by HJ Lawson
I notice something I hadn’t spotted before… a square white bandage, about 2 inches by 2 inches, on my arm. I peel it back to see my white skin under it, along with angry bruises and a needle hole.
They must’ve put something in me when I was in the hospital. I rip the bandage off, throwing it in the trash. I check the rest of my body. No more surprises, just dirt, bruises, and lots of small cuts. This hot bath is going to sting like crazy when I get in. I fill it with the last of the bubble bath so hopefully I can clean the smell of death out of my nostrils.
After the bath, I decide to rest in my bedroom for the last time.
Chapter 14
Trust Me.
GERARD
“Gérard, where are you?” Faith suddenly wakes from her unconscious state. God, it’s nice to hear her voice.
“I’m here, Faith. Calm down, it's okay,” I try to reassure her. I kneel down, brushing her hair from her face.
Faith tries to sit up, holding her bandaged arm, but falls back down onto the bed, wincing in agony. I hate to see her in pain. She pretends to be tough, but I know my Faith is really a softy.
“Gérard, where are they taking us? What about the children? Did they get out?”
“Faith, you need to rest. You are safe. The UN came, and they are taking us to the hospital,” I tell her.
“What do you mean ‘the UN came’?” Panic fills her voice. I don’t understand why she is upset.
“You took a bad hit to the head,” I tell her. “You have a concussion, and you need to rest.” She’s going to have a nasty scar, but her hair will hide most of it. I don’t tell her this part.
“No, you don’t understand! I told Jada to run. I told her to run!” Faith screams at me.
“Why did you tell her to run?” I ask, confused.
“When the soldiers came in, I told her to run. I thought it was the rebels.” Tears roll down her face. “I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. I heard their heavy boots stomping on the ground, so… I told her to run. I thought they would take her and force her to be a soldier or sell her as a child bride.” Faith is unable to control her emotions anymore and explodes into tears. She is crumbling in front of my eyes at the thought of what is happening to Jada.
“Jada asked me to protect her. I sent her out into the wild, and they will get her!” she sobs.
She’s right. Jada will not be able to survive out there on her own. She’s just a child.
“She will be okay,” I say reassuringly.
“You know she won’t be okay! Don’t lie to me! She’ll starve to death, or they’ll find her!” Faith yells.
She’s right. Jada will die out there, or worse. Faith made Jada a promise, so it basically means I made a promise as well. If anyone can find her I can, but time is running out. I just hope Jada’s got some sense about her and hides.
“I’ll find her,” I promise. Faith will never be able to live with herself if I don’t. I have to find her. Jesus, I have found terrorists all around the world, surely I can find one girl.
“What do you mean you will find her?” Faith looks confused with my reply.
Fuck Fuck Fuck! Hold it together!
“You know, I was a soldier. I still have contacts, and they owe me a few favors.” She doesn’t need to know any more than this, not now, not ever, or she’ll run at the first chance she gets. I cannot lose her the way I lost Mia.
“Really? Do you think we can find her?”
“I’ll do everything I can, I promise you that.” Leaning over, I kiss Faith on the head. I cannot promise that I will find Jada. She’s been gone for hours. She could have already been taken by the rebels. She could already be dead.
Faith presses her lips together and nods as her eyes fill up.
“Sir, sir? Excuse me, sir.” The silence is broken. I turn around, following the sound. Behind me, sitting on the truck floor, is a young boy around Jada’s age with a bloodied bandage over his eye. He has his arm wrapped around a young girl who is nervously biting her nails.
“Sir,” the boy repeats.
“Yes, what is it son?”
“Sir, did you say the girl’s name was Jada, the one who ran?”
Silence falls once again in the truck. The boy becomes aware that everyone is watching him.
“Yes, her name is Jada.”
“If it’s the same Jada that I went to school with, I know where she lives,” the boy informs us.
Faith is alert at this point. “You know her?” she asks calmly.
“I think so, ma’am. We were at school together, but once the war started, she stopped going. We all did…” The poor kid looks so nervous. “Was Jada about my age?”
Faith and I look at the boy.
“How old are you? She does look around your age, maybe a little younger?” I smile to help make him feel at ease talking to me.
“I’m fourteen. Jada and I were lucky; we look young, I guess. I think that’s how we’re still alive.”
“Where do you think she has gone?” I ask him. Jesus, I hope he has an idea, because he’s my only lead at this point.
“Where we all want to go: we want to go home. She would go home,” he replies without hesitation. He’s right. Where would a scared child go? They would go to the security of their family.
“Do you know where she lives?” Faith asks quickly.
“Yes, in the village next to mine. I once went to a birthday party at her house,” he says. I cannot believe what I’m going to have to ask him.
The poor boy and the girl next to him look like they’ve already been to hell and back.
“Can you show me?” I feel guilty for asking as soon as the question leaves my mouth, but he’s the only hope Jada has.
The boy looks down to his feet.
“Please, I beg you. She’ll die out there on her own,” Faith pleads.
The small girl stops biting her fingernails, or what is left of them, and looks up at us. “He will show you.”
