Chapter 47: "Locked up!"

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First draft: July, 2018

"Sprinter!" Sarah snapped, watching him disappear into the crowd at breakneck speed. "He's a sprinter! How do I catch up with him now?!"

Niall, who had barely managed to stand up, shrugged helplessly.

Sarah looked around for some sorts of an answer. Her eyes zeroed on something behind Niall. Niall glanced over his shoulder. Someone was racing down the pavement on a skateboard.

"Call the police," Sarah instructed as she started walking towards the pavement, keeping her eyes on the prey. "Tell them there's a potential murder happening at the alley behind physics department."

"What?" Niall asked, perplexed.

He didn't find out as he witnessed the mad girl's madness. She struck her hand out and knocked the student off of his skate board.

"Whoa!" The unsuspecting victim flew off his feet and landed flat on his behind on the grass.

"I need to borrow that," Sarah told the bewildered kid calmly, jerking her thumb at the speeding skate board running down the pavement.

"What – no!"

"Thank you!" the nutter replied as she broke into a run and mounted the board. "I'll return it!"

"Hey! Hey! Get back here! Give me my board! Stop!"

Niall shook his head to clear it.

"I need to call the cops," he muttered under-breath, turning away from the shouting kid chasing after Sarah. "I need to call the cops before pigs start flying or something!"

***

Salma heart was pounding like a drum. Her eyes were going haywire, and yet they were focused on the dark bore of the gun pointed at her.

"They lack the brains to have made it so complex," Ghamey spat. His eyes red and raw. He had clearly been drinking. "I don't even know why Agha Gul would let a pest like you live so long!"

Salma took a step back when he advanced towards her, only there was nowhere to go. She could run to the mouth of the alleyway, but the bullet would still find her. She could try calling for help or initiate emergency protocol but the gun would still out-race her on the clock and beat her in fulfilling its purpose. Besides, considering the fact that her Shadows had not showed up already, it was quite clear they had no idea she was seconds from dying.

"I've had enough, and I'll end this nuisance right here, right now!" Ghamey bared his teeth, cocking the gun. "Strike at the root cause of all the evil!"

Despite the silencer muffling the sound, Salma still felt her eardrums rip as the shot was fire. A series of strangled gasps emanated from her lips as she backtracked uncontrollably. Her fingers were shaking like a leaf, her unstable frame unable to hold. Salma held onto the wall for support, watching the gun being forced up into the air with wide eyes.

"Stop it!" a chill command raked her spine with shivers.

Shuddering and shocked senseless, Salma felt a cold sweep over her as the icy grey eyes turned on her. Her did a quick once over to make sure she was not shot before turning his attention back on the struggling, squeaking pig that had tried to shoot her.

"PREYGMEDA! TORYAL LALA, PREGMEDA WARTA!" Ghamey yelled to be let go as the spy, clad in all black, knocked the gun off of his hand with a swift knock to his writs. "

"Ghamey saib, mazgho na kar wakhla!" the spy scolded in his cold, collected voice, asking him to use his head.

"DA ZA OOLAM, DA DA SPEE --"

The sound of distant sirens approaching  cut short his string of curses and threats to shoot her. The two froze, halting their struggle long enough to register what was happening. The crazed, mad look in Ghamey's raw eyes was quickly replaced by helplessness and fear as he turned to Toryal to get him out.

"Yekh shway?!" Toryal grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. "Police di rabanda sor ko!"

Salma started getting sense knocked back into her brains and body. The tables were turning. She had to make use of the opportunity that was presenting itself. She eyed the gun lying on the ground.

The spy was not paying attention. He was busy studying the alley around him, trying to find a quick way out. The fire escape caught his attention. Bracing himself, he broke into a run before leaping towards the fire escape. When sure, he was hanging in a restrictive position, unable to make any quick moves, Salma dove towards the gun. Her palms slammed against the grounds, mere inches from the gun. All breath was knocked out of her as her chest hit the concrete. Coughing and wheezing, Salma turned around to make sense of what had happened.

