Throughout my life, praying was my safe spot. This was how I calmed my fears and shrugged away my doubts. My faith in God was how I was able to overcome every struggle I had.
I’d always believed that Mazen was the answer to my prayers, the one gift that God sent my way to soothe my sad and troubled heart. The gift for never having lost faith in God’s plans and I had faith that there was a reason for everything.
As I lay on the floor of a room that was darker and colder than a cemetery on a moonless night, all I could do was scream God’s name, beg him to help me, and to ease my pain. No smart words or organized prayers, only pleas.
I couldn’t hold my cross in my hand. I was too weak to even do that, but I kept my eyes on the one dangling from my wrist, as I lay on my side with my hands near my face. My old cross found a place as a charm in the bracelet my husband had given me last year.
I looked at the gold bracelet with longing and eyes full of tears. I saw happy memories in each one of the charms hanging from it: the black key, the lock shaped like a heart, Big Ben, the horse, the strawberry, the crown and … the baby bottle.
My tears flew, as I thought about the baby I might never meet. I didn’t know if any of us would survive this. Thinking of what I had been injected with earlier and how severely it could affect him made me groan in pain, pain that came right from my heart. Not only that, but as I thought about the medication that I needed and was denied, and the missed meals and water, I feared for the well-being of my son.
My heart was burning up inside of me.
The Snake’s words ran on repeat. Everything she’d said so far came true. She said that she could be convincing. She succeeded in making me talk when I was determined on never speaking a word to her. She told me that soon I would be screaming, and it was exactly what I was doing now with every new contraction.
It was utterly terrifying to imagine all of what she’d promised could become true. All of this time I didn’t want to believe her, but with everything happening around me, it seemed like she would do all of the unthinkable things that she’d talked about.
The pain was now like a sword covered with lava, lancing mercilessly through my body, stretching me, or more like splitting me in two. My screams couldn’t be counted.
My vision was too blurry, and my head was too foggy. The only things I could feel now were pain and fear. I was being tortured for all of the bad things I’d ever done my whole life. There was no place in my heart left for hope. All my thoughts were focused on how it would all go away if I were to meet my death this very minute. It felt too close, yet so far.
The door started shaking violently as someone tried to break it open. All I thought was – this is it. It’s all going to be over now.
The man who busted the door open was only a dark figure to me, although the room wasn’t as dark as the sun was starting to rise outside. I still couldn’t see clearly, everything was hazy, but that may have had to do with how I was feeling, and not how lit the room was.
“Your Majesty! Alhamdulilah!” the man said breathlessly. His tone was worried, and I wondered where I’d heard his voice before.
Blinking my tears away to clear my vision, I saw him as he put his gun back in its holster, and gasped when I saw his face.
“Faris!”
I prayed with my whole heart that I wasn’t imaging things, and The Prime Royal Guard was really here. I was so out of it that I didn’t know what was real and what was not.
“You’re going to be okay, Your Majesty,” he said, and seemed to look deeply into my eyes, probably trying to gauge how poor my condition was.
Wait …
“No, no. Mazen can’t be here! No, please! Take him and leave!”
Mazen couldn’t be in this danger zone where death was hovering all around. Gunshots and people shouting, groaning, and cursing were all that could be heard. Mazen couldn’t be here.
All of my thoughts of wanting him to come and save me were gone the second the reality of it hit me – he could be killed.
“I didn’t inform him. He’s not here.”
A surge of relief washed over me.
“You need to go,” I whispered. It was the last thing I imagined I would say, but it was the only thing I wanted him to do. “You need to protect Mazen.”
He wasn’t safe himself, as long as The Snake lived – Mazen wasn’t safe.
“But – I am protecting him,” he said, and he didn’t need to explain what he meant by that. I knew it already. Fawaz knew that if Mazen learned of my location, he would be here in a heartbeat, and it was too dangerous. I couldn’t be more thankful for Faris’ thoughtfulness, but my husband’s first royal guard had one more thing to say, “The King won’t survive for one day after you, Your Majesty.”
