Veiled by Coercion (Radical Book 2)

by Anne Garboczi Evans

  “This way.” Ali barged down an alleyway. He gripped the handle to a door. It held fast. Sliding out a thin piece of metal, he jiggled the lock.

  As her shallow breaths slid over each other, Rosna searched the street beyond them. The noise of bombing quieted. Daesh would soon take up the pursuit again.

  The door swung open in Ali’s hands. “Quick.” He motioned her inside.

  Rosna’s heart pounded to a stop. Her own blood stained the threshold. They stood in Kamal’s house. Terror shrieked from her lungs. “We can’t be here!”

  “On the contrary, this is the one place Kamal won’t look for us.” Ali revealed white teeth as he grinned. All pleasure left his expression. His right arm hung wounded by his side and blood streaked the back of his shirt as if he’d been beaten too. “At least, here’s hoping, because we don’t stand a prayer of escaping this death trap of a city until dusk.”

  The door slammed shut, locking them in the house. Kamal’s sagging mattress still sat in the same place as yesterday. Kamal’s prayer rug rolled into a neat cylinder beneath the bed. Rosna’s blood raced with the memories.

  Something creaked. Ali stuck his head in the refrigerator door he’d opened. “Ah, shwarma, looks fresh too. Want some?”

  Rosna shook her head. She sank onto the carpet, but even then the smell of her own blood staining Kamal’s floor overpowered her. Even with her eyes closed, she could see the tear in the mattress sheet where she’d struggled against Kamal—and lost.

  A warm presence radiated across from her. She cracked one eyelid. Ali sat cross-legged in front of her. He reached out and rested his hand over hers. “If all goes well, this will be the last night you ever spend inside terrorists’ walls.”

  Strength emanated from him, the kind of strength she imagined Khadir possessed. Even covered by Ali’s torn and dirtied leather jacket, his broad shoulders exuded an air of nurturing might. Ali would make a good father someday. The warmth of his touch rose through her arm, filling her like piping hot coffee on a winter’s day.

  If she had met Ali before Khadir, she could imagine loving such a man. Rosna froze. The price for a Yazidi marrying outside her tribe was absolute banishment. Even Melek Taus himself would not accept a Yazidi who married outside his tribe.

  “Keep fighting, Rosna.” Ali squeezed her hand. “It’s almost over.” He stood.

  “Thank,” she started. With each word, her broken ribs grated against each other. Searing pain flamed across her body. Her voice died away. She slid to a fetal position on the couch. “Khadir,” she mouthed without making a sound.

  She only needed to hold on enough more hours to make it to Khadir. Then she’d never be alone again and her fiancé would shoulder the burden and share her pain.

  CHAPTER 11

  Four hours since that accursed kafir had stolen his sex slave. Kamal marched along the bank of the Tigris River. He stopped a few hundred meters from the shadow of the last bridge across the Tigris, the only escape route out of ISIS-occupied Mosul. Every mujahideen in the city had been alerted after the infidel had narrowly escaped the police’s grasp. Even now Islamic State soldiers marched to and fro across the entrance to the bridge. They had to find the kafir and his sex slave.

  Slippery rays of moonlight reflected off the churning water, making the muddy depths look almost white.

  Though he had no prayer rug, Kamal sank to his knees by the riverbank. The spiked points of sickle grass dug into his hands as he prostrated himself behind the straggling branches of a shrub.

  “Allah the All-Merciful, hear my cry. Deliver my sabaya back into my hands and I will convert her to your ways and gain you another worshipper on this earth.”

  The moonlight illuminated the churning Tigris. Rosna clenched her arms tight as the blackness of her clothes faded into the night around her. The noise of a daesh patrol carried through the wind a few dozen paces ahead of her and Ali. A concrete bridge loomed in the darkness to the right.

  “Quick.” Ali beckoned, hand as dark as the night. He plunged into the river. Ahead of them, only the straggling branches of a grove of shrubs separated them from the river and the freedom that lay on the other side.

  Did Ali know how to swim? She didn’t. Rosna’s left foot dragged across the ground as she tried to keep up with Ali. A burning spread through her lungs with each breath she took, no longer dulled by morphine.

