Here you go @Hannah4bsb.  It is because of her constant nagging me at uni [and through text message] that this chapter is finally up! So thank her guys! :P 

#Chapter Thirteen#

Judging by the look on Salem’s face, the answer to Mira’s question wasn’t going to be good. She glanced at him and looked slightly sick to her stomach when she registered what exactly that look meant. He had already mentioned how dangerous these people were and seeing everything right now simply confirmed his words. 

Without saying anything, Salem moved forward and began to manoeuvre his way through the crowd. We followed and I tried my hardest to avoid bumping into any sweaty dancers or people who were making their way to the bar to get something to drink. 

It was only Salem, Mira and I who knew what Houda looked like, so we were keeping a keen eye out for her as we moved through. We spent a good half an hour, both standing on the sidelines, observing for Houda and walking around occasionally to find her.

The music was beginning to give me a headache and since I was asthmatic, the vile smoke in the air was clogging my throat and airways. 

“I don’t understand where she could be!” Mira cried, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “We’ve searched everywhere!” 

“Maybe not everywhere,” Salem mumbled and we turned to see him looking behind us. Following his gaze, our eyes rested on a stairway that was discreetly hidden in the left corner of the club. The lights were turned off in that area and the smokey haze that was drifting through the room didn’t make it any better. 

It was obvious that it was supposed to be a restricted area, for the staff or owners only I assumed, but we had no other option. It was the only place we had yet to check and we definitely weren’t going to stand around and wait for Houda to show up. 

With a word to one guard to stay downstairs and stay watch incase anyone came up, the rest of us began to file up the stairs, one at a time. My heart was beating erratically in my chest and my palms were clammy with sweat.

A closed black door was what we found at the top of the stairs but it was nothing that we didn’t anticipate. I could smell something off, not like the normal cigarettes but smoke that seemed like it almost had a flavour. It lingered in the air and I spotted Salem and the other guard exchange glances.

I pretended to be clueless although I was one hundred percent sure what was hidden behind that door; drugs.

Without warning, Salem kicked down the door and it flew off it’s hinges, back into the room. Mira and I tumbled in and my eyes immediately jumped across the room, absorbing the sight before me. 

It was bad.

The first thing I noticed was the girl who was lying across a couch that was pushed up against the back wall. The second thing I realised was the man who was on top of her, basically mauling her face with his mouth. There were two other men in the room, sitting around a table and playing cards but as soon as we had barged in, they were on their feet, guns aimed at all of us. 

In a flash, Salem’s large frame was standing in front us protectively, his own gun held firmly between his fingers. 

“Who the hell are you?!” One of the men spat, his eyes burning with anger. Salem just stood there, glaring him down. I had to commend the man for not melting right then and there. 

“S-sameena,” Mira whispered, pinching my arm. “That g-girl is Houda,” she said, pointing a shaky finger at the two figures who were still on the couch, completely oblivious to everything that was happening around them. “That’s t-the bracelet I bought her for her birthday.” I squinted my eyes to get a better view of what Mira was talking about. I realised that the arm of the girl was hanging stiff off the edge of the couch, a black bracelet with charms hanging off it. 

Oh my God.

That girl was Houda. 

My first instinct was to march over there but I didn’t forget that there were two figures standing across from us with guns pointed in our direction. If I moved, I would be in plain shooting range and I couldn’t risk that - for now. 

“Answer us!” The other man boomed, spittle flying out of his mouth. “What do you want?!”

“What, you don’t recognise me?” Salem spoke in a cool tone of voice, although his facial expression was anything but cool.

At the sound of his voice, the first man who had spoken froze up and his eyes widened considerably. “You.” He whispered one word, but just from the utterance of that one word, it was clear how incredibly terrified he was.

“I’d like to say it’s nice to see you again, but I think we both know that’s not true. Right, Nader?” 

The fear in his eyes lasted for a few more seconds before they finally shifted into an angry glint. “I see. You think that because you got bigger, did a few years in military training and are now working for the Prime Minister, that you’re invincible?” He paused to scoff mockingly. “Such an honourable, law-abiding citizen now are we? Oh but one never forgets their past, right Salem?” he sneered. 

What was this guy insinuating? I looked up at Salem, but since I was behind him I couldn’t catch his expression properly. 

I saw his arm clench and tighten around the gun. “You don’t know anything about me,” Salem grit out.

“I know too much about you, whether you like it or not.” 

