Page 44 of Burdens
Any of the cartel’s hostages were kept in a different wing on the other side of the property. My father hated me but not enough to showcase it to the world because me being held in a cell formisbehaving, as my father liked to call it, would have been used as a leveraging point to show weakness within his ranks and my father would never let that happen.
He scoffed. “I mean, there isn’t much to tell. Do you want a biography or something?”
The voice came from my left, so I stepped closer, my ear resting against the wall to hear. There was a slight rustling on the other side of the wall.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” I replied, my hand skimming over the wall for any opening because I could hear him so clearly now, you’d think we were both in the same room.
He huffed out a laugh. “Well, when it’s asked so nicely,” he deadpanned. “My name is Gabriel Al Naji and I am twenty-three years old. Parents are dead and I have a sister that I haven’t seen in years because the cartel took me from her.” He let out a humorless laugh. “That enough for you?”
I sat up near the corner where the back wall met the left one. While he’d been talking, I’d found a small fissure toward the bottom of the wall. I’d rolled onto my stomach and tried narrowing my eyes, but it was too small to see through to wherever he was on the other side, only big enough to let the sound travel between our two cells.
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. I unfortunately knew a thing or two about loss and even though I’d been born into the cartel and suffered at its hands, I knew that was nothing compared to what the families put their prisoners through. I didn’t know which one had taken him before he landed here, but they were all equally horrific as the next.
“It is what it is.”
I nodded in agreement even though he couldn’t see me.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“This time, at least two weeks. But it could be more or less, who knows? Time isn’t the easiest to tell here.” Before he pushed me on what I meant bythis time, I asked him the same. “What about you?”
“I just got in today,” he said so casually as if we were on vacation and he’d just landed. “But I spent almost twelve years at the last place I was held in. This already seems like a resort compared to where I used to be,” he explained, giving more information than I’d asked for.
His answer confirmed what I’d presumed. I hadn’t heard any sounds or movement until today, so my guesses were that he’d either been completely unconscious until now and they’dleft him unattended or he’d been put in his cell while I’d been sleeping.
“Don’t get too comfortable. They like to pull you into a false sense of security before striking,” I warned him, knowing that if he had a decent experience so far, they were just gearing up to put him through the worst.
Whoever this kid was, I hoped he’d make it out of here alive.
I opened my mouth to ask him why he was here, what his cell looked like to see if it was similar to mine, or if it was constructed differently so that we might be able to find a way to escape, but he interrupted me.
“Do you have family out there?” he asked, changing the subject.
I wanted to shift the conversation back but decided against it. If I pushed and asked him too many questions, he might retreat and grow suspicious. Instead, I answered him.
“No, I don’t.” I paused and drew slightly away from the wall, bending my knees to rest my forearms against them, my hands hanging in between. I didn’t say anything for a moment, but after a short pause, I spoke again, “At least none of that matters.”
My throat thickened with a wave of emotions I’d buried and the back of my eyes burned when I thought of that time. Of the day on which I’d gottenthecall that was still vividly ingrained in my brain.
The day when I’d lost the most important person in my life.
The person who’d spent her entire life making it up to me for my father’s mistakes and the person who taught me that being loved wasn’t conditional to what you could do for them.
That you could be loved unconditionally for just existing.
1 Damn it.
2 You're not dreaming, bro.
CHAPTER 12
NOAH (PRESENT)
When you lost someone,you were supposed to feel sad. To feel like a part of you had been ripped apart and that you’d never be able to get it back.
But all I had felt was a numbness I couldn’t even begin to describe before it was decimated by anger left in its wake. Hot and burning anger that I’d lost the only person I had in my life who cared whether I lived or died. That cared whether I was happy or sad.
That did the best she could to heal the wounds I’d been inflicted with during my childhood by getting us out and giving the best life she could with the little she had.
