No True Believers

by Rabiah York Lumbard

  thx for reaching out. r u free to skype?

  Whoa. Hadn’t expected that. It was sort of a crazy move. Most wouldn’t Skype with a total stranger. I took another sip of water. I was definitely curious. Besides, what could she do? Reach through the screen and ring my neck? Track me through my triple VPN? Yeah, right. I agreed and gave her the info, my heart beating a little faster as I waited.

  It froze when FallenSheClimber appeared on my laptop screen.

  She was lighting a cigarette, focused on the flame. Her hair had been dyed black, cut short, spiky and messy. Though stripped of her makeup, without a doubt it was Kate Turner.

  My neighbor. The woman who’d brought my sisters home. The woman who’d devoted herself to bringing her husband lunch, to the point where she’d allowed her semi-disabled teenage Muslim neighbor to walk her dog….

  In a panic I slapped a sticky note over my camera. The little square in the corner of my screen went black. This was bad. She knew exactly where I lived.

  I held my breath as she inhaled and exhaled a cloud of smoke, then blinked. “Check your connection,” she whispered. “I can’t see you.”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to fix it,” I lied. “Sorry. The video cuts out sometimes….” I knew I couldn’t stall forever or else she’d get suspicious. She seemed even more frightened than I was. Her hands were shaking; her big, dark eyes kept darting over her shoulders. From the little I could see, waist up, she was wearing a white nightgown. Or evening wear? It was sleeveless, billowy. A far cry from her usual mom-look. Instead of being a dove perched in a nest, she looked like an exotic bird trapped in a cage, the kind that plucks all its feathers out. A lit cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. She even had a tattoo. Also not mom-ish. It was bizarre, almost reminded me of a QR code. The skin around it was still pink and puffy from the ink….

  “Are you there?” she asked urgently. “What’s going on?”

  I was about to hang up when I took another hard look at her. She looked emotionally battered. Something inside told me I should go on, hear her out. I yanked off the sticky note.

  She gasped, her eyes widening.

  “Oh my God…Salma! Sweetie, what are you doing here?”

  “You didn’t know it was me?” I shot back, trying to keep my voice even.

  “No!” She shook her head and abruptly stubbed out her cigarette. “I’m just as surprised as you. I swear it, on all that is holy, or all that’s left.” Her voice cracked. Tears welled in her eyes, and her mascara started to run. My God, she wasn’t just broken. She was desperate.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I whispered. “Maybe I can help?”

  She sniffed. “You’re a sweetheart, darling. But no. I’m about to get dressed and get out of town. Tonight. Finally leaving him. But not before I stop them. Not before I convince my—”

  Getting out of town? They just moved here. “Wait, stop who? Mr. Turner?”

  After wiping her eyes, she reached for her cigarette and tried to take a drag before remembering she’d put it out. Her eyes flicked away from the camera. They narrowed, as if she were reading something—no doubt a second window open on her screen. She blinked and drew a shaky breath.

  “I want to help you, Salma,” she hissed. “I do. But you need to get offline. Now—”

  “Just wait. Mrs. Turner, Kate, please. What does fourteen ninety-three mean?”

  With another glance over her shoulder, she leaned close to the camera. “The Ninety-Three-ers, the Twelve Generals, Twelfth Star, and now Seven Jewels. All code for the same thing.” She spoke in a rapid whisper. “Inter Caetera…limpieza de sangre. It’s their motto, their holy writ. To unite church and state, as intended. Look it up. Inter Caetera. C-A-E-T. But do it from a secure location. Not your house. You understand?”

  I nodded, even though I couldn’t comprehend a single word. It sounded like gibberish.

  “They say we’ve been at war for five hundred years,” she went on. “They say…for America. It’s for the land. For the white patriarchy, as handed to them by God. They’ve sworn to destroy anything or anyone who keeps them from it. All in the ‘name of Christ.’ ” Her lips twisted in anger. “Liars. All lies. They’re blasphemers. But they believe it, and that makes it real enough. And they’re smart. They keep rebranding themselves. They brainwashed a lot of us who believed in the Seven Jewels, including me. Until they wanted me to…” Her voice caught. She shook her head and leaned back from the lens, reaching for her cigarette. “But I won’t. They’re wrong. People who aren’t like us aren’t evil; they aren’t even all that diff—” She coughed, then sucked in a deep breath. “I’m tired, Salma. Done. The spell is broken.”

