had arrived safely, she had decided to go through with it and join them in their adventure.
A hand squeezed her leg. She looked down at it then at the man in the passenger seat. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Whatever I want.”
She slapped his hand away and he glared at her.
“You forget where you are, sister!”
The driver snapped something in Arabic, a language she had been studying intensely for six months, but what was said was lost on her, though she thought she had caught the words “not yet”.
A chill ran down her spine.
What does that mean? Not yet?
The hand didn’t return, but she wondered if she had made a mistake in coming here to join her brothers and sisters in the cause. Was her brother right? He had asked how she could trust these people. She didn’t know them at all. She just assumed they were here to help her, to take her to the family her friends were living with.
Friends she hadn’t heard from in over two months.
She stared ahead, her heart slamming hard, her mind racing. She closed her eyes, drawing a long, slow breath.
Stop worrying. Allah will watch over you.
She smiled behind her burqa at the thought. He would protect her. She had converted and was now one of the true believers. Those that didn’t truly believe, who didn’t sacrifice themselves to the daily struggle against temptation, the internal Jihad demanded of every true Muslim, they were the ones who harm would come to.
Not her.
Not someone giving up everything they had known, giving up all the trappings of the modern world.
Her smile spread as her heart calmed.
How could anything bad happen to one willing to sacrifice everything to live by the Koran?
6 |
Todd Residence Queens, New York City, New York
Louise Todd sat on her daughter’s bed, sobbing at this latest revelation. She had been a basket case for days, from the moment their precious little girl had stormed out of here in a fit, taking her poor brother with her.
And now she was gone.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Her husband, sitting in the chair of the corner desk, shoulders slumped, sighed. “They have her. She’s gone.”
Louise stifled a cry, reaching out for the Bible sitting on her daughter’s nightstand. She clasped it to her chest and closed her eyes. “Please, God, help our little girl.” A sob escaped. “Tell us what to do.” She kissed the book then leaned over to return it to the nightstand, the dust jacket slipping, a strange gold symbol revealed. “What’s this?” She opened the book, removed the cover, and gasped. She held it up for her husband to see.
“What the hell is that?”
But the question was redundant. He knew exactly what it was.
And so did she.
It was the Holy Koran.
7 |
ISIS Held Territory Syria
Mary Todd woke, the truck fiercely bouncing over ruts in the road. She gagged at the smell, disgusted to find her head had been resting on the shoulder of the passenger she had learned was named Marwan. Something pushed against her panties and she gasped, slapping his hand away.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He glared at her. “Silence!” He cuffed her with the back of his hand, her face throbbing from the blow as her eyes watered. Terror filled her chest as her stomach flipped, realizing she had no power here, that she was nothing but a woman in a misogynistic culture with no rights.
She had to tread carefully.
Reasoning with him was her only choice, her words perhaps appealing to the driver who had so far left her unmolested. “You would treat a sister like this? I have come here to join your cause, to help Allah’s warriors in their cause, and this is how you treat me?”
Marwan scoffed at her. “You are an infidel and a woman. I will treat you as I please.”
She gulped, trying to control her developing panic. “You know very well I am not an infidel. I have found the true path, and am to be treated as a sister, as the Koran commands.”
He reached out and grabbed her throat, squeezing hard. “You dare use the Holy Book against me, you blasphemous whore!”
She reached for his hands, battling for air, but he was too strong. The world around her darkened, his continued tirade mere murmurs in the fog now clouding her mind. In one final, desperate act of self-preservation, she reached out and grabbed the steering wheel, yanking it toward her.
A string of Arabic curses erupted from the driver as he struggled to regain control, the grip on her throat released.
“Enough! If I hear anything out of either of you, I’ll shoot you myself!”
She gasped for air, her world coming back into focus as she massaged her aching throat, pushing as close to the driver as she could, if only by an inch or two. “Th-thank you.”
“We’re almost there, then this will all be settled.”
“Where are we going?”
“Kobani. Now shut up!”
She clamped her mouth shut, the terror on her face hidden by the veil, though not her eyes. And as they peered into the night ahead of them, the road revealed by thin slices of light from the headlights, she realized her desire to join her friends in this holy cause was going horribly wrong.
She wasn’t to be a sister in the fight, but a slave.
8 |
Vanessa Moore Residence, Abbotts Park Apartments Fayetteville, North Carolina
Niner sniffed long and slow, savoring the aroma. “Man, that smells goo-ood.” He looked at Atlas. “So I know you’re not cooking.”
Atlas dismissed the insult with a wave. “Just because I had the sense to find a woman who’s a good cook, doesn’t mean I can’t cook.”
Niner eyed him. “Dude, you can’t cook. Remember that spaghetti you tried to make? Al dente means it sticks to the wall when you throw it against it, it doesn’t mean it should dent the wal
l.”
Laughter and giggles from the others only encouraged Niner to continue, though the big man wasn’t about to let the insult go unchallenged. “Hey, little one, you know perfectly well it turned out fine. You’re the one who kept begging me to hurry because your little tummy was aching, it was so hungry.”
More laughter, Niner nodding as if facing a worthy opponent. “Whatever, dude, you just can’t cook.” He turned to Atlas’ girlfriend, Vanessa. “Darlin’, thank God you came into his life. Every once in a while this bum gets the urge to invite everyone over then inflicts his lack of culinary skills on us. Now with a chef in the family, we never have to suffer again!” He raised his beer. “To the best damned cook in the family! Vanessa!”
Cheers erupted as drinks were raised high, glasses clinking loudly followed by long drags of mostly alcohol.
Vanessa blushed. “Thanks, Niner. I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” She swatted Atlas. “You could learn a thing or two from your friend.”
Atlas groaned and Niner grinned. “Oh, babe, do you realize what you just did?”
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“You complimented him and you insulted me. Now I’ll have to hear about it for weeks, then I’ll have to shoot him, and then there’ll be paperwork coming out the yin yang.”
Vanessa looked at Niner. “Sorry, Niner.”
Niner shrugged, opening his mouth to reply when Atlas reached for where his gun would normally be.
“Maybe I should just get it out of the way, now.”
Niner took a step back, taking a defensive stance. “Nooo, I think I’ll wait and let you surprise me with it.”
Atlas shrugged. “Okay, your choice.” He grabbed a red pepper off the cutting board, holding it out for Niner. “Pepper?”
Niner eyed the odd-looking thing. “What kind is it? Looks different.”
“Ghost pepper.” Atlas pushed it closer to Niner’s face. “Try one, they’re great.”
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