The boy looks over and shakes his head.
“You’re her only hope,” the girl says. “You must. What if it was me who was missing?”
The boy lets out a deep sigh. “Okay. I will show you.”
Chapter 15
Wander.
JADA
Akar walks into the town, looking for food, alcohol and a new bride. He pauses at the sight in front of him and selfishly laughs at the dead bodies. This is going to be an easy village to take over, he thinks to himself. They already killed everyone for me.
He strolls over to the local shop and, without blinking, steps over the corpse in the store with no pity or remorse in his beady eyes. “Hello… hello…? There is a customer here. I would like some help.” Akar knows no one will come out. This is a game he likes to play each time he enters the store. “Okay, so I will help myself,” he laughs. He plunges his oversized sweaty hands into the jar on the counter.
Pulling out a handful candy, he shovels it into his mouth. Then he walks behind the counter. “Where’s the alcohol? What kind of store is this?!” he shouts with candy and saliva dripping from his mouth.
He angrily stomps up the street, sweat rolling down his face.
Too tired to continue walking, he decides to go into a home and find a drink.
He swings open the rusty metal gate. The front door is open, and another body is in the doorway. Akar pokes his head in. “Hello, is there anyone there?” He wheezes for breath. “Thank God, no one is here.” He steps over the corpse and shuts the door behind him, but it won’t close. Akar kicks the body out of the way and onto the front path, and then slams the door behind him.
He walks into the kitchen to find the alcohol. “Finally,” he yells, taking a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard. He lifts the bottle and takes a big gulp as he walks into the living room.
“That’s better,” Akar says to himself. He goes to turn on the TV, but nothing happens. “No bloody power! Now what am I going to do?” He paces up and down in the living room, and somethi
ng catches his eye. He looks out of the window carefully so as not to be spotted. What is it? It’s a girl and a black dog.
The girl looks like Farah, but it cannot be; she’s dead. Died in childbirth. This is another girl and she looks older than Farah. She can be his new wife. He licks his lips with greed and downs another gulp of whiskey.
I will not make the same mistakes with this one.
He pulls a chair closer to the window and flops his obese body down. “What is the girl doing?” he asks himself.
She’s on the ground, bent over the body. “I guess it’s her mother. She’s come home to find her mother dead. I guess her father was taken or killed just as the other men.” Akar’s face fills with an evil smile.
“She will be all mine, just as Farah was.”
Chapter 16
Goodbye.
ZAK
“Zak, where’s Mother?” my sister Tilly asks me as we walk up a slope away from her school. After I found out my father was taken, I ran to get Tilly; she’s all I have left. God, what can I say?
“She’s with the angels, in clouds.” A lump fills my throat as I try to explain to my little sister that our mother is gone forever.
“What do you mean?”
Dear Lord, help me, help me explain why these monsters burnt our home down.
Sahar, Haytham’s mother, places her arm around Tilly. God, I’m glad Sahar and her family followed me out of the school.
“Tilly, your mother has gone to live with the angels, but she’ll always be watching over you,” Sahar says.
“Is my mother dead?” My little sister’s face turns white, as the words pour from her tiny mouth.
“Yes, dear child, your mother is dead,” Sahar replies. Tilly wiggles out from under Sahar arms and into mine.
“Tell me it’s not true, Zak. Tell me!” Tilly demands.
I wish I could lie and tell her Mother is not dead, that we are all going back home to be with our family, and that everything is just like a normal day. But it’s not, and I cannot lie.
“Tilly, it is true. Mother is not alive anymore.” Before I finishing speaking, tears roll down her face, followed by a high-pitched scream.
“Noooo!!”
She buries her head in my shoulder and sobs. A striking pain fills my heart as it breaks in half.
“We’ll give you a moment together,” Sahar says, as she and the others continue up the slope.
As we lower our bodies to the ground, I cradle Tilly like a baby in my arms, slowly rocking back and forth like my mother did when Tilly was little.
Silently I sit there, watching the smoke from our villages bellow into the sky, and listening to the sound of a child realizing she’ll never see her mother again. How am I going to tell her about Ali or Father? I don’t think she can take it.
“Did it hurt, was she in pain?” Tilly’s question breaks the silence. I’m going to lie; there is no way I’m telling her the truth… she should never know the truth.
“She wasn’t in pain. There was a fire.”
“Was she burned?” Panic fills Tilly’s voice.
Even a child can understand the pain of being burned.
“No, no. She was sleeping in her bed, and the smoke filled her lungs.”
“So she went to live with the angels in her sleep?”
I can feel my eyes fill up, but I must keep it together for my sister’s sake. I nod.
“She’s with Grandma now. You know how much she missed Grandma, and Zak, I’m going to miss her,” Tilly says.
“I know that you’ll miss her. I will as well.” I miss her already; I just wish my last memory of her wasn’t her charred body. At least Tilly will never see that image in her mind.
“What about Father and Ali, where are they? Are they dead as well?”