There was nothing I could say to that. Fawaz reminded me of exactly why I needed to fight, to keep the faith, to keep the hope. I needed to be here for Mazen, for our son, for our family. I needed to stay strong.
Just as Fawaz began to help me set up, a man ran into the room. I let out a terrified gasp as he raised his gun toward us, and was just a second away from pulling the trigger.
Thankfully, someone from outside the room was faster, and he shot him right in the head, but not before a bullet was released from the enemy’s gun, and hit the wall just an inch away from my head.
Although it seemed like nothing could surprise me at that moment, the last thing I had expected was to see my brother’s face in the doorway.
“Joseph?”
Is this at all real? Or am I being delusional?
“Marie!” he said as he hurried to where I was half-sitting “Oh, God!”
The worry in his eyes was totally unexpected, and told me exactly how much he truly loved me.
“Joseph!” I whispered in disbelief. Was he really here? Looking at me with tears filling his eyes? Tears for me?
“What have they done to you, baby sister?” he cried.
Baby sister. He called me ‘baby sister’. I am his baby sister. He loves me.
“God! No!”
Fawaz’s fury caught my attention, and I thought that our enemies were by the door, but it wasn’t an enemy. It was the love of my life.
“I knew you were following me, Joseph! But I didn’t think you’d act mindlessly and bring His Majesty along. God! Damn it!”
Fawaz cursed, not caring about the respect he should show the King; he only knew one thing – his King’s life was in danger.
But right at that moment, I couldn’t give one more second of attention to what Officer Faris was saying, nor to my brother whom I felt like I’d just gotten back after long years of absence. My only focus was on the one man I loved more than any and everything in the whole universe – Mazen.
He was frozen in place, not looking at Fawaz for one moment as he continued to rant at him for jeopardizing his life. His eyes were on me, and only me.
Mazen looked as miserable as I felt, broken-hearted, and wretched. His features cried pain, and it seemed like there was a war inside of his chest as he took in the sight of me.
His steps were heavy and slow, much slower than I wished for them to be. I wanted him here, right beside me, right this second. I wanted to embrace him. I wanted to be hugged by him. I needed to take in his scent and know that I was secure. I ached to hold him and never let go.
When he knelt in front of me, there were no words spoken by our lips, but our eyes said many. Our eyes were filled with so many emotions and silent pleas, they were crying in agony of our separation and apologizing for how long it had been since they last looked into each other.
The exchange was filled with love, but was also filled with fear.
Mazen touched my face with his fingertips, ever so tenderly as though he was afraid he’d hurt me, but still wanted to make sure that I was real, and right here in front of him.
“I th-thought I would never see you again,” I whispered, not caring the slightest about the gunfire I was hearing. It seemed like my world had stopped when my husband arrived at my side.
“Fear no more, my princess. I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe,” Mazen promised in the most broken voice I’d ever heard coming out of him. It was choked, desperate, and held so much pain that it sounded heavier than mountains.
I knew very well that I’d missed Mazen more than words could ever tell, but I didn’t truly know how much it was until I heard his voice again. I could survive on his voice alone, literally.
In his arms, I inhaled deeply, recharging my strength ― which he once told me I got from myself, and not from him. But he didn’t know, he was north, my soul, and my heart. He was my everything.
It was only when he hugged me that my faith was restored, and my hope started rising again. Yes, I could survive this. Our love could survive this. Our family could survive this. We would be okay. I could hope.
I fisted his shirt as I felt the next contraction, the first one to happen in his presence. It was much more intense than the rest, but way less painful, and I couldn’t explain how that was even possible, but it was true. I knew it was because I finally got to feel him holding me through it.
It was something that I’d strongly craved, and it was finally coming true. Mazen was here, he was holding me.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” it was all he said while stroking my hair. I groaned in pain and pushed myself right into his chest. I wanted to ease his worry and tell him that I was perfectly fine even if it would be the biggest of lies, but I was too weak to even do that.
