Veiled by Coercion (Radical Book 2) Page 7

  “You mean the price is too high.” Rosna dropped her gaze to the tile. A dried bloodstain spread around her knees. The daesh women were just as bad as their men. They possessed no mercy because of their gender. A tingling sensation rose from Rosna’s fingers, across her body. The concrete walls swayed in front of her.

  “They’ll kill me. I’ll die if I don’t turn you in.” Jessica clenched her Kalashnikov’s butt between her fingers. Guilt and desperation tinged her voice.

  “I’ll die if you do.” Rosna clasped her hand over her heart, pleading eyes fixed on the woman. Never had she gained mercy from a daesh member. Please Melek Taus, rescue me! She faced the barrel of the woman’s gun.

  Jessica’s breath came faster. Stepping close, she bent and spoke in a whispered hiss. “Say the black man kidnapped you. Your owner won’t beat you so hard then and I promise I’ll only crack the whip in the air.”

  A noise sounded outside the room.

  Rising to a stand, Jessica raised the braided whip, other hand on her Kalashnikov.

  A beating, that’s not what she cared about. Each time they beat her, she longed for death. The sensations of three years of abuse crawled over Rosna’s skin. No, this couldn’t be happening. Rosna shook.

  A look that might have been concern if it came from anyone except a daesh fiend flashed across Jessica’s face. She dropped the braided whip and touched Rosna’s shoulder, her small hand warm. “Do not fear. Your owner won’t kill you. They never kill the Yazidi girls.”

  No, daesh never did. The Yazidi girls were forced to live their hell.

  CHAPTER 7

  The post office stood empty now except for the dozen black-clad Al-Khansaa women. Terror whirled around Rosna, a sand storm sweeping her away. Rosna’s ribcage sucked in, crushing her as all air left her lungs.

  “Umm Sultan.” Jessica breathed in the enormous woman’s ear.

  Whirling around like an armored tank, Umm Sultan grabbed Rosna’s arm. Bruises formed underneath her powerful grip. “The brigade will take her back to her owner. I will text Kamal Al Harbi.” The soldier shoved her into the street.

  The Al-Khansaa brigade swarmed around her, their identities obscured in black. Kalashnikovs dug into Rosna’s skin as they shoved her forward. She turned glazed eyes to the sun, which no veil obscured. As Rosna soaked in the sunlight of Melek Taus, she moved her lips. “Rescue me, Melek Taus. I beseech you.”

  An AK-47 butt smashed against her cheek. Rosna’s teeth shook in their sockets as she tasted blood.

  “You are worshipping the devil.” An Al-Khansaa soldier’s scream rose high.

  The woman shoved her. Rosna stumbled to her knees. Her black dress tore as dirty gravel flung up from the road. Pain shot through her knees. Trembling, she turned her gaze up to Melek Taus’s bright orb—and saw Kamal.

  “Here is your sabaya.” A faceless veil shoved her at the terrorist.

  Boots planted on the broken pavement, Kamal stood tall. His camo uniform flapped around his long legs.

  Rosna cast her desperate gaze over the street. Men with guns in white patrol cars zoomed up and down the road.

  Kamal brought his nostrils together beneath the bridge of his spectacles. “You should have veiled her. This is haram forbidden for other men to see my sabaya.” Ripping his shemagh from his neck, Kamal threw the sweaty rag over her head and grabbed her arm.

  The cloth clung to her face. A sulfurous smell stung her eyes and she couldn’t breathe. Rosna cried out as the noises blurred around her.

  She could see nothing except the tan cloth. Tiny flakes of gunpowder fell onto her lip, the acidic taste on her tongue. She stumbled, but Kamal dragged her on.

  Years later, Kamal stopped. A key grated in a lock. Kamal’s gun clacked against his tactical vest as he thrust her through an entranceway.

  The light of the sun disappeared as a door grated shut.

  “Unveil,” the youth ordered.

  Rosna stood motionless, eyes half-closed. Her plastic flip-flops felt hot against her feet. Sweat dripped over her eyes. The stench of the cloth covering her face nauseated her, only a blur of threads visible as the half inch of overused air recirculated, but she had no desire to remove the cloth.

  Kamal’s boot sounded against tile floor. He tore his shemagh off her.

