Captive

Four more weeks have passed since the two-bed incident. I have grown to love our almost-nightly activities. The “shy act” that Crosby had criticized no longer made an appearance. By then, we were quite familiar with each other, on so many levels – delicious levels.

We kept things on the safe side, which I was happy with. Although temptation has been an issue a few times, Crosby managed to control himself. We talked, cuddled, kissed, and touched. For those brief moments, we found an escape in each other.

I could say with confidence that in the two months we’ve been mandatory roommates, I’ve had a profound insight into who Sidney Crosby truly was. I knew things that would take his friends years to learn. Perhaps it was the reality of our situation that made him opens up to me. At the end of the day, we had nobody but each other.

Outside the “bedroom” and our little bubble, nothing has changed. These four weeks passed with no sign of Hassan, and with it, no sign of us leaving this prison. True to his words though, we were escorted outside for an hour every day. By outside I mean the great outdoors, no walls or ceilings. Thing One and Thing Two, whose names were still a mystery, would be a step ahead and another one behind us at all times.

Standing on our hill were two small buildings, one of which was our prison. They seemed like small guesthouses in the vicinity of the mailman’s home where Zahra and her grandmother also lived. Other than a few orchards, nothing but deserted mountains were in sight. I would have considered this place the perfect getaway if it weren’t our prison.

During our time under the sun, Crosby and I would mostly walk in silence, given the dreadful company we had. If we spoke, it would be about some trivial things, or Crosby warning me about that huge rock on our usual trail that I almost trip on every single time.

We would spend time in the mailman’s house where I would help Zahra’s grandma around the house. Crosby would help sometimes by moving some furniture when we had to sweep the floor. He would help the mailman in the apple orchard sometimes. He never talked about what he had him do. He seemed glum every time he came back from there.

But mostly, he was bored from all the staring contests he had with Zahra. The teenager seemed so unimpressed with him, or at least she acted that way. At the end of the day, she was the one with the upper hand.

But lately, I noticed they were making some progress.

One afternoon, I walked into the dining room with a salad bowl to see the bored athlete trying to explain what hockey was to the girl who barely spoke any English. He was gesturing with his imaginary stick, and his knees were bent the way they would be in the face-off circle.

I felt tears sting my eyes at the sight. He missed doing what he loves, he missed hockey. He has told me that this was the longest he hasn’t put skates on. Will this place be the end of Sidney Crosby’s career? Will the Ali brothers deprive the world of one of the best to ever play the game?

An unusual occurrence brought me out of my trance. For the first time ever, I saw Zahra smile. She even covered her mouth and laughed at the great athlete. He just looked at me and shook his head disappointed, surely at her lack of hockey knowledge. I laughed with the teenager and went back to the kitchen to retrieve a broom.

Zahra’s hand went to her gun in a split of a second. I lifted my hands fast to reassure her.

“No, no, look. I’m showing you what Sidney was trying to explain,” I placed a plastic ashtray in front of the broom and gave it a small whack. Zahra seemed to be catching on. Crosby looked at her incredulously, “how did you not get that earlier?”

He moved two chairs around carefully not to spook Zahra, then took the broom from my hand, placed the ashtray in position, then sent it flying between the chairs. Zahra’s eyes lit up. She walked to the bookshelf and retrieved an item from one of the large books.

In her hand was an old hockey card. I could not believe my eyes. How did she get it? Hockey was not a popular sport in Iraq.

Crosby’s face blanched. He shakily took the card from her hand and inspected it. His breathing has changed and he looked quite distraught. When I peered over his shoulder, I saw that it was not his card like I expected, but the card of someone who was dear to him. It was a 1991 Mario Lemieux hockey card.

He placed the card back in Zahra’s hand. “If this is a real, it’s worth... you know what? It’s wasted on you anyway,” he said with a hoarse voice. “Excuse me,” he said and headed to the living room. Zahra was confused but followed right behind him in case he had some stupid plan of leaving the house.

“Zahra, please, let him be,” I said. “This man,” I pointed to the picture. “He’s like Sidney’s dad. Baba?” I said using the word she calls the mailman by. She gave me a baffled look then shook her head. She either did not understand or did not believe me.

She opened the door to the living room and we both peered to see Crosby sitting on the couch, head in his hands, shoulders shaking. Zahra knit her brows and looked at me. “Let me talk to him, okay?” She nodded.

I sat at his side and rubbed his shoulder. He uncovered his red face and sniffled, “what are we still doing here, Mia? We need to leave this place, I can’t take it anymore, I just can’t.” He covered his face again and shook his head.

“I know and we will, we just have to be –”

“Don’t say patient! Just don’t!”

From the corner of my eye, I could see Zahra still at the door, a frown on her face. She disappeared into the kitchen then came back with a glass of water.

She took pity on him. When she stretched the glass towards me, I briefly closed my eyes. My hand swiftly snatched the object from her hand, shattered it on the table and held the broken shard against her neck.

Of course that was what I wanted to do, but in reality, I just took the water from her hand; I even thanked her. I was not that stupid. A gun will always trump a piece of glass.

We gave Crosby some space and sat on the opposing couch.

“He miss dad?” she asked.

