Operation: Dard and Devotion

22 | Jinn & Journey

That was the most Ahsan had ever revealed to me regarding his family and he did not seem to want to indulge me with more snippets of his past life. Some days later, - and as far as I was aware, it could have been weeks - Ahsan strolled, or rather limped, into the dungeon room with a grim look on his face. The deep welts on my back had now transformed into scars and nearly painless bumps, and I was immensely thankful for all of his help to ensure that my intervertebral discs would not succumb to further devastation.

"Something wrong?" I asked while playing with Saad on the ground. I had been trying to help him walk, or at least stand up with little to no assistance, but he kept tumbling onto my lap. It was the fifth try in a row now and Saad was entirely too exhausted with his previous unsuccessful attempts that he now preferred playing peek-a-boo in lieu of learning how to walk.

Ahsan ignored me as he sat a few feet away from Saad and I. "I have some news."

Saad thought he was being rather clever, hiding his face behind his chubby hands, and believed that I could not see him. He giggled when I said, "Where is Saad? I can't find him!"

Meanwhile, Ahsan was trying to get my attention. "Hayat."

So you can ignore me, but I can't do the same?

"Yoohoo! Saad, where are youuu?" I cooed in the baby's ear and he chuckled even more, still concealing his face.

"I'm talking to you," came the grumpy voice.

"Gosh!" I clicked my tongue. "Where on earth can my little baby be, huh?" Saad squirmed as I gently poked his side and then my pokes morphed into a tickling session, causing the volume of the giggling to be turned up an octave.

"Hayat!" Ahsan roared. Saad whipped his head around to find the source of the racket, and witnessed a frightful black blob, with a mouth and eyes, staring him down. Then, Saad shrieked and cried at the top of his lungs.

"Look what you did!" I scolded Ahsan, clutching Saad tightly.

"If you answered the first time, I wouldn't have screamed!"

"Well, then spit it out before you do any more damage," I muttered, repeatedly kissing Saad on his head to soothe him. His cries had subsided.

Ahsan did not seem to enjoy being belittled. His jaw tightened as he spoke. "America has decided not to pay twenty-one million dollars for your ransom."

There was a pause. I had nearly forgotten I was put up for a hefty ransom, courtesy of Zaakhir. "Oh."

"Instead, they plan to send troops here."

"What!" Did the President really consider sending troops to Syria for just one person? Dollar signs floated in my head as I tried, and failed, to imagine the cost of deporting troops to a place as far as the Middle East, not to mention the underlying cost of tanks and weaponry. "For me?!"

Ahsan shrugged as a response. "There are other foreign captives."

"But," I said, frowning. "Isn't sending troops over here very risky?"

"Think about who you're talking to."

He was right. An Al-Tho'baan militant should not have to care what risks and dangers foreign troops would have to face. If the extremist group had their way, foreign troops would not exist at all.

"Do you know when they'll arrive?"

"Nope," he said. "Might take a few months, I'd say."

"Few months!" I yelped. "Then what about me? What about the others who don't belong here?"