"You think you're too clever to sneak towards my gun, don't you?"

Winded, it took her a second or two to get her bearings back. The scum, Ghamey had made a grab for legs. Salma started kicking in an attempt to break free. Her head was spinning, but she saw the despicable creature rise over her, about to punch her.

A white flash came zooming through the air, knocking Ghamey off the side of the head. The bone-cracking sound jolted Salma alert. Her hazy vision cleared but she got even more confused to see a skateboard sliding down his side to her right.

Firm and gentle hands pulled her away from Ghamey, who was now howling like a wounded dog. Salma realized she was in Zayn's protective arms when Sarah walked into the alley. Her eyes fixed someplace above, behind Salma.

"Any of you move again and I'll empty this gun in your heads!" Toryal's threat made her turn around.

He was up on the fire escape, a gun pointed straight at Sarah. Salma felt Zayn stiffen. Last time Toryal pointed a gun at them, he shot Zayn. On impulse, Salma moved to shield Zayn behind her.

"I believe you can hear the sirens?" Zayn pointed out.

"It sounds like T-1 minute to me," Sarah added.

"You think that scares me?" Toryal scoffed. "You let my guy go, I let you walk alive."

No one moved or said a word.

Toryal laid low on the fire escape and lowered his arm. He beckoned Ghamey, hurrying him on.

"Ghamey saib!"

The sirens grew louder. If Sarah was correct and they were a minute away, they were already in the lot and had just half a minute on foot to run around the department building and reach the alley.

Salma's heart raced as she watched Ghamey jump and grab Toryal's hand. Toryal tried to heave him but the pile of rat droppings was heavy. They could hear hurried footsteps, and announcements of the presence of armed police were being made. Toryal had no choice but to put the gun down on the floor of the fire escape and use both hands. The moment he made that switch, Zayn beat Salma to it as he leapt to drag the scumbag of a human being down.

His panicked cry of pain mixed with Toryal's angry growl, just as the police rounded the corner. All guns pointed at the lot of them.

"Hands in the air!"

"Move! Hands up! Now!"

Salma looked around to see Sarah and Zayn having raised their hands like her, but the fire escape was empty. Toryal had made a run for it, leaving a crumpled Ghamey groaning in the alley. She exchanged glances with Zayn and Sarah.

"I said hands up!"

The command made Salma jump. It was only when Sarah kicked Ghamey's balled-up behind, did she realize the cops were yelling commands at him. He whimpered in pain, twisting and turning for having landed hard on his backside.

"We were attacked, officer. That's his gun." Zayn jerked his head at Ghamey and pointed at the gun lying not too far off from him. "He tried to kill Miss Rahman. We fought in self -defense to disarm him."

"Lies . . ." Ghamey groaned as the cops advanced towards them.

"It's not!" Salma argued. "He shot a bullet at me."

"Are you Miss Rahman?" an officer asked as Ghamey protested in the background while the officers forced him on his back to cuff his hands. Salma, Sarah and Zayn lowered their hands, relaxing their posture.

"I am."

"Do you know Mr. Niall Flintoff?"

"He's a mutual." Salma confirmed. The cop behind them was now reading Ghamey his Miranda rights.

The officer nodded.

"Miss. Rahman, if you and your friends would please accompany us to the police station, Mr. Niall Flintoff called 911 to report a potential murderous attempt on your life."

"Of course, sir."

A few seconds later, Niall appeared around the corner, looking battered and flushed.

"Oh my God!" he wheezed, grabbing the painful stitch in his chest. "Are you guys okay?"

The officer talking to Salma turned to him with a questioning brow raised.

"Niall, sir, Niall Flintoff. I called 911 to report an attack."

Shaking his hand, the officer left, following after his colleagues who were escorting Ghamey in cuffs.