  Rosna blinked. Blankets covered every window in this house, only a naked light bulb illuminating the tomb.

  Kamal shoved a book at her.

  The leather-bound Koran felt smooth against her fingers. Arabic letters indented the pages.

  “You will memorize it.” Kamal stood stiff, one hand on his hip as if the kid sought to strike a pose befitting commanders of armies.

  “You think I don’t have it committed to memory already?” She squared her shoulders, legs rigid beneath her torn dress. Every “owner” had insisted, but she would never convert. She’d endured beatings, starvation, so many rapes. She’d been chained for days at a time. Still, she held fast to her gods and her religion. Rosna stiffened her back.

  Fear shot up her spine.

  Twenty-four hours of freedom already had erased the numbness she’d built up over three years. Her heart pounded in her throat as her stomach cried for food.

  Kamal cinched his thin fingers around her wrist. A lethal fanaticism shone in his eyes.

  “No!” She lunged toward the door.

  Stepping around her, Kamal blocked the door with his body. He shrugged his narrow shoulders up and looked down at her. “You are here for the rest of your life. Your people have rejected you now that you’ve been used by foreigners.”

  “That’s not true!” Her spit sprayed in his face. “I have a fiancé who loves me.”

  “Shower.” Kamal stabbed his finger behind him. A handleless door hung open, revealing the mildewed tile of a bathroom.

  Rosna’s feet glued to her sticky flip-flops. Always, they said that. Always, it meant only one thing. Every time she’d fought the men, a dozen times she’d tried to commit suicide to spare her family the dishonor. In the end though, the result was always the same, more beatings, more rape.

  Kamal glared at her through his sticky spectacles. Strength exuded from his tall frame and weapons hung on his belt.

  “Give me one of the blue pills. I have not had one for five days.” Knees wobbling, Rosna bit into her lip as she fought to stand upright. The doctor had said skipping even one day would make her fall pregnant. She could not carry a daesh murderer in her womb. She clenched her fist hard into her stomach, indenting the flesh. Could not!

  A snort came from the youth’s long nose. “No.”

  “You must!” Rosna quivered before him. “You cannot sell me if I become with child. Your fatwa says it.”

  “I do not intend to sell you.” Kamal spread his feet, dirt falling from his army-issue boots. He rested one hand on the shelf by the wall. Beneath his long fingers, the vellum cover of another Koran crinkled. “You will be my wife.”

  “I am not Muslim. You cannot make me your wife.” Rosna stumbled back. The hard edge of a piece of furniture dug into her shoulder blades.

  In one step, Kamal grabbed her by the hair and yanked her face up to his. “After you have my children, then you will convert.”

  Tufts of her hair wrapped around his fingers, her torn locks in his hand, but she didn’t even feel the pain. She stared in horror at the murderer’s mouth from whence his words had come. “No!”

  Turning his back on her, he seized a turquoise and purple rug.

  A heavy bolt now secured the door. Daesh guards patrolled the streets. An image of her sister lying white as death as the deep red of blood pooled around her little body pounded in Rosna’s senses. That’s what happened last time she tried to flee daesh.

  Moving into the next room, Kamal shook out the rug. Resting his AK-47 on the wall in front of him, he knelt before a single mattress and prostrated himself. A pale blue sheet tucked around the mattress’s sagging springs.

  She’d never see her baby sister again.
She should have protected her better. She was too weak. Rosna’s shoulders sagged. A migraine pounded against her head and she’d had no food since morning.

  Kamal’s voice rose through the dusty air, clear as a bell. “Allah, behold you have given me this devil worshipper for my right hand to possess. You have commanded us in the Noble Koran to enjoy the spoils of war, which you have provided to the believers. I enjoy this act in worship of you.”

  Prayer ended, Kamal looked up, his honey-colored eyes clear as a summer day, no guilt on his face for what he intended to do. “I told you to shower.”

  Her ears rang. This couldn’t be happening. The world tilted around her, the tile floor patterns churning in an uneasy circle. Her knees went weak as tears streamed from her eyes. She’d collapse, she’d fall.

  Ali’s voice echoed in her thoughts. You are strong, Rosna. Through a tear in the black blanket covering the window, shimmered a tiny spot of sunlight.

