Kismat aur Hum

2.

- Haniya -

Baba slowly sat down but before he quickly pushed me towards the staircase where I was standing before, now I can only see the back of the guy.

" I'd like if everyone to leave, I will only talk to Mr Khalid" he motioned his hand, all his men hand left, even Jamal chacho left at his command, i don't know if he knew I still here or not.

"Mr Khalid let's get down to business shall we, I can forgive this debt of yours and your brother if you give me something else" Baba thought for moment, "please, I'm a father and we only moved here a few weeks ago, I can give you the car and house and anything of such, and if don't want that I can arrange the money" "no no I don't want that, I want your most valuable thing, of course if you consider it valuable" "but I have no such, please name it and I can try" "no 'try' Mr Kahild, when I want something I have it, with or without force is up to you" "okay, name it" "I want your-"

Before I could hear the rest Asfa had pulled me into the little storage room under the staircase, "api what are you doing?" "Asfa what are you doing, I was trying to hear what he wanted" "api forget that, I heard mama say that he's dangerous and we should stay out of his sight" "yea yea I know, I just want to keep Baba safe, you know he always ends up making silly mistakes" "that is true" Asfa agreed, "just be careful api" I smiled and went back to where I was standing before.

The man had stood up now and was making his way to the front door, "I will be back tomorrow for it, pleasure doing business with you Mr Khalid" I watched as his tall lean figure disappeared through the door.

When I approached Baba, he looked even more paler and distressed, I wonder what he had said, I gave Baba a glass of water, he took it without any emotion and finished it in a gulp. Then silently stood up and retreated to his room.

Mama saw all this from the kitchen and ran to her bedroom behind Baba, while the rest of us were left wondering what happend, and what to do.

- them skip -
Me and Asfa spent most our time in the study either reading or trying to find out what had happened to baba. Mama hadn't left her room since she went in after baba. Taha had gone to check up on our parents after 2 hours of nothing. "Api, mama is asking you to help her with dinner" "Sure, did she say anything else" "no, she just looks down and worried, like she just cried" "I'll go check up on her"

I headed down to the kitchen, when I entered the kitchen, mama ran straight at me and pushed on a chair and sat beside me on the other chair. "Beta  do you trust me?" "Of course I do mama, what's wrong?" "Beta, will you do me one favor, it'll be a little hard, but please do it for me" "of course mama, what is it?" "Just listen to me carefully, tomorrow wake up early and get dressed and what for me, and please trust me" "Sure, but please tell me what's happening" "I wish I could know more Beta, but all I know now is- is not easy for me. Now hurry up, your baba hasn't eaten anything since the morning" I quietly nodded and started helping her.

That night was the hardest night ever, I kept thinking of what might be happening, what could happen and why it is happening to us. We could have happily lived in Ireland and I could have gone ahead and went to my fashion scholarship.

After much struggle I had manged to fall alseep for a few hours.

The next day, I woke up at half 8, I couldn't sleep all night, so waking up made it easy. I had gone for my favorite black cargo pants and an oversized shirt (outfit^), I went for my back hijab.

Once I was ready, I slowly made my to thr kitchen. Mama was already there, with breakfast. Mama quickly told me to ear breakfast while she told me her plan, "now Kristen carefully, here's some cash, and you have your phoen with our numbers. I need you to listen carefully and carry out with full effort. When the man comes today, I need you to carefully sneak out through back door of the kitchen. I would let you sneak out now but he could arrive any minute, and I don't want you to be caught" I stopped eating for a minute, "mama  why are you aming me run away?" "Beta, it's the only way to save you from that man" "wha- what?" "Please just try to understand, please don't be caught by him, okay?" I nodded and she made me finish breakfast. I waited in the back space of the kitchen.

It was around 9 when the doorbell rang, Taha had to open the door and lead him to the living room, he had arrived with some older looking men and the imam who lived a few blocks away. Why were they here? Before I could hear anything, baba had lied and said that I was in my room while, mama signaled me to leave now.

I nodded and quickly and quietly started leaving through the back way of the kitchen, thankfully the small area outside had a separate door that leads to back side of the house, I quickly wrapped the shawl around myself and made my way to the closest shop, mama had given me her cousins address, and told me best to go there.

After I had gotten to the shop, I had gotten myself some food and mineral water incase I didn't get in the next few hours, the house wasn't that far, but it wasn't the closest either.

I waited until I saw a rickshaw or cab or anything, fortunately a rickshaw stopped in front of me, "where to Ma'am" in the most heavy accent ever. I told him the address, and we started it.

He told me the drive was bit, since the road we needed to take is busy with heavy traffic.

By the time we were 30 minutes away from the place, the rickshaw had broken down. "Ma'am if you wait 5 minutes I can fix this" "Sure bhai". It didn't take 5 minutes, it took more than 20 minutes, I told the driver bhai that I could pay him and leave, but he said it'll be done in a bit. I decided to stand outside the rickshaw, because of the heat I couldn't bare to survive any longer.

Looking around the empty road, it felt wrong, there were no houses around or anything except an old graveyard. Just s the man sat in the rickshaw, and started it, 2 men who had their face covered had come my direction, before I could even sit in the rickshaw, he had drove away. I started walking backwards, looking at them they had started walking faster towards me, I turned on my heels and started sprinting, and of course they ran after me.

I ran roads after roads, but I couldn't find anyone, I was stating to get tried from running, I ran through one more alley way, this time I saw more of those masked guys but they were after the guy in the corner, when I stopped in front of them, all of them looked at me, I couldn't even run backwards because of the other guys following.

All of a sudden, I heard gun shots, and saw the man surrounded now shooting the guys in front of him, I ran to one wall so u could avoid getting shot, the other men who were following me also got shot in the process. One shot fter another, there was still shooting, I closed my eyes and ears to try and block out the sound.

After what felt like forever, I felt a light tap on my shoulder, I slowly looked up to find the man who had shot all the masked guys in front of me. "Are you okay" "y-es" I was shuttering so much I could barely speak. "I'm so sorry you had to see all that, I'm Umar"