  She was rambling, but I didn’t want her to stop. The more she spoke, the closer I would get to the truth. The spell?

  Mrs. Turner was crying now, her body shaking with silent sobs. I didn’t press her as she relit her cigarette. I wanted her as calm as possible. But before I could say another word—to console her, encourage her, to question her about “Seven Jewels”—there was a loud rattle on her end, like she was sitting in a locked room and someone was trying to get in. She spun around in a puff of smoke.

  “Shit,” she hissed, her back to the camera. “Get offline, Salma. Now!”

  She dropped her cigarette into the ashtray and leapt from her chair without bothering to close her laptop. The session was still live. All I could see was her empty chair. I should have heeded her advice, but I couldn’t. I was frozen in horror. I stared at the chair, straining to listen as she opened the door and began arguing with someone.

  “No,” she was saying. “Enough is enough.”

  Footsteps cut her off. The audio suddenly dropped. The connection popped and started to fail, noise rushing in and out…nothing discernible beyond a distant scream and a thud. The screen flickered; blackness filled the empty chair.

  It took me a split second to recognize that the blackness was fabric. Matching jeans and a T-shirt. Without hesitation I slapped the sticky note over my camera once again and held it there with damp fingers.

  A man in a ski mask now sat at Mrs. Turner’s laptop.

  He stared back at me. Staring, but not seeing. He had blue eyes, arms the color of chalk. Neither of us spoke. As abruptly as he appeared, he vanished, the screen blank and connection lost.

  IF AMIR HADN’T texted me first, I could have stayed in the basement until dawn. My knee had healed, but I was immobilized. Both knees had turned to liquid. I’d been sitting in silence like this…for how long? Poised to jump, my right hand on the cold metal of the closed laptop, my left on the plastic switch that shut off my lamp. In the inky darkness, time stopped. I could only see that ski mask—those eyes—until a sudden glow from my desk shattered the vision. Who was he? I doubt it was Mr. Turner. Who wears a ski mask in their own home?

  I jerked. My phone vibrated beside my laptop. 1:23 a.m. There was Amir’s face.

  Just leaving Black Box! Fun night but worried about u. R u awake?

  I snatched it up and, hands shaking, I replied:

  Don’t go home. Meet me at PC Galaxy in 30 min. Real life 911.

  He texted back immediately:

  On my way.

  I took several deep breaths and forced myself to stand. Okay. This was happening. This is happening. Should I call the police first? Should I tell them to meet Amir and me at PC Galaxy? I’d been on autopilot, with only the vague notion to show Amir what I’d discovered about the Turners—in a safe place, away from my home and family.

  Then it occurred to me: What could I tell the police, anyway?

  “Good morning, Arlington Law Enforcement. So, after I met with some of your ruder employees, I overheard Kyle Turner, my new neighbor, call me by my last name. Then I saw him unloading some heavy sacks into his home with his dad.
Also named Kyle Turner, who fixed my boyfriend’s power outage. Then I ended up discovering that the mom of the household is also a rogue defector and is clearly very scared of her family and was possibly just kidnapped in her own home by a man in a ski mask.”

  I could picture how well that would go over with those “ruder employees,” Detective Tim and the Silent One. It also left the question of how safe I was at the moment. Or how safe the police would make me. Those cold blue eyes behind the ski mask didn’t belong to some school bully or grown-up idiot bigot. They weren’t the eyes of an amateur.

  I needed to get the hell out of here. Now. Not just for me, for Amir. I grabbed a hoodie from my laundry bin and tiptoed upstairs, and out the back kitchen door, grabbing Dad’s keys on my way out.

