Page 47 of Burdens
“I said wake up.” My father’s tone was much harsher as the sound of the object he was holding—most likely his wooden staff—collided with something more dense, a thud echoing to the side of my cell.
He whipped his rod again and I heard Gabriel sputter out a strained curse before asking why.
There was another loud thud against flesh before Omar spoke again, “Alaoui might do things differently, but here prisoners don’t ask questions. They follow commands.”
“Get him,” someone else said in Arabic and I immediately recognized Amalia’s voice.
I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that she worked for my father, but Gabriel was just a kid. I didn’t care what he’d done or how he’d landed there. He shouldn’t be suffering at the hands of a cartel, especially not my father’s.
Iknewher. She wouldn’t hurt a kid, but I hadn’t seen her in ten years and who knows how long she’d been working for Omar. So I might be mistaken. She might have changed from the person I’d known and fallen in love with.
But I refused to let myself believe that. I wasn’t a hopeful type of person, but for her, I’d be the most optimistic person on the planet if it meant there was an infinitesimal hope that my Amalia was still in there.
Commotion broke on the other side, a cacophony of grunts and heavy breathing, until another thud, this time much louder than the previous ones, resounded next door.
I finally opened my eyes, deciding I had to do something even if I was behind locked doors.
Doors slammed shut and footsteps came down my way. I stood and walked over to the metal barrier just in time to see two men turning a corner and walking down a somber hallway.
I recognized one of them—Sabiri—while the other I’d never seen. He seemed to be around the same age as Sabiri, but where Sabiri had fairer features, this one had dark hair and brown eyes so dark they were almost black.
They dragged whom I assumed was Gabriel’s limp body by his armpits across the concrete floor, Amalia right on their heels. She briefly glanced in my direction, her gaze hard before looking away.
Another kid, this one much taller and bulkier than the other two, walked out. He stepped to the side to let the last person get through, his wooden staff dragging at his side.
My father.
My heart clenched with a mixture of emotions that I’d thought I’d long buried. Decades had passed since I’d last laid eyes on him, on the man who’d inflicted much pain in me, but the wounds still felt fresh, time merely dulling their sharp edges.
His presence was like a looming shadow, casting darkness in every room he walked into. It felt suffocating, the weight of the murkiness he left in his wake pressing down my chest, sucking the air out of my lungs and making it hard to breathe.
He didn’t have a single wrinkle on his suit and his expensive loafers barely had a dirt mark on them. The harsh lines on his face had grown older. Creases lined his forehead from the permanent scowl on his face and fine wrinkles decorated the side of his eyes.
He had his medium-length graying hair slicked back. The beard he always kept maintained was now dusted salt-and-pepper and longer than I’d ever seen it.
You would think that the passage of time would have softened him, that he would at least look at me and perhaps his gaze would be tinged with a hint of regret or remorse for what he’d put me through.
But I shouldn’t have expected more than what he’d granted me with.
He simply walked past me, barely awarding me a glance. But despite the brief exchange, it didn’t stop the coldness in his eyes from rooting me in place.
Even after thirty years and all the work I’d done to try to rid myself of the hold he had on me, I still felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him, afraid to set off another explosion of anger.
But a voice in my mind screamed at me that I was no longer the boy he’d terrorized.
The shock of seeing him finally washed off and I realized they almost had Gabriel out the door.
“Hey,” I called out, approaching the iron bars and gripping the cold metal with one hand.
They all stopped in their tracks, but only Amalia and my father turned around. She pinned me with a glare, but I diverted my attention to my father.
I met his gaze dead-on, not letting the emotions churning in my gut to be showcased on my features. “Take me instead. Whatever you’re about to do to him, you can do to me,” I said coldly.
He disregarded my request and moved to turn around, but I rammed my hand against the bars, a metallic clang reverberating through the confines of my cell.
“I’m talking to you,” I said through gritted teeth.
He whipped around and slammed his wooden staff against the metal grid right where my fingers were, but I removed them a second before his rod made contact.