“This isn’t about us,” Salem said and I could see that he was visibly trying to restrain his anger. “That girl on the couch is coming with us. I’m giving you exactly ten seconds to tell your dog to get off of her body, before I take actions into my own hands.” 

Nader laughed cynically. “She’s ours now and she’s not going anywhere. My brother’s having fun and I’m not about to stop him.” 

This man was a monster. I balled my hands into fists and turned to check on Mira. She was extremely pale and was swaying on the balls of her feet.

“Hey, hey.” I patted her face to get her attention but before I could do anything else, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed, the weight of her body falling onto me. I tried not to panic as I held her in my arms and lay her down onto the floor as softly as I could.

Before I could call out to Salem for help, he had lunged at Nader, kicking the gun out of his hands and knocking him aside the head with his own. The other guard already had the second man down, punching him enough to knock him unconscious but not enough to kill him. 

With a heavy grunt, Salem wrapped one hand around Nader’s throat and slammed him against the wall, the paint and plaster cracking and falling off. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this,” he spoke, his voice so venomous, so hateful, I had to double check it was Salem speaking. It didn’t sound like him at all. 

“Y-you wouldn’t d-do it. C-coward,” Nader stuttered, his face turning red with the force of Salem’s hand around his throat. 

“You sure about that?” he questioned, tightening his hold. 

He was going to do it! He was actually going to kill him! 

“Stop him!” I yelled at the other guard. 

He looked at me sympathetically. “I don’t think even I can stop him now. He’s too strong.” 

“Argh!” I left Mira’s body on the floor and ran the two metres to Salem. I clasped onto his right arm, that was holding Nader against the wall and began shaking it, trying to get it off. “Salem! Stop! You’re going to kill him!” With a fire like I had never seen before in his eyes, he continued to stare into Nader’s face, which was going blue by the second. “STOP!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. 

Salem blinked and looked down from my breathing form to the man captured in his hand. With a jump, he immediately let go of Nader, his body tumbling to the floor in a heap. I scrambled towards him, bending down to check his pulse. I let out a relieved sigh when I felt two slow, discreet pumps against my fingers. 

“He’s alive.” Not even sparing a glance at Salem, who was standing stiff as a rod, staring down at Nader’s body, I got up and ran to Houda. Thankfully, the guard did something useful and had hauled Nader’s drugged brother off of her but once my eyes came in contact with her body, I stopped short in my track. 

“She’s alive, but barely breathing. She has a bad slash across her gut and she’s already lost a lot of blood. We need to take her to a hospital. Now,” the guard finished, keeping his eyes away from the half naked body of Houda. Tears were streaming down my face as I fumbled with my jumper, taking it off and laying it across her upper body whilst trying not to barf at the large gash across her waist. Her scarf had been ripped off her head and I picked it up off the floor, hurriedly wrapping it around as best I could. 

“We have to get out of here. Now.” The guard nodded and picked up a bleeding and very unconscious Houda. “Salem!” 

“On it.” He ran to where Mira was still laying on the floor and lifted her into his arms. 

Ya Allah. This is all worse than I thought.

With both Salem and the guard behind me, we all rushed out of the door, only for me to smack into a man who was coming up the stairs. He peered down into my face and it was clear he wasn’t that much older than me. A look of surprise passed over his face before it was replaced with a sleazy smirk. 

“What’s a girl like you doing here, hey?” I huffed in annoyance. There was no time for this! He latched onto my arm and I didn’t even get the chance to shrug his hand off, as Salem’s fist came crashing into his face. Blood instantly began to ooze out of his nose and he swayed back and forth. As he fell backwards, he subconsciously grabbed onto my hand as he fell and before I knew it, we were both tumbling down the hard wood stairs. 

“Sameena!” 

And that was when I felt a bone crack and bend unnaturally in my left arm.

####

I was lying on a hospital bed, thrashing about and groaning in pain. I had only ever broken a bone once before, when I was younger, and I don’t recall it being this excruciating. 

“Sameena?! How are you feeling?” 

Managing to peel my eyes open, I came eye to eye with a concerned looking Tariq. 

I can’t deny it felt good to see him right now. He brought with him a sense of security I couldn’t explain. 

“Tariq,” I whispered tiredly. My eyes were falling shut again but a soaring pain ripped through my arm and I jerked upwards, letting out a scream. 

“Has no one put you on morphine yet?” He questioned, hurrying to my side and checking the monitor. 

“N-no, I don’t t-think so.” 