Gunshots blasted and bullets ricocheted in the room that we were in. I finally paid attention to what was going on around us. Fawaz stood tall as he fired one bullet after the other while using part of the half-broken door as a shield. At his feet were two men who were bleeding to death.
“We have to leave. Now!” he yelled, not looking at us as a bullet lodged itself in the door he was taking cover behind.
“Hang on tight,” Mazen said, and just as he was about to surround me with his arms, I heard a moan coming from a body that was right next to me.
“NO!” I cried out loud as I saw that it was Joseph. My brother was lying on his back, his shirt saturated with blood coming from a wound in the middle of his chest.
I crawled to get near to his head, wanting to look into his face and tell him to hang in there. It couldn’t be serious, right? He would survive, wouldn’t he?
Oh, God! Please! He has to.
“Marie!” he breathed out, and my tears flew as I saw the life draining from him ever so slowly. All I wanted was to tell him that he was going to be okay, but I was dumbstruck by the look of him as he struggled to catch his breath. “Th-the g-gun … it wa-s never loa-ded,” he choked out, blood seeping from the side of his mouth.
“No! No! Please! Don’t die on me. Everyone dies on me, Joseph. Please! No, no! NO!” I shouted, “JOSEPH!”
For a second, I didn’t even know what he meant, and it took me some time to figure out what he was referring to. The gun he used to force me into signing the wedding contract – it wasn’t loaded.
It was like I was in another world as I watched my brother struggle for his life, and my husband who kept pressing on his chest in a desperate effort to get him to breathe.
“Breathe! Breathe! You can’t fucking die. You can’t!” Mazen growled.
Of course, he couldn’t die. He had a little girl who barely knew her own name, who hardly knew him.
He couldn’t die. I had yet to tell him that I forgave him, that I knew he was desperate and only made a very poor choice.
He couldn’t die. He still had a life waiting for him, and a wife who was yet to show him how much she truly loved him.
He couldn’t die.
Oh, God, please, no!
“We have to leave now!” Fawaz repeated as he reloaded his gun, “Your lives are in danger!”
When Mazen swept me up and carried me away from my brother, I didn’t care about the pain I felt in my back as my wounds were assaulted by the brief friction from his arm. I couldn’t think of anything other than how I wanted to push Mazen back to where my brother was lying, trying desperately to fight death. I knew that Mazen let go of him with a heavy heart, but I still couldn’t handle the idea of leaving him to die alone.
My tears flowed as I came to the conclusion that if we didn’t get out of there now, it would only mean more lives lost, one of them could be Mazen’s. I had to accept the fact that we needed to flee.
“Go! Go! Go! I’m covering your back,” Fawaz shouted as his gun continued to blaze, hurrying alongside us with his back facing our sides. The walls protected our other side.
Mazen got us down the stairs as fast as possible, the noise of gunshots was becoming unbearable. How much of The Snake’s gang was there? And how many men did we have now? I figured that Mazen literally had to escape from the royal guards; they would have never allowed him into this situation. Escaping from the Royal Guards only meant that we had fewer men than we should have, and it seemed that coming out of this mansion alive was close to impossible.
Officer Faris was on top of the stairs when we were at the bottom, he was trying to cover off the area as bullets flew from upstairs. But then we found ones that were coming from downstairs as well when we reached the bottom of the stairs on the second floor.
“Get down! Get down! Take cover!”
Mazen quickly put me down on the floor, in a cramped corner that wasn’t particularly useful as a shield, but good enough to hide half of our bodies. I thought that Mazen would stay down and keep holding me until Fawaz told us we were clear to go, but that wasn’t what he was thinking.
“Protect the Queen!” Mazen shouted, and I didn’t know to whom he was saying those words. Whoever it was, I couldn’t really think about it – all I did was becoming even more terrified when he left me, took his gun out of his pants and started shooting with a steady hand. Each bullet was a success, but it didn’t help with how petrified I was.