  He entered the water up to his waist. The raging current plucked at Ali’s leather jacket. Beyond him, the bridge cast long shadows in the darkness.

  No boat floated on the shoreline. Ali extended his hand toward her, one with the darkness.

  Rosna placed her foot in the river. She shivered in the chill as muddy water tore her flip-flops from her feet. “Is it safe?” she breathed as the mighty Tigris roared with lethal force around them.

  “We’re going to use the bridge, but we have to swim far enough out to pass the daesh checkpoint. Hold onto my arm.”

  Swallowing down the fear, Rosna stepped into the current. The water roared up around her knees. She struggled to keep her footing on slippery rocks.

  Something rustled in the bushes. A shadow moved and the dark metal of a Kalashnikov glistened in the moonlight.

  “Do you not know that to run from your Allah-ordained master is blasphemy against the one true God, sabaya.” Kamal stepped out of the bushes.

  A searing scream tore through Rosna’s lungs. She dove toward Ali as freezing water washed up around her shoulders.

  “That infidel is only motivated by filthy lucre. I serve the all-powerful God in the path of righteousness. I offer you paradise.” Kamal’s voice carried out across the water, clear as a bell. Fervor burned in his eyes as the youth leveled his gun.

  The icy waves splashed up against her dress. Rosna shivered in their chill. Behind her, Ali reached out and wrapped his warm fingers around hers.

  She moved toward him in the darkness.

  “Despite your past idolatry, as the wife of a mujahideen, Allah is sure to accept you. Forgo these worldly possessions. Would you not rather be enslaved by me, than set free by unrighteous infidels who will drag you down into the pits of hell-fire?” Kamal gestured to her to come out of the water, a fanatic light shining in his eyes.

  “No, she wouldn’t. Moron.” Ali’s voice slapped against her ear. He pulled her off balance into the raging torrent.

  Water closed in around her as she sank beneath the crashing waves. If gunshots peppered the water, she couldn’t hear them underneath the icy flow. Water seeped into her lungs. Breath left her body. Rosna flailed with her arms, struggling for the surface.

  A strong arm pulled her up. Ali struck out across the river, his other arm around her. His breath came in gasps too as he fought against the current. Her heavy dress twisted around her legs, restricting movement as the water sucked her down into its depths.

  The current swept them toward the bridge. The concrete pillars looked light against the darkness of the swollen water.

  “Grab the pillar,” Ali hissed. “There are steps up from there to the bridge.” His chest heaved in and out in the dark water as he struggled to keep her, as well as himself, afloat.

  Her hair twisted in the buttons of his jacket. She tried to make herself as light as possible. Her cheek touched his shoulder, his jacket slick in the icy water. She could feel his breath across her forehead.

  With a flash of light, a bullet whizzed through the air. “Infidel!” Kamal’s voice carried across the water. He perched on the topmost metal rung of the bridge. Water streamed from his stringy hair, down his spectacles. More rungs led down the concrete pillar.

  Ali cried out as if a bullet had struck him. His arm dropped from her. The water hurled her on. Rosna’s broken ribs screamed as she struggled to stay on top of the water.

  Where was Ali? He’d die in the river. Ahead of her, the concrete pillar rushed up against her. Kamal scrambled down the pillar toward the water’s edge. She flailed her arms right, trying to reach the next pillar, or e
ven the certain death of the river in flood stage beyond the bridge.

  Something flashed from the darkness. A hand crunched hers, jarring bones. “Allah gave you to me. You will not die, sabaya.” Kamal yanked her up onto the narrow metal steps that led up the pillar.

  She slapped her hand against his face.

  With one arm, Kamal pinioned her to his chest. She looked into the eyes of the man who had titled himself her owner. Muddy water dripped off his clothes onto her mouth as he yanked her up, one step after another.

  Her broken ribs cracked under the pressure. Blinding pain seared through her.

  Beneath the bridge, a shadow moved. Ali! He grabbed the bottom rung and scrambled up the metal outcroppings, his one arm limp at his side.

  Kamal threw her up onto the bridge and grabbed his gun. Aiming his Kalashnikov, he pulled the trigger.