  Rosna’s breathing came in uneven gasps. She wasn’t strong. She was just a woman. She’d been trained to clean a house, cook a meal, tend a baby, not to fight.

  Once again, Ali’s voice rose in her thoughts. His voice had a rich flavor like the fresh churned butter she used to fold into each noonday meal. Ali’s deep brown eyes had glowed with kindness as he extended his hand and said, you are stronger than me.

  The phantom smell of her sister’s blood, a three-year-old scent now, rose in front of her. She held her breath, but still the scent permeated her nostrils.

  Rising, Kamal turned to roll up his prayer rug.

  She sprang for the door. With a twist, she got the deadbolt free. She flung open the panel and tore down the abandoned street.

  Heavy footsteps pounded after her.

  Faster, she must go faster. She ducked under the drying clothes that hung out across the narrow alleyway. A herd of emaciated chickens scattered in front of her. Dust flung up around her flip-flops.

  A shout rose behind her.

  Rosna’s breath came in gasps. Her captivity-abused body refused to keep up the pace as her starvation-weakened knees gave way.

  A heavy hand grabbed her arm. Not two hundred paces from Kamal’s house, he’d caught her. Anger burned on his narrow face as he dragged her back to his prison. His long fingers dug into her flesh, piercing between sinew and marrow.

  Not an Iraqi man or woman rushed out of their house to rescue her. One Iraqi looked up from his pile of chewing tobacco. He settled farther into his chair, giving silent consent to this kidnapping.

  With a shove, Kamal forced her through the doorway. Rosna fell against the floor. Her hip bone smashed against tile.

  Despair fell over her along with her loosened hair. She was just a woman. A woman born to love and nurture her family, to raise children for her and Khadir. She’d not been born to fight murderers.

  Yanking her up by her hair, Kamal threw her against the bed. The mattress boards broke as shooting pain stabbed through her back.

  With the bony part of his hand, he thrust her chin up.

  Rosna scrambled away from the mattress.

  His fingernails bore into her arm. He shoved her back and tore up her dress. She screamed and hit against him.

  “Why do you make me hurt you?” He shouted into her face. Seizing a plastic pipe, he struck it against her bared back.

  She reeled from the impact.

  “You could be my esteemed wife.” His words pounded against her ears as the beating pounded against her skin, breaking bones and tearing flesh.

  Fear overwhelmed her as tears of agony ran down her cheeks, but through the blur of pain and anguish, she forced her chin up and caught his gaze. “What’s the difference between slave and wife in your perverted theology?”

  “Blasphemer! ISIS honors women with the role Allah intended for them.” Kamal beat her harder as seconds blurred into minutes.

  Finally it stopped. Rosna sprawled prone on the tile floor. Her bones grated against each other and she could feel the broken shards of ribs stabbing her flesh. Please, Melek Taus, this time let me die.

  Khadir, she’d never see Khadir again. Death though, she could welcome that. Dizziness swam over her, blunting the excruciating pain. When Melek Taus reincarnated her, she would go somewhere beautiful. She had been a faithful worshipper. Perhaps Melek Taus would make her an eagle soaring through the air, wings outspread in flight?

  Cold shivered through her, the sensation welcome amidst the burning feeling.

  With his foot, Kamal prodded her breast.

  She screamed out in pain, but she couldn’t move.

  Kamal spat on the ground. “I’ve overdone it and now I have to pay the hospital bills for you, don’t I?” He kicked the mattress frame behind her.

  “Leave me to die,” she whispered through parched lips.

  Stooping, Kamal grabbed her around the middle and threw her on the bed. “Have I not said, you will live to bear my sons, cubs for the caliphate.”

  An excruciating pain haze fell over her.

  “Because you disobeyed me, your Allah-ordained master, I will visit that black-skinned infidel in prison tonight and make sure he dies for stealing you.” Tearing off her dress, Kamal shoved apart her legs.

  Pain shot through Rosna as despair tore through her innermost being. Once again, her resistance not only failed to save herself, but caused others to die.

  The warm sensation of blood oozed from Ali’s back, thanks to a daesh beating. He’d shaken the white bars in the door of this prison cell a dozen times already. No give in them. A single lamp bulb illuminated the darkness of the low-roofed hallway outside the cell.