“GET DOWN!” Fawaz barked at Mazen.
There were shots coming from downstairs, and I couldn’t help the awful picture that haunted my mind of Mazen catching a bullet, and I let out a scream when I realized that it wasn’t actually my imagination – it was real, Mazen had been shot.
“NO! MAZEN!” I shrieked, and in a split second Fawaz was flying to where Mazen was ― just two meters away. Fawaz pushed him down on his back, and lay on top of him, shielding Mazen with his own body. Fawaz’s body was like a magnet that absorbed the barrage of bullets meant for my husband.
With horrified eyes, I watched the very moment when Fawaz lost his life, fulfilling his promise and oath – protecting his king with his life and soul – even in death.
I saw Mazen raise his arm from under Fawaz’s body while holding a gun. He fired two shots in two different directions, and that was the end of it. I couldn’t hear any more shots.
To my relief, I saw Mazen as he pushed Fawaz onto his back and sat up. My angel was bleeding and looked to be in pain, and it only made my cries grow louder, but Mazen didn’t appear to be able to hear me, not at all.
For a minute, Mazen seemed to be in a completely different place as he looked down at the body of his prime royal guard – his shadow, his best friend.
“Fawaz!” he called, in the same tone you’d call someone who’s sitting beside you, ever so casually. It was as though he didn’t want to believe that he was dead, although he already knew that he was – bullet-proof vests were useless when it came to bullets in the back of the head.
“Fawaz!” he called again, this time in anger, as if he was scolding him for not replying to him. His hand grasped the top of Faris’ uniform and he started shaking him.
“FAWAZ!”
My heart broke at the sound of my husband’s cry; he was writhing in agony, and I knew there was nothing I could do to make it hurt any less.
My heart was bleeding along with Mazen’s as I witnessed the last moments in the life of Officer Faris Fawaz, the model of loyalty and sacrifice.
“I want both of them alive!” The Snake shrieked, proving me wrong when I thought that it was all over.
Her order seemed to get Mazen out of his haze, and when he got up, I let out another startled gasp, the back of his shirt was soaked in blood from where he’d been shot. He appeared composed, but I knew he had to be in great pain, and not just because of the bullet.
“Mazen, no!” I cried as I saw him approach where the sound was coming from.
“Get down, Your Majesty!” someone on the stairs shouted, but Mazen didn’t listen, he just kept going. It was as if he was moved by something other than his legs.
“Cover the King! Cover the King!” the person yelled when he knew Mazen wasn’t going to back off. Mazen was fueled by rage, and the need to avenge us.
I was going to be sick at the thought of him being near that monster. I didn’t care if he had a gun. I didn’t care if we had many officers of the Coast Guard –I could see that now – protecting us. I didn’t want him near her, ever.
It was too scary that I couldn’t see what was happening, I could only scream, and it wasn’t only because of the contraction I was going through, it was out of fear. It was even scarier that I couldn’t see what was happening in the room that Mazen had entered.
I screamed with the sound of every shot, as I gripped one of the bars on the railing behind me tightly.
It all happened in one minute –The Snake came out of the room. She was trying to run but her legs were too heavy. She was bleeding profusely, the color drained from her face, and the only thing left was the horrified look in her eyes.
I couldn’t deny that I felt a vast amount of satisfaction at the sight of her distress, of her pain, of her fear. I could not deny that I was glad she was experiencing just one ounce of what she’d put us all through. However, I was too worried when a long moment passed without a sign of Mazen.
Finally, he came back into view, carrying some glass bottles with him. He threw one after another at her feet, and I was perplexed as to what he was doing.
“Mazen, stop!” The Snake wept. “Please, Mazen, please!” she begged, but Mazen seemed unfazed; he didn’t seem to hear her. His eyes were cold, focused. He wasn’t blinking. He took one determined step after another as he threw bottles I could now tell contained alcohol.