  No explosion came from the barrel. A magazine fell from the gun, empty. “May Allah smite you, infidel,” Kamal cried. Yanking out his knife, he headed down the pillar.

  Ali kept climbing.

  Kamal slashed down with the knife.

  Ali clamped one arm around Kamal’s neck with choking power. “I’m a Muslim too. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see Allah the Subduer giving the guy who murders and rapes people a ticket to paradise and excluding me. So maybe a little more trying to save your own soul.”

  With a fiendish shout, Kamal threw off Ali. Her friend fell into the Tigris depths.

  Rosna gasped as Ali grabbed for the lowest rung. The torrent carried his body forward. He clung by his fingertips to the rung.

  Laughing, Kamal raised his knife.

  Through the fog of pain, Rosna glanced desperately around her. To the west, daesh soldiers patrolled the entrance to the bridge, but the walkway here stood empty. A broken bit of concrete lay on the walkway. Rosna hauled it up. An anguished cry escaped her lungs.

  Below her, Kamal glanced up.

  May Melek Taus grant her a sure shot! She cast the concrete. It crashed against Kamal’s head. His hand fell from the rung. He tumbled into the water.

  Chest heaving, Ali clambered up. His right arm hung limply at his side as he used his left to swing onto the bridge.

  Beneath them, Kamal let out a cry. “Mujahideen! Mujahideen! The infidel is escaping.” In the torrent below, Kamal clung to the lowest rung.

  To the west, daesh soldiers turned.

  “Run,” Ali hissed. Water splashed around her as Rosna careened toward safety. The rocks cut into her feet. She ran along the walkway.

  Bullets struck broken lampposts. Arabic words hurtled through the darkness.

  On the other side of the bridge, answering cries rose. Coalition forces raised guns over their sandbag barrier.

  “We are not daesh. Not daesh!” Ali yelled. Bullets rang out from both sides.

  With one last stride, Rosna reached the end of the bridge and came upon coalition lines. A man in uniform grabbed her arm and pulled her up above the sandbag barricade.

  The stabbing pain of each breath crashed over Rosna as she slid to a seat behind the wall. Ali slammed against the ground beside her. Water dripped around her as she cast one more look back at West Mosul.

  “That city’s a death trap now,” a coalition soldier said. He grabbed the handcuffs at his belt and gestured for Ali to hold out his arms. “Protocol, all men escaping the city are held and interrogated.”

  Would any of the Mosul citizens still escape daesh or would they die in Mosul? Would Jessica? On hands and knees now, Rosna peered back over the sandbags to the buildings and spirals of what used to be a city where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in peace. Now Mosul had turned into a death trap. Did the Sunni Muslims who had welcomed daesh three years ago regret their decision yet?

  A buzzing noise grew overhead, heading toward Western Mosul. With a click, the metal handcuffs cinched around Ali’s hands. Blinding light flashed through the night.

  Black smoke billowed up on the western side of the river. Like shrapnel, huge blocks of concrete launched through the air.

  Water shot up in spires like a tornado funnel, the water rising up into the sky. Blocks of concrete pounded down toward the earth.

  All went silent. The Tigris’ water flowed swiftly, taking the debris with it as the river swept over all that remained of the last bridge.

  The coalition soldier nodded to the debris and glanced at Ali. “You’re lucky you got out when you did. With the last bridge destroyed, no one else will escape. Whoever’s left, if daesh doesn’t kill them, the bomb strikes will.”

  Around him, other soldiers nodded.

  Rosna spoke, her voice tiny in the great night. “They are the devil worshippers. Only the devil himself would command daesh to do the things they do.”

  A soldier grabbed Ali’s arm and motioned him toward the interrogation. Arms handcuffed behind his back, Ali craned his neck toward her. “Think Kamal died in that blast?”

  “He is too evil to even die when he should.” Rosna spoke a Yazidi curse beneath her breath.

  “You know,” Ali looked at her. “Daesh believes if a woman kills one of their soldiers, he doesn’t earn jannah.”

  “Yeah. There’s an entire female Peshmerga force who take advantage of that fact. The Sun Ladies.” A coalition soldier spat chewing tobacco on the ground. “Strange ways the Kurds have, letting women fight.”

