Chapter 11
The darkness didn’t close in; Noor pulled it around her like a shield.
Pain radiated from her belly in sickening waves, the aftermath of Faisal’s boot, but she forced her breathing to remain shallow and rhythmic. Do not scream, she commanded herself. Screaming excites him. Screaming makes him careless with the girls.
She lay crumpled on the cold stone floor, feigning a deeper unconsciousness than she felt. Through the slit of her eyelids, the room was a blur of shadows and violence, but her ears were sharp, tuning out the ringing in her head to lock onto the terrifying sounds of her daughters.
“Move! Take the girls! Now!” Faisal’s voice was a jagged tear in the night.
Rough hands grabbed at the small, sleeping forms on the bed. Yasmin shrieked—a high, piercing sound that made Noor’s heart slam against her bruised ribs. Amina only whimpered, a soft, terrifying sound of total resignation.
Every instinct in Noor’s body screamed to leap up, to claw at the guards’ eyes, to tear their throats out with her teeth. Her hand twitched at her side, fingers brushing the hidden pocket of her dress. Inside was the jagged piece of the broken curtain rod. Her weapon. Her only advantage.
No, a cold, hard voice whispered in her mind. Not yet.
If she fought now, broken and outnumbered, they would kill her. If she died, the girls were alone forever.
She forced her muscles to go slack. She let them drag her daughters away. It was the hardest thing she had ever done, harder than the beating, harder than the years of captivity. She traded her pride for their survival, banking on the fact that Faisal would ignore a broken woman on the floor.
I am not broken, she promised the retreating footsteps. I am waiting.
The heavy door slammed, severing the connection to her children. The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.
Now, the darkness truly threatened to take her. The adrenaline faded, leaving only the agony of her injuries. Her body urged her to let go, to sink into the black void where there was no Faisal, no fear, no pain. It would be so easy to sleep. To drift away.
Sleep is death, she told herself. Wake up.
She tried to move her arm, but a sharp fire shot up her shoulder. Broken. Likely both of them.
Then I will use my teeth.
She focused on the sensory details to anchor herself. The cold stone against her cheek. The metallic taste of blood in her mouth. The faint, lingering scent of lavender soap on Yasmin’s pillowcase nearby.
Yasmin. Amina. The baby.
And then, a new sound drifted through the haze. Not a memory. Not a hallucination.
Real voices.
They were muffled, urgent, speaking a language that wasn’t Arabic.
“Clear.”
The word was English. Sharp. Professional.
Footsteps approached, not the heavy, careless stomp of Faisal’s guards, but soft, rhythmic rolls of boots designed for silence.
Noor’s grip on the hidden wood tightened until a splinter pierced her skin. New players. New wolves. She prepared to strike, to use the element of surprise, her one last trick.
“Ummi?”
The word froze the blood in her veins. It wasn’t a child’s voice. It was cracked, deeper, terrifyingly familiar.
No.
The denial was instant, violent. Not him. Anyone but him.
She had sent Samir away. She had sold her freedom to ensure he was safe. He had made his way far across the ocean, living a life of baseball and school and safety. He could not be here. He could not be in this slaughterhouse.
If he was here, she had failed.
“I’m here, Ummi,” the voice whispered again, closer now, trembling with a sorrow that shattered her heart. “I came back.”
She forced her eyes open, fighting the swelling and the tears.
A face hovered above her. Older. Leaner. The softness of childhood was gone, replaced by the sharp angles of a young man, but the eyes: large, dark, and filled with terrified love, were the same.
Samir.
He wasn’t a hallucination. He was real. And he was in danger.
The realization didn’t bring relief; it brought a surge of terrified strength. She wasn’t just a mother who had lost her daughters; she was a mother whose son had walked into the lion’s den to save her.
She tried to speak, to tell him to run, to tell him about the traps, about the baby, about the girls. But her throat was dry, her jaw stiff.
Hands touched her, gentle, skilled hands that checked for a pulse, for broken bones. Not Faisal’s hands.
“Pulse is weak,” a man’s voice said. “But she’s alive.”
Alive, Noor thought, the word echoing in the darkness.
She looked at Samir, her vision tunneling. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, but she poured every ounce of her will into her gaze, locking eyes with her son.
I will not die, she vowed silently. I have three children to save now.
Her fingers relaxed slightly around the hidden wood, but she didn’t let go. She let the darkness take her, but this time, it wasn’t a surrender. It was a tactical retreat. She would rest. She would heal.
And when she woke up, she would be ready.