Chapter 16: "Isolated and Hijacked"

How's your ramadhan coming up, everyone🌼? Anyways, have fun reading the chapter. It's going to be a bumpy ride😉! Comments, pwease! 🥺

Idea occurred at April 13th 2019

Written on Feburary, 10, 2021

Ignoring her sinking heart and sweaty palms, Salma looked around when the range rover stopped. The windows were covered in blinds but she knew it was too soon for them to have reached the airport. No one else seemed bothered. Ghamey's mother continued to scroll through her phone while her son looked bored.

Salma startled when the rover's door was yanked open. The bright light from the deserted street outside blinded her. When her vision adjusted, she saw the spy, Toryal, standing in front of her, his hand at the ready on a revolver, semi-concealed in his jacket.

"Get out!" he barked, all traces of his earlier respectful tone lost.

Salma swallowed, glancing back at her would-be mother-in-law and –

Her stomach churned with disgust, unable to finish the thought.

They kept ignoring her. A ripple of nerves crawled and itched over Salma's skin. The threatening voice in her head snarled, welcoming her to a life of imprisonment and humiliation.

Ya Allah, watch over me! Salma prayed silently, climbing out of the range rover with jittery steps. Her knees felt weak and hands ice cold as she took in the unfamiliar road.

"Move," Toryal jerked his head towards the black car parked just ahead. Salma's heart pounded madly. Where were they taking her?

The question had barely formulated in her head when the range rover's engine roared to life. She spun around on her heels. A tremble shook her spine watching the Rover speed away. They had just left? Leaving her stranded in the middle of nowhere, with a ruthless murderer and a car full of men?

She felt a shove on her back, forcing her towards the car. Salma stumbled. Her head was spinning.

"Th-there are ju-st m-men?!" Salma struggled with her words.

Toryal turned to her with an incredulous brow raised, and his nostrils flaring in anger. He was clearly not used to being questioned. Not at all by vermin, anyway.

"And?" he snapped. "Get in the car!"

"I – I can't sit –"

Salma gasped when a vice like grip pinched her arm, shaking her.

"You listen to me and you listen well!" Toryal hissed, getting in her face. Salma pulled away from him. His sharp features and cold-grey eyes were shredding her soul away from her body. "I am not in the habit of repeating myself!" he continued. "You either do as I say, or I make you do as I say. We clear?"

Salma tried to get her head back in order. She was overwhelmed. She couldn't let this happen.

"POEY SHWEY KU NA?!" he thundered, shaking her roughly.

Salma inhaled a deep shaky breath. She nodded, more to evade his anger than actually than anything.

"Der kha!"

Before she could so much as think of resisting him or standing her ground, a rough push send her knocking towards the backseat of the car, where she landed unceremoniously. The faint tremble that overtook her body when she left the house, was no longer faint. It was a full-blown shuddering session. As if on autopilot, Salma straightened herself with shaking hands and pulled her unstable feet into the car. The panic attack had taken over. Her head was swimming and vision blurred by tears. Her brain could not work anything out but to comply with orders so as to protect the body from the immediate threat.

Salma shuddered when a man twice her size took a seat to her right. He was armed. She wished she knew what to do, to have prepared for this somehow, gotten a chance to take it in. Just panicking and complying would do her no good.

She cringed away when the man did not bother keeping any physical boundaries. Rather, he almost let some of his weight rest on her. He definitely knew she was scared and Salma would not be surprised if he would prey on her discomfort. Taking in deep breaths to hold onto whatever calm she could muster, Salma pushed away from him, trying to tug at her abaya that he was sitting on. Her movements halted however, when the door to her left opened and in moved another armed guard.

Her heart stopped and seared with pain. The man, like his partner sat despicably close. He shifted and parted his legs, forcing her to squeeze into the bag of filth on her right. In her periphery, she saw his eyes snapping towards her. Before Salma could catch up, he smirked and placed a hand on her thigh.

"Rajukhta sha --"

A yell of a hounded dog filled the small space of the car as Salma dug her nails into his hand and teared at his skin in the opposite directions.

"What the hell happened?!" Toryal thundering voice blasted the roof off of the car. "Sa osho?!"

"Tell them to not touch me!" Salma screamed, tears running down her face and mind blazing mad to realize what she was doing.

It even took Toryal a couple of seconds to realize she had had the audacity to yell at him. Thanks to her sessions with Sarah, Salma was lucky to avoid a direct hit to the face from the blow that he plummeted at her once he caught up. Yet, her shoulder seared with pain.

"You raise your voice on me like that again, and I will fill your stomach with all the bullets in this thing!" Salma flinched when he threatened to knock her with his revolver.

However, her impulsive retaliation bought her the net of security she desperately needed. It was flimsy, but it held as Toryal shifted his red-eyed, murderous glared on the two guards.

"Keep your hands to yourselves!" He barked at them. "She has value for Agha Gul. It isn't the time for you to act like beasts about to devour her!"

He turned back around and the car started. Toryal rummaged in a bag. He held a couple of chains behind him.

"Cuff her," he ordered casually.

Salma's lips parted. What in the world . . ?

"Can't believe you farts cannot contain a mere girl!" he continued scolding the pair flanking her as the one of the left grabbed the pair of cuffs.

Petrified by fear and shock alike, Salma could do nothing but blink at her hands as the man locked them together silently. She just kept cringing away from the men's legs. They may keep their hands to themselves till Toryal's permission but Salma could still feel them trying to push into her. She gritted her teeth, willing her tears to stop.