  As the soldiers dragged Ali on, Rosna said a prayer for him. May Melek Taus grant that the coalition soldiers see quickly that he was a good man, not a member of daesh. She followed his shadow with her gaze as he disappeared into the night.

  That strong hand that he clenched by his side had a scar running from his little finger to the base of his thumb. She’d felt it each time he’d clasped her hand and lent his strength to her. Ali was a man of noble character, a man she’d gladly welcome into her people and tribe.

  Only she couldn’t, for the Yazidi people accepted no converts. Her heart contorted.

  Rosna swiveled and looked out into the darkness. One could almost hear the groaning of occupied Mosul. How many of her cousins, friends, or neighbors still were held captive as sabayas in Mosul?

  Turning her face toward the liberated section of Mosul, Rosna tried to push away the images of thirty months of torture. Only a matter of hours now and she’d see Khadir again.

  When she was at his side, she’d be able to tuck away the thirty months of nightmares and open her eyes to the sunshine of his smile and the laughter of their children as she held their babies in her arms.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ali wrung the last of the water from his Neiman Marcus shirt as the morning sun climbed in the sky. His leather jacket hung limply now as a steady dribble of water fell on his boots.

  A coalition soldier waved his hand. “You may go.”

  The noise of airstrikes had faded from the sky hours ago. He’d passed his second interrogation of the week mostly by pleading he was a Shia Muslim, which he wasn’t. Still, he’d learned enough theology in the orphanage to make a realistic go at it.

  Around him shattered concrete, emaciated civilians, and an empty marketplace reminded all that just a few weeks ago the eastern part of the city had been under Islamic State control as well.

  Ali ducked into a silent bazaar. He knocked on one door. A thin man swung it open. Perfect, his contact had survived.

  A chat later, the man nodded and gave him the gold he owed him. After a bit of haggling, he owned a battered truck. Ali whistled and swung the keys between his fingers. The sun shone down on him as he walked through the half-empty marketplace searching for Rosna.

  She sat behind a market stall, only a few paces from the river. Broken debris blocked any bullets or mortars daesh might start shooting over the line.

  Knees crossed in front of her, Rosna twisted a singed blade of grass between her fingers, right then left. A damp headscarf covered her hair, even though the Yazidis had no veiling tradition.

  At his footstep, she jolted up. When her gaze m
et his, she relaxed, and the tiniest hint of a smile eased her features.

  The sun beat down on them, no sign of rain in those clouds. She pushed off the headscarf and her hair fell loose around her shoulders. The sun fell on each strand and her hair reflected back its brilliance. She was brave, bold, the kind of woman he liked to imagine his now-dead mother had been.

  Iraq would call Rosna soiled and impure, but she was far from any of those things. As a man of African descent, he’d heard men call him and his entire family abd, black slave, but that wasn’t true either.

  With Rosna, he could create that meaning he never had. These last days, Rosna and he had been each other’s tribe, people, family.

  She shook out her fair hair. It tumbled down her dirt-covered back. She plucked at the black skirt of her dress, which hung in tatters now. “I hate these clothes, the clothes of my slavery.”

  “Don’t wear them then.” He pointed to the red cloth that hung from a bazaar stall behind them. He crossed and held up the folds. “How much?” he asked the shopkeeper.

  “I couldn’t let you.” Rosna’s shoulder jostled his arm.

  “I already had to buy a new truck on account of you, what is a few dollars more?” He smiled at her.

  “Was your old truck terribly expensive?”

  “Yeah, fifty thousand dollars plus ten thousand dollars of improvement. Bismillah, do not worry about it.” He waved his hand through the dusty air. It made him feel even richer saying that, even though the loss of sixty thousand dollars still stung.

  “Thank you.” She pulled the red fabric down from the shelving. A weathered man held out a long headscarf to match.

  Taking the cloth, Rosna passed into the little shop, behind the dressing room curtain. Necklaces tinkled in the breeze, cheap trinkets mixed with the luster of solid gold. Rosna walked out from the curtain. The scarlet dress fell below her knees and beading decorated the orange pantaloons she wore below it as the sunshine of her hair shimmered around her lovely form.