He grumbled something under his breath that I didn’t catch. “I’ll put you on some now. You have a comminuted fracture in your arm, which means that your bone has broken into pieces. That’s why you’re experiencing so much pain.” I nodded my head and as I did, I could feel the sweat dripping down my face. “Do you want me to call a female nurse to get your arm wrapped up?” 

“Just. D-do. It.” I whispered, not really caring about anything he said. There was raw  concern in his eyes and somewhere in the back of my head, I registered how sweet he was being right now and it created a warm feeling in my heart.

I let loose of my consciousness once the pain had gotten extreme and mixed in with the effects of the morphine, I had passed out within seconds.

####

I woke up a few hours later, to find a nurse fumbling around me, fixing my blankets before moving to check my vitals on the monitor. 

When she realised I was awake, she beamed widely at me. “Asalamu alaikum! How are you feeling?” 

“I feel like my left arm has been chewed on by a lion.” She laughed very hard at that and I frowned when she continued to chortle for a full minute. 

“S-sorry,” she managed between laughs. “It’s just that you’re so funny!”

“I’m really not that funny,” I replied, my frown deepening. 

“Oh, but you are!” She said over-excitedly. “When the morphine had kicked in full force me and the other nurse I was working with to wrap up your arm couldn’t work properly, as we were laughing so hard at the things you were saying!” 

“What was I saying?” I asked, amused now. “Wait, wasn’t Tariq - err, I mean Dr Abdo wrapping my arm?” 

She shook her head. “No, he called me in to do it, because, well, you know, it wasn’t appropriate.” I nodded my head at her and tried not to freak out inside. He was such a gentleman. “When I came into the room,” she started again with renewed vigour, “you were talking about how you were on the Titanic and how you warned the captain not to crash into a big block of chocolate.” She stopped to let out another long laugh and I couldn’t help but chuckle along with her. I was absolutely not surprised at this. I had a slight obsession with that movie. “And the best part! You referred to Dr Abdo as Jack and you kept on asking him if he would hug you because there was cold chocolate in your heart and only he could get rid of it!” She sat down on one of the chairs because of how hard she was laughing. 

I covered my blushing face with my good hand and groaned out loud, this time from humiliation instead of pain. “Did I say anything else?” I dared to ask, afraid of the answer.

She nodded her head, the smile still on her lips. “You asked him whether he thought you were the most beautiful girl he had ever seen,” she answered, her lips twitching as she spoke. 

I shot up out of bed. “Tell me, I did not ask him that.” 

“I’m sorry, but you did.” 

“I hate my life.” 

She chuckled. “Don’t worry, at that point he had scurried out of the room, his face red and the rest of your antics were only heard by me and the other nurse.”

“I still hate my life.” 

“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Sameena.” I smiled at her, loving how carefree she was around me. Most people were so stiff and formal. 

“What’s your name?” I asked, unable to read her name badge from where she was sitting. 

“Nuha,” she said with a smile. I nodded my head and relaxed back into my bed, sighing as my head came into contact with the pillow. “This room is now restricted. Dr Abdo made sure that no men were to enter, whether they’re nurses or doctors, so don’t panic about you being in a hospital gown and that your scarf is off.” 

“That’s awfully nice of h-,” I stopped short once realisation hit me. “Oh my God, Nuha, I came in with some friends and one of them was badly injured, I need to know if she’s OK?” I spoke quickly, sitting up again.

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, your friend Houda. She’s still in surgery, unfortunately, she had some internal bleeding and her heart rate was dropping so they had to operate on her straight away. She was taken to the emergency room and has been in there for five hours now, so hopefully, we should hear something soon.” 

I wrung my hands nervously. “And the others? Mira and Salem?”

“Salem has been camped outside of your room ever since you came in and from what I know, Mira is in the surgery wing, waiting to hear on her sister.” I let out a sigh, wondering how this was all going to play out now. Mira and her family. The paparazzi. Dad and Ziad. Tariq. Especially Tariq. What if he heard about what happened and suddenly decided that I was no good? If he did find out, none of it would sound good that’s for sure, at least, not until he had heard my side of the story. “I know what you’re worrying about. Salem made sure that you and Houda were brought in separately, so no one made a connection between the two of you. The bad news is that someone from the hospital tipped off the paps that you’re here with a broken arm, so there’s a ton of them outside right now.” 

“Oh man.” 

“It could have been worse.” 

“True.” 

It could have. 

####