  Signs covered the hallway, proof of the Iraqi government presence in this building another lifetime ago. Would daesh kill him? He’d find out soon.

  A brute of a man stood inside the cell, flanked on either side by youths. “You are a thief. You stole a mujahideen’s sex slave.” The man, whom the others had called Omar, gripped a hacksaw. “You shall lose a hand for what you did.”

  No! Ali’s wrist muscles convulsed where Omar eyed them. “I did not know she was a mujahideen’s slave, I swear. I met her on the side of the road.”

  “Then you are immoral also. Perhaps you should lose two hands?” Pleasure shone in Omar’s eyes.

  Blood pulsed through Ali’s fingers, perhaps the last blood ever to fill those veins. The cold taste of fear penetrated his mouth. Daesh would make him a cripple. What good would his money do him then? He never should have taken this job. He should have tried to shoot himself free when he saw that daesh barricade and taken his chances. He only hadn’t because Rosna would have died. Where was Rosna?

  “Please, sirs, I did not know.” Ali’s tongue felt thick as he stumbled over the words. He couldn’t think. Pain burned through him. Pinpoints of glass pricked his bare feet. His toes swelled up, broken in many places. The stench of death surrounded him in this prison.

  “You are a kafir, an infidel.” Omar smashed a pipe down across his head.

  “I am a Muslim.” Blood dribbled down his temples as Ali brought his hands up to protect his head, the last time he’d move those hands. “A Sunni, not a Shia.”

  “You are named Ali, a Shia name. You are a Shia Muslim, an infidel.”

  “No, I swear. Behold the prophet, peace be upon him, his nephew was Ali. My parents wished to honor the prophet, peace be upon him. They did not worship a man like the Shia infidels.” The words tumbled out of Ali’s mouth.

  While he found Shias distasteful, he considered them good enough Muslims, certainly not infidels. Now though, did not seem the time to share his broadminded views. His head lolled forward. Thirst parched his tongue. His limbs shook from lack of food.

  “Infidel!”

  Ali touched the dusty wall, steadying himself with his still-attached fingers. If only he could escape. He’d smuggled two ISIS deserters out last year. They’d paid a pretty penny for his life-risking services.

  A metal bar slammed against his hand. Bones shattered.
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  Another voice spoke. The kid who had grabbed Rosna in Yemen stood outside the white bars. Kamal they’d called him.

  Kamal looked directly at Omar. “The black man is a liar. Cutting off his hands is too merciful. Behead him and so bring great glory to Allah the Forgiving.”

  Had daesh given Rosna back to Kamal? What fear she must be facing now. Why was he thinking about this? Rosna was the reason he was dying this day. Ali steadied his trembling hands. “Where is Rosna?”

  “In my house, kafir.” The stripling youth crossed one skinny arm over another. “I will convert the devil worshipper.”

  Kamal was the devil worshipper. No man who feared Allah would act like these men. Ali’s head pounded. His bones shook.

  Omar drew a blade from his belt. He parted his thick lips in a gruesome imitation of a smile. The hallway’s light made the blade gleam. In the razor-sharp sliver of metal, Ali saw his own reflection.

  Ali’s pulse pounded against his neck, which the murderer would soon sever with that knife.

  “Perhaps we should make this more fun.” Omar smiled, revealing dark gums. “Bury you alive? Let biting ants consume you? Rip out your intestines first?” Omar flicked his gaze to Ali’s midsection.

  Cold spread through Ali’s limbs. Torture? Hours of torture? He couldn’t face it.

  Rosna had held up under years of daesh’s torture. How had she done it? All his pride long since fled, he wanted to fall face forward and beg for mercy, but these animals had no mercy to offer.

  “So many options to choose from.” Omar tilted his head, thick brow puckered. “What do you say, Kamal?”

  “I do not care, as long as he dies.” Kamal extended a brown paper sack through the open door.

  The men around Omar tore into the bag. Their dirty fingernails dug into gyros. The sweet scent of freshly squeezed sharbart drink wafted up. Ali’s parched mouth ached. Omar seized a shwarma sandwich and waved it in front of Ali’s nose.

  Unbidden, Ali salivated, his thick saliva dripping down his dust-caked chin.

  Omar chortled and stuffed the food in his own mouth, jostling his shoulder holster.