Chained, abused and harassed; what else was instored for her for the day, she could not dare to think. And they had not even reached the airport yet.

Once, on the highway, Salma realized they were now a part of a motorcade. Her heart sank. The Tor Guls really were not leaving any stone unturned to make sure Salma reached Sthooirya.

She wished she had managed to get a chance to talk to her father at least. He would have given her some sound advice but alas, Agha Gul had made sure of that to not happen. Once it was announced and decided that she was to be taken to Tor Mahal as their bride, Agha Gul had already started laying claims over her. He did not declare her his business that her family should butt out of or anything, but he kept her engaged, keeping her away from her parents by gluing Gul Nar's pestering behind to her all day.

"Alright, now go to sleep," she had said once the sweets were shoved down everybody's mouths that night. "Go. Go to your room!"

Salma had hated her controlling, ordering tone but resisted the urge to snap back or argue until she could talk to her father. Then the next morning, she woke her up.

"I am going shopping. You are coming with me. Get ready!"

Salma had spent the entire day in SUV while Gul Nar did whatever she had wanted to do. Salma had decided to call her father but was wary of the men in the car listening in.

The next night again, she was ordered to go to her room. Salma had defied for once. Ignoring her pestering, she had made her way to her mother and sat with her.

"I'm not sleepy," Salma returned.

Gul Nar had sat the night, refusing to give her any chance to talk to her mother about what was to come. In the end, Salma just gave up. That vulture was too intrusive to have a human bone in her body. She insisted on sleeping in Salma's room. And every time Salma touched her phone to reply to Sarah or whoever was texting her, Gul Nar had been wide awake to tell her to go back to sleep.

The next day, Agha Gul had ordered Salma's father to accompany Toryal and prepare the divorce papers. Her father had been staying put at home, trying to get her off the hook but Agha Gul and his cronies would not budge.

"I need a word with my daughter," the Green Coat had held his ground.

"The girl already complied," Agha Gul replied.

"Not about the marriage," Mr. Rahman returned. "Just because she has complied does not mean she stops being my daughter. I need a word with her." He repeated. "Alone!"

Agha Gul and Mr. Rahman held a stared down contest. Salma figured her father was really mad to challenge Agha Gul head on like that.

"She's accompanying Ghamey's mother to the hospital," Agha Gul had said calmly, turning back to his staff. "You can talk to her after both of you are done. We have a flight back today. Don't waste time."

And once her father had left, they were sure to delay him till it was time to depart. Salma recalled her insides quivering with fear as they told her at the hospital that they were directly headed to the airport. She was deceived into giving away her phone. Gul Nar pretended she had no service and wanted to call her parents. Once the car doors were locked in, she had simply slipped the phone in her bag and threatened Salma to behave or face the consequences. And so they drove to the airport with Salma still trying to wrap her head around what had just happened. No luggage, no goodbyes, no pep-talks. She was straight away hijacked the first chance they got.

Salma was snapped back to the present when Toryal's earpiece beeped.

Oh, to have a chance to get back at them . . . Salma took in a deep, shaky breath.

The spy listened to the information he was getting, before cussing and spitting in anger.

"There's an ambush ahead!" he told the driver. "Divert to route 2!"

An ambush? Salma became much more alert. Could it be . . ?

She tried to see out of the windows, however, her heart sank watching their car break away from the motorcade and turn to a different route. Toryal's perverted gaze pierced through her in the rear view mirror, watching the shift in her demeanor with a shameless amusement.

"That old bastard still thinks he can outwit me." He scoffed. Realizing whom he was cussing, Salma resisted the urge to sock him. She had to force herself to avert her glare, finding consolation in the thought that she would eventually get the opportunity to take a swing at him.

Receiving more information, Toryal suddenly sat up and checked the side-view mirrors.

"There's a bike following us. Take the eastern route to the streets!" he ordered the driver. Glancing at Salma again, he pressed his ear piece. "We have wheels in hot pursuit!"

Salma's heart stopped.

Who was following them? It could be anyone. From one of the Green Coats she knew to those that she didn't, or Asim or Agent Alex, or . . .

Salma tried to see past the windows. She recognized the route. It was the mostly deserted NorthStar Avenue that went through the old warehouses. She caught a glimpse of the biker tailing them when the car moved around a bend. Somehow, she already knew who it was. She had a gut feeling about it. Agent Wickfield had no idea she was being kidnapped. Asim would never be allowed to pull such a stunt, and the Green Coat would have kept it subtle. Only one person was both idiotic and stubborn enough to not give up.

"I'm going to lay them up for you. Neutralize on sight," Toryal ordered much to Salma's horror. "Over!"

A panicked whisper left her lips.

"Zayn!"

Author's Note:

Things just went even more Dun Dun Dunnnn, didn't they😱?! It be horrible if he dies. . .😶

Anyways, see ya'll on the 20th inshaa'Allah😁. Thanks to the Patrons, I have to keep up with the updates this Ramadhan. Usually, I take a break in Ramadan but this time, I figured halal earning is ibadah too (I hope I'm not wrong with this lol). May Allah accept our worship and good deeds from us🤲🏻.

Question: I've been meaning to ask, how different is this sequel for you compared to 'Book I'. Do you guys like it or am I losing my touch?👀

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Lots of Love

J.