“No. Well, I mean, yeah, of course, he misses his family,” I said as thoughts of my own family filled my mind.

“He take it,” she said holding the hockey card.

“Where did you get it?”

“Hassan,” she muttered and stood up fast, threw the card at Crosby’s side and left the room. The sudden shift in her mood was quite odd.

*****

Two more weeks passed by and Hassan was still off the radar. I rubbed my eyes and tried my best to focus on the lesson at hand.

“If it’s in the past, you say ‘ate’,” I spoke slowly.

Zahra nodded and Crosby rolled his eyes.

“I ate dinner grandma prepared,” she spoke slowly.

“I ate the dinner that grandma has prepared,” I corrected.

She nodded and repeated my words. I looked over her notes and took the pen from her hand.

“There’s an ‘e’ at the end of ‘ate’,” I corrected.

She nodded, “thank you,” she said with a small smile, snatching the pen back. At least I tried.

“How old are you, Zahra?”

“Seventeen,” she said as she wrote it in her notebook.

“Wow, you look much younger. Isn’t there a school nearby?” I asked curiously.

She shook her head and frowned. It was so unfair. She was a quick learner and so young not to be in school. Oh the things we took for granted in our developed societies.

“What would you like to learn?”

“English,” she said and giggled. Was she making a joke?

Crosby paced around the room clearly bored.

“You know, he can be the gym teacher in school. You know, like a sports teacher?” I said and she laughed out loud.

“He does not want,” she noted when Crosby gave us both a deadly stare.

“Turns out she’s smart after all, she knew – ” Crosby spoke mockingly but stopped mid-sentence when something outside the window caught his attention.

“What is it?” I asked standing up, Zahra doing the same.

Crosby remained quite as he nodded his head towards what seemed to be an argument the mailman was having with Thing One.

Zahra looked concerned and for a good reason. Thing One was yelling in Arabic and pointing his gun at him.

Thing Two noticed the three of us watching. He said something to Zahra. His tone was harsh and the girl pulled both of us away from the scene.

“Prison now,” she said as she pulled out her gun.

“Zahra, what’s going on?” I asked calmly.

“Now!” she yelled and I jumped.

Facing the angry teen, I lifted my hands up, “okay.”

“Walk!” she shouted as she escorted us back to prison.

“What was that about?” Crosby asked once we were alone.

“I don’t know. It was odd. Arguing is one thing, but he had him at gunpoint. They’re on the same team, aren’t they? It doesn’t make any sense. Zahra looked scared for her dad. Do you think this has happened before?”

Crosby was rubbing his chin and thinking as hard as I was. “Zahra would know. I think she likes us enough, well maybe just you. Do you think you could get some information out of her?”

“I will try. That’s given we get to go back there tomorrow. I have a bad feeling about this. Do you remember the hockey card incident?”

Crosby looked briefly at the small shelf above the sink where Mario’s card was sitting.

“She never talks about Hassan. None of them does, at least not in front of us, which I never found bizarre since he’s the boss. But when I asked her about who gave her the card, she mumbled his name then went from the girl who felt bad for you to the cold, threatening accomplice who was as guilty in our imprisonment as the rest of them.”

“Something doesn’t add up,” Crosby said. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

I was.

“I think there is one way to find out.”

As we laid in bed that night, our minds were still occupied with the recent events and with what tomorrow may bring.

“You know, I was never taught how to handle this type of situation,” Crosby said. My head was resting on his chest while he mindlessly stroked my arm with his soothing fingers.

“No one is taught this, Sidney. I mean even in the military. Sure, we are trained for certain scenarios, but it’s impossible to be prepared for everything.”

“I was stalked before; many times actually. At some point, I even worried that someone may break into my house. But I never thought I’d be imprisoned and held at gunpoint like that. Part of me is still angry that I let these men take me in the first place, that I wasn’t able to fight back.”

I placed my chin on his chest and looked up at his furrowed brows. “Nonsense, they sedated us. I don’t remember anything before waking up in prison. There was nothing you could have done with guns pointed at you.”

I sighed and pecked his lips. “We’re not going to relive the past weeks, okay? Our focus should only be on the next day and the next day only, remember?”

“Yeah,” he whispered as he propped himself up and captured my lips. My hands cradled his face as our kiss got deeper. “But my only focus is right here, on you,” he said breathlessly.

I straddled him and bit my lower lip. His hands mapped my curves slowly. He meticulously traced the outline of my hips, waist, breasts, and bottom. He was methodical yet unpredictable at times; it was one of the things I liked most about him.

He took my hands and intertwined our fingers. His sigh told me he had something on his mind. I was right.

In the early days of our imprisonment, we used to talk about what we’ll do once we’re free. As time passed and hope waned, we never spoke about being outside these walls again because Crosby thought it was bad luck.

So, no conversations about going back to our normal lives were had, whatever ‘normal’ meant. We certainly defined ‘normal’ differently. But as I watched his eyes flicker, his lips started to move and out came what I never thought I would hear him say.

Notes

Two chapters in two days! Can't you tell I have some free time on my hand? Sadly, it's due to "illness."

Fighting a cold, nothing serious :)

Happy week!

Charlie