Another disheveled kid pounced on them just as they came out of the alley. He pointed an accusing finger at Sarah but he seemed too overwhelmed by anger and exhaustion from his run, to form any words

"Oh yes!" Sarah cried, running back into the alley. Salma and Zayn frowned in confusion. She returned with a white skate board. "Here. Thank you. You just helped me save a life. I'll pay any damage done to your property. I used it to crack a skull. Didn't work."

Sarah slammed the board to his chest. The kid blinked, his wide eyes going to and fro between the veiled nuthead and his beloved skateboard. Nodding at him, Sarah walked away. Niall patted the student's back sympathetically.

"Me and you both, bro," he muttered as they started walking around the building

"Did Sarah steal his skateboard?" Salma frowned.

"She used the word 'burrowed'." Niall shrugged.

"Is it damaged?" Zayn inspected the skateboard in the student's hands.

"No, I think it's alright," the kid said quietly, before noticing the cops' presence in the lot. His eyes trailed after Ghamey getting pushed into the cop's car. "What happened in here?"

Zayn gave him a tight lipped smile, clapping his shoulder. Clearly, the sniper attack had all the students spooked. Any sight of cops and people getting arrested raised alarm bells.

"Some coward ran lose," Zayn said. "The cops got him. If your skateboard is good, we have to go?"

"It's good, thanks."

Muttering apologies and thanks, the three of them left to join Sarah on the ride to the police station. Salma saw Burak kaka standing by a tree next to the parking lot, his unblinking, annoyed gaze firmly fixed on the cop car with Ghamey in it and that's when it hit Salma.

Did they really get Ghamey arrested?

***

First draft: July 30, 2021

In the aftermath of the foiled murder attempt by Ghamey, Salma was once again very quickly moved out of scene. The moment she was done giving her statement at the police station to press attempted murder charges, Burak Kaka and Spogmae took her away on her father's orders. Her mother had come to police station, and Salma had wanted to stay back, not only to make sure Aliya did not get too paranoid about her safety and pass crazy, suffocating rules for her, but also, to take her mother aside and ask her to stop kissing Zayn on the head and not call him 'son'. She had been thanking Zayn over and over for protecting Salma, and Salma found that weird and low-key annoying to watch. Partly because Zayn was not the only one who had protected Salma. There were scores of other people who had done it, and partly because Salma felt jealous. Aliya Rahman was her mother only, even Asim had to fight Salma away to get his mother's attention. Aliya calling Zayn son was messing up Salma's problems priority list. Zayn was not Aliya's son. He was not there yet. Although with wrong timing, Salma had had this maddening urge to make that distinction clear but she was not allowed to stay.

The situation was about to take a very tumultuous turn with Ghamey's arrest. It was essential to move Salma and Asim to safe locations till some threats were confirmed to be settled.

Salma did not ask where they were taking her. Burak Kaka and Spogmae continued their childish bickering in the front. The former was more irritated than usual and Spogmae kept rubbing into Burak's face his failure at stopping Ghamey from sneaking Salma out of the protective bubble, right under his nose. Salma felt frustrated by their immature fights, but at least she was finding out stuff as they roasted each other so, she did not ask them to stop.

Turns out, Ghamey had proven his smarts more than was expected of him. He had set quite an elaborate trap for Salma by bribing local cronies of Toryal into working for him. He had managed to stalk Zayn and sneak one of his cronies into his studio to borrow one of Zayn's art journals. He then took pictures of his writing on his phone and was clever enough to return the notebook. From there, he had bribed a calligrapher into copying Zayn's hand writing to write notes to Salma. It was clever how he had avoided texting Salma, one, because a text from an unknown number would automatically raise red flags and two, Ghamey knew Salma's correspondence went through the GCA. The notes had done well to fool Salma. He had successfully made her think they were from Zayn.

