Chapter 15 15: B

He casually asked her where she lived, reason was because he wanted to know her location so that if need arouse, Sadeeq knew where to find her. Not because he was nice enough not to drop an elder woman by the road at night, like she pathetically thought. "On Eid day after Magumeri village was raided, she was the last girl to arrive and they were together..." She told him everything that had happened and the bits and pieces she knew about Maryam, but what got the most interesting to Sadeeq was the fact that he had taken her away, and now, he would begin his hunt! The two days had passed with nothing significant and the only time he saw her was when he took food to her room. It was as if whenever she saw him, she recoiled back into her shell and hide everything about her from him. Something was wrong with the girl, he knew. And he couldn t wait for tomorrow to ask Hafiz if he knew a doctor to recommend to him. He had slept early today and it felt as though he was dreaming when he heard the sounds of someone crying. It kept persisting when he had turned with the hope that the cries will subside and whoever it was would go back to sleep as well, but the cries were turning to screams and it seemed the person was in pain. In his mind, her thought flashed through his mind despite him being asleep and he wondered if someone had known about their location and was there to harm her? Na im bolted out from his sleep at once and it didn t take him a minute before he found himself walking towards her room, where her cries were becoming even more prominent as he held the tip of his gun. He slowly opened the door and turned the lights at once, a pair of eyes looked at him frantically and when she saw the gun he had aimed at her, she threw the blanket she was holding dearly to her body as she screamed at the pitch of her voice. Na im looked around the room and when he found no one and realized she might ve had a nightmare. He kept the gun away and walked to the bed, but she kept shifting as he approached until she was about to fall down from the bed when he leapt to her and held her in place. She wriggled out of his touch, closing her eyes as her body shook with fear. She seemed to be going crazy, her breath coming in pants as she tried so hard to stay alive and sane, her entire body shaking with nothing but fear and agony. For a moment, he wondered what was wrong with her. "Look here," he spoke, but she didn t even seem in the right sense to listen to what he was saying as she kept on shifting back away from him. He hissed under his breath, "What the hell is wrong with you?!" He yelled as he pulled her back on the bed, seeing as she was yet again, going to throw herself down. But instead of her to tremble in fear, she pushed him away from her with both hands as she screamed. "Don t come near me! Go away!" Her words were incoherent but he heard the anger, the hatred and the fear in them. It sounded as though she was holding a grudge against him for doing something so bad to her that she was finding it emotionally challenging to forgive him, bad enough to have her heart abhor such hatred for him. "What s wrong with you?" He tried to ask, all his attempts were to stop her from falling on the ground but instead of her to do what he simply wanted, her chaotic brain urged her to do what would relieve her of the anger she felt. And first, she slapped him when he was about to touch her shoulder, her voice coming in hiccups as she yelled at him. "Don t touch me! Don t speak to me either! I don t want to see you!" It was the world had stopped moving, his heart practically went to a standstill because what the hell was that?! Did she just slap him or it was merely a dream? Yet, all the excuses he was trying to bring in her favor so he wouldn t do what his mind was telling him to were brought to a halt when he felt the punches she was laying on his broad chest. "Go away!" She cried, punching him so hard that she might as well wish to rupture his chest with those tiny fists of hers. "Stop," he managed to whisper amidst the anger that was simmering in his heart and the rage that had already clouded his sense of right doing. But she didn t seem to care, didn t seem calm enough to even hear him and when he thundered the next "Stop it, I said!" He had his gun cocked to her head, the sound of the trigger he had already pulled poured a shower of snow to her entire body. It was as though the bullet had passed through her head and she was no longer alive to scream or punch or declare her hatred for him. She looked at him with a look that he knew if he screamed at her again, nothing could stop her soul from leaving her body even before his bullet did the job for him. "Listen to me, and I'll have to say this just once." He began, bringing the gun head closer to her head and he watched the rise and fall of her chest increasing while she closed her eyes and tears rolled down to her cheeks. "You are in no position, and when I mean no position; in no way do you have the guts to slap me! I'll have to make myself clear and you have to answer to everything I'll ask you now, unless you want my bullet right into your skull, I might as well kill you to get rid of you!" His tone was barely above whispers due to the anger he felt. "Do you understand?" He asked and slowly, Maryam began to nod her head but he yelled at her once again, "Speak to me with your mouth! Weren t you speaking just now?!" "Yesss..." She stammered, her lips trembling as she clutched her eyes even more tightly with more tears still finding their ways out of her lids. "I m going to lay out some rules for you, which if you fail to follow them, I'll surely kill you myself. Because as it is, I'm so tired of having to deal with you, being constantly afraid that somehow my secret will get revealed to the world and all I'll get from you is this?" He hissed and pinned the gun to her head even deeper that he heard her sharp intake of breathe. "First, whatever I ask you to do, don t you ever ignore my commands. I'll emphasize on this, don t ignore my commands and do what I ask of you right away." He watched her nodded her head before she quickly gulped down a lump in her throat and she trembled the 'Yes out of her lips. All the rules he had laid out for her had gotten a breathless yes from her and he began to wonder if she had really listened to him well long enough to understand what he had meant. He slightly lifted the gun from her head and got down from the bed, "Now, go to bed and sleep! And one word from you, a whimper or anything that shows you re alive, I'll be here with my gun to end you for good." She quickly laid down on the bed and pulled the blanket over her whole body. Na im watched how she kept on shivering in fear and even though he knew she was crying, there was no sound coming from her. He felt like beating the life out of her whenever he remembered how her palms got in contact with his cheeks but he restrained himself, because he knew if he tried beating her to get his anger out of his chest, he might kill her like he had threatened to. He stomped out of the room and banged the door so hard that Maryam flinched at the sound and even though she knew he was out, she didn't make a sound. Na im had barely slept for the rest of the night and when he saw that the anger he felt wasn t going to subside, he went to the gym in the house and got his punches out and lifted some weights to get his mind off things. He didn t know how many hours he had spent in the gym until he heard the adzhan for Subh being called and he went back to his room. He showered and after he had said his prayers, Na im decided to call Hafiz, his anger a little bit down. "Morning, Sir!" Hafiz said, knowing so well unless it was duty call, Na im wouldn t have called him when it was still dawn. "You have to come early in the morning to pick me up, Lieutenant. And also, bring a doctor along with you. Someone who s into psychology, this girl needs her brain to be checked." His voice came out with a tone of finality that gave no room for questions or any argument and he ended his call after he heard Hafiz saying, 'Yes, Sir! He tried to go back to sleep and was glad he had gotten a few hours of sleep before his phone rang and he woke up with a soft hiss. "What is it, Lieutenant? Are you outside already?" He was getting down from the bed when he asked and the discomfort he heard in Hafiz s voice was enough to tell him that something had went wrong. "I'm at the hospital, Captain. But the only doctor available that can come home with me is Dr Nafisa Babagana, and she s among your ex-fiancées." He heard the word as though it were foreign to him. Funny how it had never occurred to him that he would one day bump into his series of ex-fiancées and might even need something from them. He brushed his fingers through his hair and sighed, "Which date?" He asked, because just saying her name wasn t enough for him to know who she was. He had forgotten them all and wouldn t remember them even after they met, not to talk of remembering just after he heard the name. "28th December." Hafiz said, aware of how she was still clinging onto him. He knew this wasn t a good idea, but he might as well wait to see what was wrong or what judgement Na im would make about this before he advised him, even though it proved that he wasn t in a good mood today.