  Outside, the night was warm and breezy…just right. Normally, I loved this time of year. It felt like summer, like fun times with Mariam. Glancing up, I could see there were only a few stars sprinkled across the hazy sky, grains of sand shaken off after a day at the beach. I tore my eyes away and opened the door to the garage. A part of me felt awful about taking Dad’s new Chevy Bolt. Then again, the minivan was old, and I didn’t want its clunky engine waking up my family.

  I got in the driver’s seat, shifted it closer to the wheel, and started the engine, grateful that I had injured my left knee and not my right. It was weird, though, sitting behind the wheel of a car when I’ve barely driven one. Oh well, now was not the time for self-doubt. Now was the time for answers. I pressed the garage door opener and closed my eyes. The part-squeaking, part-rumbling sound was something I had never paid attention to. Would it wake up my family? Door open, I pulled forward just enough to see if any lights had been turned on inside my home.

  Nope. The house was pitch black.

  Onward.

  * * *

  —

  Ten minutes later I was pulling up to Arlington’s one and only twenty-four-hour internet café—actually more of a home for insomniac gamers than a true café. I locked the car and flipped my hoodie over my head as I dashed under the security camera at the front entrance. I also checked my phone.

  One forty-nine in the morning.

  No word from Amir. He was driving, though, so he wouldn’t text.

  I pushed open the glass door smudged with a thousand grubby hands, remembering why I hated this place. It was a dark, smelly hole-in-the-wall. I slapped two dollars on the front desk. The clerk waved me in. He didn’t even ask to see my ID; he was too busy gaming (I assumed). My head down, I made my way past a rowdy gang of drunken college students and settled down at a desktop in a shadowy corner. I could barely see the keyboard—probably for the best. I doubt it had been sanitized since this place had opened.

  My first fear was quickly confirmed.

  When I logged onto Skype, Mrs. Turner, aka FallenSheClimber, was no longer active. I returned to the encrypted page where we first met. It, too, had vanished. I knew there was no point dwelling on the loss. Our conversation was gone forever unless I was magically given the time or the wallet to track down digital crumbs. I glanced around, my eyes adjusting. There was a bigger late-night crowd than I’d first realized. That was good; Amir and I would be safe here. Not so good: all were middle-aged white dudes, some balding, some skinny, most with beer guts bulging over their waists.

  One of them winked at me. Gross. I texted Amir:

  Meet outside.

  Pulling my hoodie tight over my head, I hurried back into the Bolt and locked the doors. I waited and waited, checking my phone and the street a gazillion times for Amir’s arrival even though I wasn’t sure what we’d do after that. I just knew I had to do something. Talk to someone I trusted. Maybe even go to his house and use his computer. Maybe Mona, the big sister I always wanted, would have ideas, advice, something.

  I glanced at my cell. It was 2:03.

  Where the hell was Amir?

  The boulevard was deserted. There couldn’t be bad traffic coming from DC. Weirder, he hadn’t even read any of my messages. He always checked his phone at red lights; he knew it was an emergency. I punched his number and pressed the phone to my ear, scouring the night for the Jetta. The call went straight to voicemail. I chewed my lip. My injured knee and head throbbed with EDS, the symptoms fueled by exhaustion and anxiety. All work is easy work, I reminded myself, and hating myself for it. Everything I want is on the other side of that pain. I sent him another text:

  New plan. Meet at ur house.

  * * *

  —

  Something was very wrong.

  I had a sense of it about a half mile from Amir’s house, beginning with the faraway sirens. They grew louder as I drew closer—and then: silence. A minute later, two unmarked black sedans sped past me, headlights off. They roared back-to-back through a stop sign, headed toward Amir’s neighborhood. I drove faster, following just behind. A block away I caught the first glimpses of flashing lights through the trees. But nothing could prepare me for what I saw when I rounded the corner.

  The street had been blocked off with police cars. An armored truck was parked in front of Amir’s house. Spotlights were trained on the windows; the sidewalk and yard were crawling with men. Definitely men. There were no Olivia Bensons or Wonder Women. Only men…in cop uniforms, in business suits, in bulletproof vests, in tactical gear complete with assault rifles.

