Page 20 of Saving Noor

Sammy brought up the rear, rifle at the ready, his eyes sharp and constantly scanning their surroundings. The weight of responsibility pressed down on him, but he met it with determination.

Jax, Sammy, and Link entered the kitchen with Link carefully cradling Noor in his arms. The rest of the team quickly gathered their bags.

They moved cautiously out of the kitchen into the courtyard, the open air a stark contrast to the oppressive silence inside. The others followed closely behind, bags in hand.

A few yards back, Shadow and Tariq flanked Hassan and Fatima. The older couple moved as best they could, their faces pale but determined as they clutched the few belongings they had packed. Tariq stayed low and alert, senses sharp for any sign of danger.

Link knew the van was only about a mile away, but with Noor in critical condition and Hassan and Fatima being older, that mile felt like a long and dangerous journey ahead.

11 - NOOR

The darkness didn’t close in; Noor pulled it around her like a shield.

Pain radiated from her belly in sickening waves, the aftermath of Faisal’s boot, but she forced her breathing to remain shallow and rhythmic. Do not scream, she commanded herself. Screaming excites him. Screaming makes him careless with the girls.

She lay crumpled on the cold stone floor, feigning a deeper unconsciousness than she felt. Through the slit of her eyelids, the room was a blur of shadows and violence, but her ears were sharp, tuning out the ringing in her head to lock onto the terrifying sounds of her daughters.

“Move! Take the girls! Now!” Faisal’s voice was a jagged tear in the night.

Rough hands grabbed at the small, sleeping forms on the bed. Yasmin shrieked—a high, piercing sound that made Noor’s heart slam against her bruised ribs. Amina only whimpered, a soft, terrifying sound of total resignation.

Every instinct in Noor’s body screamed to leap up, to claw at the guards’ eyes, to tear their throats out with her teeth. Her hand twitched at her side, fingers brushing the hidden pocket of her dress. Inside was the jagged piece of the broken curtain rod. Her weapon. Her only advantage.

No, a cold, hard voice whispered in her mind. Not yet.

If she fought now, broken and outnumbered, they would kill her. If she died, the girls were alone forever.

She forced her muscles to go slack. She let them drag her daughters away. It was the hardest thing she had ever done, harder than the beating, harder than the years of captivity. She traded her pride for their survival, banking on the fact that Faisal would ignore a broken woman on the floor.

I am not broken, she promised the retreating footsteps. I am waiting.

The heavy door slammed, severing the connection to her children. The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.

Now, the darkness truly threatened to take her. The adrenaline faded, leaving only the agony of her injuries. Her body urged her to let go, to sink into the black void where there was no Faisal, no fear, no pain. It would be so easy to sleep. To drift away.

Sleep is death, she told herself. Wake up.

She tried to move her arm, but a sharp fire shot up her shoulder. Broken. Likely both of them.

Then I will use my teeth.

She focused on the sensory details to anchor herself. The cold stone against her cheek. The metallic taste of blood in her mouth. The faint, lingering scent of lavender soap on Yasmin’s pillowcase nearby.

Yasmin. Amina. The baby.

And then, a new sound drifted through the haze. Not a memory. Not a hallucination.

Real voices.

They were muffled, urgent, speaking a language that wasn’t Arabic.

“Clear.”

The word was English. Sharp. Professional.

Footsteps approached, not the heavy, careless stomp of Faisal’s guards, but soft, rhythmic rolls of boots designed for silence.

Noor’s grip on the hidden wood tightened until a splinter pierced her skin. New players. New wolves. She prepared to strike, to use the element of surprise, her one last trick.