“I’m sorry. I won’t hurt anybody again,” she said, and I would’ve laughed if I had it in me. She slipped and fell, still begging Mazen to stop and to have mercy on her.
Without a word, Mazen took a lighter out of his pocket, flicked it on, and ― with his eyes set on hers –threw it by her feet where alcohol had soaked the floor.
I don’t think I would ever forget her screams, they were buried deep inside my head. I don’t think I would ever forget the sight of the flames surrounding her body. And I knew I would always remember the disgusting smell of melting flesh, or the odor of burning hair and nails.
The minutes that followed were a fog of strange faces, people running all around me, moving me rapidly from one hand to the next to get me out of the mansion.
The one thing that was completely clear to me was Mazen’s order to the paramedics to see to my needs. He didn’t want them to take care of him or his bleeding wound until they took care of me. I knew he wouldn’t find rest until he knew I was safe.
At this point, my screams were nonstop, and the pain was too much. The contractions were coming fast, one after another after another. I was going to deliver in minutes, I could feel it. Although I was grateful that I was now in an ambulance and my baby wouldn’t be born on a dirty floor, something inside me didn’t want to give birth. I wanted to keep my baby inside, in the safety of my womb. The outside world might not be safe for him.
“Make it stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” I yelled as the ambulance moved, I couldn’t take it. It was too loud. The awful memories threatened to smother me. The disgusting sensations were brought back.
“Stop the car, Your Majesty?” the paramedic asked.
“Stop the siren,” Mazen said in a strong voice. He knew me so well, he knew what I meant without needing an explanation. “Easy now, princess. It’s okay.”
“We’re not going to make it on time. I need to push!” I told him, my tone was panicked and my lips were trembling.
Mazen pressed tightly on his lips, making a thin line before responding to me, “Then push!” he merely said.
It was like he shared my exact thought of not wanting our baby in anybody else’s hands, because the next thing I knew, he was washing his hands with alcohol and proceeded to don gloves. He would be the one to welcome our baby to the world. I couldn’t even tell how comforting that thought was.
“Push, Your Majesty. Push.” The paramedic said for the tenth time, and I felt like telling her to come do it herself. I was losing my mind.
No pain I’d ever experienced my whole life was comparable to the pain I felt as I pushed my baby out. It felt like my body was being split in two, everything was too blurry except the almost unbearable anguish, which was all too clear.
I screamed incomprehensible words, thinking that I couldn’t do it anymore, that I would faint any second now.
“You’re doing so well, princess, just one more push.”
The pain suddenly ended as my husband received our son in his hands. I was too tired, and I could barely see, but I watched Mazen closely. I needed to gauge Mazen’s reaction to know how our baby boy was doing.
There was a frown, and there were no baby cries. It was precisely the opposite of what it should be.
The longest minute of my life passed as I watched my husband with our son in his hands. He turned him over on his stomach and held him on one while the other slapped his back repeatedly with force that I thought was too much ― even if they really weren’t more than pats.
Adam was limp in his hands, and I realized he might not live. I started weeping violently. The pain in my body was eclipsed by the pain in my heart as I saw the look on my husband’s face – fear, wretchedness, and despair.
“Please, God! No!” My voice was broken as I begged God for the millionth time in the past hour to preserve someone I loved. This time, the heat of my prayer was too great as it was mixed with my agony and desperation.
My howling stopped abruptly when I heard the most beautiful sound in the whole world – my son’s cries. The change of the atmosphere inside the ambulance happened in a flash. In one moment, we went from grief and pain to utter happiness and relief.
The bright look of happiness in my love’s eyes as he held our son up for me to ogle was everything I needed to forget the pain, it was the best cure to the wound in my heart, the prettiest sight that my eyes ever got to witness.
“Adam,” Mazen said in delight that was slightly shadowed by the lingering sadness in his eyes. I chuckled, for it sounded as though he was introducing our baby to me. My small laugh faded at the same moment as darkness crept over me.
Now, I could rest.