To counter the Green Coat problem, he had sent one of his men to act suspiciously around Salma's car. Burak Kaka had taken the bait, fearing someone was trying to mess up her car or plant an explosive or some other destructive device. Once he was busy sorting that non-danger, a student had knocked into Salma and dropped the note with her in the passing.

"Yeah, it totally makes sense, you left her exposed to check up on a threat!" Spogmae scoffed.

"I did not leave her exposed, I told 7-1 to hold shadow and that I could not take over immediately!" Burak Kaka returned.

"7-1 is not responsible for maintaining a visual check outside her department!" Spogmae argued. "Not to mention his previous encounter with Ghamey and the sniper attack has made him vulnerable to exposure. He's not trained for combat!"

"I wasn't asking him to combat!"

"There was a chance that could have happened --"

"I was asking him to take over for like two minutes till I checked on Princess's car!"

Salma blinked, thinking about what they had just said, while they two continued arguing. Apparently, there were two shadows for her. One, that kept an eye on her in the department building. And then there was Burak Kaka, who followed her around. It made sense. Burak Kaka would not be able to keep track of her inside the building. He was not a student, a teacher or a staff member and his continuous presence would raise suspicions. Salma wondered who was her shadow in the department? Did she know him? Was it a teacher or a student? It could be the janitor for all she knew. Salma felt her head spin.

Madness, she closed her eyes.

"Okay, I admit it was a pressure situation for you and you made a bad call, but --"

"Burak Kaka, how did you find out I was where I was and in trouble?" Salma asked in a bored tone, interrupting Spogmae just to stop them arguing anymore. "I saw you in the lot when we were leaving with the cops."

The car was silent for a while, then the Green Coat sighed.

"It should have been from your texts to Sarah but I was busy with a druggie by your car," he replied, shaking his head in disappointment. "I had just sent a sit-rep to the HQ about having taken a suspicious element into custody when I heard the sirens. On instinct, I checked any security protocols initiated from you, I found none. I quickly went through your correspondence. Apparently, you planned on going to the alley when you had been told not to go to deserted places. I contacted Spogmae to check on Zayn and that's when I found out he'd run off into some random direction ten minutes ago and that Sarah, Zayn's friend and another student had followed. I called Zayn and he confirmed you were in trouble."

"You called Zayn?" Salma raised a questioning brow.

"We do talk when shit hits the fan, you know!"

"Zayn issued a security alert first, though," Spogmae added. "He contacted your father informing him something suspicious was going around you. That he was headed to some place you have been directed to go by someone pretending to be him."

"So dad called you?"

"Right after, I told Burak Zayn was on the go, yes," Spogmae replied.

"I think the many calls and communications caused confusion too," Burak added. "I was in contact with HQ just when Zayn was calling Atif Lala, then I was contacting Spogmae while Atif Lala was trying to get a hang of her. When I was on phone with Zayn to get a confirmation, Atif Lala went through to Spogmae. The HQ was already responding to my initial request, when Zayn called, and then I issued another request while Spogmae was doing the same. It turned into a mess."

"I'm glad your friend didn't think of contacting the GCA and went for the local cops." Spogmae snorted, then grumbled, "Imagine the shame of being out-performed a small town's local police department."

"Is Ghamey's arrest going to be a problem?" Salma asked, dreading the answer.

"Depends on how each party plays their cards," Burak Kaka replied in an disinterested tone. He was still butt-hurt about the whole security lapse thing. He clearly did not care for how ugly the politics might get in the wake of the attack.

"Who knew a half-witted moron could prove to be such an irksome pest," Salma said.

Burak Kaka let out a derisive sound.

"Like they say, never underestimate the power of stupid!" he said bitterly.

"I can't even tell who's the stupid here, us? Or him?" Spogmae provided, sounding just as disappointed and angry.

Silence returned. Salma could feel the pain from the two Green Coats bruised egos and their humiliation radiating off of them in waves. They were a proud bunch. They were outplayed by a stupid boy, and out-performed by the comparatively less-equipped, poorly trained cops of Blue Riverdale. The truth was bound to hurt.