I cannot tell Tilly about the school and what the soldiers did to Ali. He was like a superhero to her; they were always playing around together, and he’d carry her on his shoulders. She was too heavy for me to do that. I have to admit I was always a bit jealous of their relationship.
“Ali was at home with Mother. He was asleep on the sofa.” Lie after lie after lie…
“What?! Ali is dead as well? This doesn’t make sense!” Tilly yells. “Why was he at home? He was meant to be at school!”
Shit, she knows I’m lying – think Zak, think!
“I guess he forgot his gym stuff. You know he always forgets his bag.” Please buy it, Tilly. I cannot tell you the truth, I just can't.
“He does forget a lot of stuff,” she admits. “But why were you home?”
I pause and think quickly. “I had a bad stomach.”
“What about Father?” Her tone indicates she’s braced herself for bad news. Thank God at least I can tell her the truth about him… give her something to fight for.
“Father is alive –”
Tilly jumps to her feet, with a smile across her face.
“– But the soldiers took him,” I finish.
Sadness washes back over her as she slumps her shoulders.
“Where did they take him?” she asks.
Jesus, how do I know? I wish I had the answers; I really do. I’m as lost as well.
“I don’t know where they took him, but I am going to find him!”
Tilly looks down at me proudly, reaching out her hand to help me. Rising up from the ground, I can see the unthinkable sight unfolding in front of me – the soldiers are entering Tilly’s school. I got her out just in time.
But the other children won’t be as lucky.
Chapter 17
Beware: You Do Not Know What You Have Woken.
JADA
I have become conscious of the fact that someone is in my room. There is a dark shadow at the foot of my bed looking down on me.
I lie still and pretend I’m still asleep, or better, dead. My body is ice cold… he has removed my blanket, and he’s looking at me. I feel so vulnerable right now. How he dare make me feel this way in my own room!
His breath reeks of alcohol, and his body stinks of repulsive sweat as if he hasn’t washed for days. I have to force myself not to vomit. Who is he? What does he want? My mother warned me about men like these once the war broke out, and my father taught me what to do with them. I am not weak. I will defend myself to the death if I have to.
At the start of the war, my parents tried to pretend everything would be fine, and that it was the grownups’ problems, not children’s.
But after a few months, things changed.
Planes flew over our house at night. Lucas and I would watch from the window. It was fun at first to see them, and then it just became normal.
As the months went by, we had less and less food. When I asked my father why, he told me the food prices had increased by four times the amount they were paying before the war, and instead of helping others, people were getting greedy. My parents really cut back on their food; Mother was already slim, but she was shrinking right before my eyes. It disgusted me that people were making a profit from this war, but Father told me not to worry. “We’re a smart family, and we’ll be fine.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that. It became clear the next morning when he was in the back garden with a large bundle of wire.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
A big smile crossed his face. He was so handsome when he smiled, and it was nice to see him happy for a change.
“You and I are going to get chickens today,” he said excitedly.
“What? Chickens!”
Father laughed. “Yes, chickens.”
“Okay, you have finally lost it. Does Mother know?”
“Yes, and she thinks it’s a good idea,” my father said proudly. He was as excited as a schoolboy, and I shook my head. But maybe it was a good idea… If the prices of food were going up, then we had to control them. But what’s next, a cow? The thought made me giggle.
“What you laughing at?” Father asked.
“Nothing,” I replied, forcing my
self to keep a straight face.
Then a thought struck… “You know, there are lots of rabbits and birds in the fields out back. We, umm,” I hesitated a moment. “We could get a gun, and you know, find them…”
Father gave me a surprised glance. “We don’t need to get a gun. I’ll need to check with your mother, but I think it’s time for me to teach you how to shoot. And who knows, maybe we could get some lunch out of it as well,” he said with a smile. He patted me on my head and walked into the house.
As I sat down on the grass and smelled the flowers in the garden, I could not believe how he had responded; he hadn't seemed shocked at all, but was excited about my idea. I pulled at the grass nervously while I waited for him to return.
I bet Mother will say no. There is no way she’ll let me fire a gun. I began to weave long green pieces of grass through the chicken fence as I waited.
I lay back and closed my eyes, feeling the sun beaming down on my face. I put my hand under my head. Nice… tan time.
A few minutes later a shadow crossed me, and I opened my eyes. Father was standing there with a huge grin, holding what appeared to be a mini leather briefcase.
“She said yes?”
Father nodded and looked over to the side on the house. Mother was standing there wearing her blue dress, looking beautiful as always, but she had a concerned look on her face. She smiled at me and nodded her approval.
“Thanks, Mother!” I shouted. She smiled and walked back into the house. Father reached out his hand for me, helping me up.
“Why did Mother look sad?”
“Because you’re growing up,” Father replied. “She would like a chat with you later about safety stuff.”
Of course she would. I nodded and smiled. Nothing could dampen my excitement! This was the best thing to happen to me in months. The war really had changed everything. I hadn’t been to school for weeks and weeks after they started to bomb places. Friends moved away, many saying they were never coming back. Some people stayed because they didn’t have the money to leave, which was our problem too, although my parents would never admit it.