  My brain seemed to shut down. I was no longer in control. I hit the brakes, pulling off to the side of the road, wondering if I should leave the car running. It was quiet, barely audible. Even so, I felt nervous. Like I should hide. My chest felt as if it were locked in an iron vise. My fingers and toes tingled. My head spun. I was hyperventilating. Not good. Get it together, Salma. I reclined the seat and opened the sunroof. I needed air. I gazed at the faint stars, gasping for breath. Strange how earlier they’d reminded me of a day at the beach. Now the whole of the night sky was quicksand, suffocating me.

  What happened, Amir? What is this? If—

  A blinding glare silenced the voice in my head.

  The light was so bright it hurt. Physically. I covered my face with my hands, fighting back terror. When I peeked through my fingers, I held my breath. Silhouettes were approaching. I could hear their boots on the pavement. My stomach plummeted.

  A loudspeaker crackled and whistled with feedback, followed by the sharp command: “Do not move. Hands on the wheel!”

  I did as I was told. My eyes remained closed. My entire body was trembling.

  All of a sudden there was a knock on the driver’s-side window. Shit, I thought. They said hands on the wheel. What now? Am I allowed to take a hand off to push the window button?

  Tap. Tap.

  I slowly lifted my left hand and pressed the button. The window slid down. Even though my eyes were closed, I could sense the presence of a light. A flashlight. A familiar voice filled the air. “Well, hello, Salma. Just the girl I was hoping to see.”

  I allowed my eyelids to flutter open. Detective Tim. Of course: I’d thought of him earlier, and my sudden shitshow reality had conjured him up, as if by magic. I thought of the star. Be my strength, be my strength. Then I forced myself to return his smarmy smile. Better to focus on his face than the armed men forming a semicircle around the car. He was dressed in the same rumpled suit he’d worn to Franklin, his tie loosened. If he had a gun, I couldn’t see it. He hunched down, draping one arm over the door.

  “Where’s Amir Ammouri?” he asked me.

  The question was like a slap.

  “He’s not here?” I whispered, honestly shocked.

  “No, he isn’t,” Detective Tim said. “Were you planning to meet him?”

  My eyes flitted to Amir’s house. Every light appeared to be on. “No. I mean yes. As a surprise. I was going to surprise him.”

  “Really.” Detective Tim tilted his head. “At two-
thirty a.m.?”

  I glared at him. “I’m not the first girl who’s ever wanted to surprise a boyfriend late at night, am I?”

  He smirked but ignored the question. “Whose car is this?” He reached into his jacket pocket and glanced at his phone.

  “My dad’s.”

  “Does he know that you’re out with it?”

  “Yes,” I lied, without hesitating. I glanced back at the Ammouris’. Dark shapes moved behind drawn curtains: people who weren’t members of the Ammouri family. Intruders. Bringing chaos to a place of calm.

  “So, your parents, they approve of your late-night surprise?” Detective Tim prodded. His tone was friendly now. Casual.

  Sweat pooled on my lip. With outrage and fear came a flicker of hope. Maybe it was a blessing, insh’Allah, that Amir wasn’t home. He might have sensed trouble, as I had. Maybe he’d been wise enough to turn around and find somewhere safe to lay low.

  “Miss Bakkioui?”

  I began to jabber, without thinking, lies building upon lies. “They do, and so does my grandma Titi. She’s a romantic. She didn’t approve of how you thought she didn’t exist, though. She’s convinced my parents to file a lawsuit against your department—”

  “That’s enough,” Detective Tim interrupted. He leaned through the driver’s-side window, peering into the darkness of the car. My smile widened. Go ahead and search, asshole, I thought, even as I caught a whiff of that aftershave, just as I had at Franklin. It made me want to vomit….

  A radio crackled. Detective Tim suddenly withdrew.

  There was commotion over at the Ammouris’. The spotlights spun to the front door. Mona stepped out first, and turned. Mr. Ammouri stepped out next, flanked by two blue-uniformed cops. Each wore a bulletproof vest. My stomach twisted. Mr. Ammouri’s face was drawn, his shoulders stooped. As I watched him, I felt a pang of recognition. I’d seen that same grim resignation before. I’d seen it on Mrs. Turner’s face. Like her, he looked broken.