Salma let them wallow in self-pity and embarrassment. So long as they were not arguing she was fine with it. Or she thought.

The car came to a sudden halt in front of a house in an unfamiliar street. Salma frowned, looking around in confusion, until she saw the car.

"Hold on a minute, is this --"

"Your stop, yes," Spogmae replied.

Salma turned to Green Coats, scowling.

"Are you kidding me?!" she cried. "Your idea of a safe place is to send me to the boys?"

Burak Kaka sighed.

"Princess, do we have a problem?" he asked, sounding exhausted. "I thought you enjoyed their company and wanted to visit them for a very long time now?"

"Well, I do, but do you really think leaving me alone with two border-line crazy guys is an appropriate idea?"

"What's wrong?" Spogmae frowned. "They're your Mahrams, no?"

"They are but I've always maintained a very strict boundary! Staying with them is like me and Will alone. Who's ingenious idea was this?!"

The exasperation from the Green Coats was clear. Burak pursed his lips, while Spogmae pinched the bridge of her nose.

"You don't feel safe with them?" Burak Kaka asked.

"I don't feel safe sharing a house with any man unless it's Asim, my dad or Uncle Dawood," Salma replied firmly. "I love these boys, but you're nuts if you think I'm stepping out of this car to live with those two, and for God knows how long!"

"Fine!" Burak almost snapped. "Who do you feel safe with? I'll escort you there."

"Bringing them here would be a better idea," Spogmae replied. "Taking her back is a security risk."

"Princess?"

"Get me Asim or Zayn, then." Salma shrugged.

The air in the car froze the moment the words left her lips. She saw Burak's eyes snap to hers in the rearview mirror.

"Asim!" Salma emphasized, feeling heat creeping up her neck. "I just want Asim!"

"Yeah, I heard you alright," Burak mumbled while Spogmae laughed a little.

Salma felt even more embarrassed. What in the world was she thinking? She did not trust Zayn with a dozen people around and suddenly she had claimed to feel safer with him around James, of all the people?

I was thinking in terms of the Nikkah! She defended.

You were thinking crap. Just shut up! Her subconscious returned. Imagine yourself all uncomfortable and stiff around Zayn in the boys' presence! It's calling for bloodshed!

Salma closed her eyes. What was she thinking?

"It's going to be a concentration of targets," she heard Spogmae.

"Why can't ya'll just bulk us together and give us a two-layered security, then keep us separated and have a single layer each?" Salma asked. "The GCA keeps complaining for being undermanned. Change strategy for once!"

"Because then that's one blow and we lose two valuable heads."

"I don't think they'll be attacking," Salma mumbled, sitting back. "They're already annoyed and preoccupied by Ghamey's antics."

"We'll see what to do," Burak Kaka added as Spogmae got out of the car. "For now, off you go. Spogmae will be shadowing you, so know you're not alone with the boys."

Salma opened her mouth to argue but Spogmae cut in by opening her door for her.

"I'll introduce myself before I start the watch," she reassured. "They'll know you have company, don't worry."

The front door opened just then and a curious-looking Dean peaked out to check on the car parked by their door. Salma knew she was done for it the moment his eyes went wide with excitement and an inhuman voice escaped his lips.

"SALLY!"

She had barely stepped out of the car that she found the breath getting knocked out of her system. Dean had gone for one of James' signature, bone-cracking, rugby tackles. The ruckus he was creating had attracted the attention of his brother.

"OH MY GOD!"

Brace up, Salma, Breath in –

Her huge gulp of breath didn't help. She was winded a second time by actual bone-cracking rugby tackler.

Author's Note:

Well, well, well . . .

Anyways, you know the drill, vote comment and share!

Also, I posted one of the biggest plot twists on Patreon. I'm so proud of coming up with it lol. Can't wait to share with y'all in due time!

Lots of Love

J.