Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,53

afternoon.”

For the first time in a very long while, Alejo found himself struggling for words. How could he explain who he was, when his family had not known him for fourteen years?

And who are you now? Alejo thought. Do you even know?

Nazaret was staring at him, white face stricken with shock. “You’re a Muslim? Hezbollah? They’re terrorists!”

“No, Hezbollah has renounced terrorism,” Alejo insisted. “You’re thinking of Hamas. Or Al-Qaeda.” Alejo paused, trying to come up with words. “I was a Muslim. I…am not anymore.” He couldn’t even bring himself to mention the name of Jesus in this discussion as his reason for leaving Islam. The weight of what he had done felt as if it could never be erased.

Alejo cleared his face of emotion and tried to state the facts clearly. “I was the leader of a team in an organization that kills evil men. My team put explosives on the bus that left Coroico on Sunday night. It was supposed to contain only the targets, but Noah and Wara apparently got on the bus at the last minute. The men from my team brought Wara to me, after they found her by the road, alive. They would have killed her too, and I left with her to avoid that. So I suppose my membership in the organization has been canceled.” Alejo’s mouth flattened into a wry, grim line.

“Wara’s bus!” Pablo Martir’s face flooded red. His knuckles tightened violently around the edge of his chair.

“You…you did that?” Nazaret squeaked. Everyone else seemed too horrified to even speak.

“Not only that,” Alejo’s voice was strained, “but when I left the organization, I put your lives in danger. They don’t like traitors and as soon as they found out I left with Wara, I’m sure they started to look for you. I was a leader, and the punishment for leaving is death for my family.”

Now Alejo leaned back into his chair, hating the looks on their faces, hating that he was the one who had caused all this.

Wara said they have prayed for me for years, that I would be safe and following Jesus, he remembered bitterly. And now I show up, a Muslim, a criminal, who has ruined their lives.

“Oh God,” Noly Martir whispered, covering her mouth with her hand. For a second no one could speak. Then Alejo’s mother stood up unevenly from the iron chair, a look of intense sadness quivering on her face. “Alejo, those are your little brothers and sisters below us in that room. Are they safe sleeping here, with you? What is going to happen to them? Oh God,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “You never even knew them, and already you have made their lives forfeit.”

“Noah!” Nazaret cried, breaking into sobs as well, dropping down onto her knees on the concrete floor. “And Wara…why? What have you done to them? Alejo, don’t you know how much I loved you? How much I missed you?”

“Wara told me,” Alejo muttered, struggling to meet his sister’s weepy eyes. He turned towards his mother and held out a hand towards her, then dropped it to his side. “I will do all that I can to keep them safe while they’re sleeping,” he promised gravely.

Alejo felt that until now his father had been ominously silent. Dropping down on a stack of concrete blocks facing his family, Alejo watched him out of the corner of his eye, struggling against his will with all the ancient bitterness that welled up in the presence of Pablo Martir.

Was the pastor shocked that his son had been living as a Muslim?

Well, I was happy as a Muslim, Dad. Did you really, honestly expect me to want to be a Christian? Did you ever realize what you had done, when you heard about Ruben?

Apparently, if Ruben had affected his family at all, they had recovered just fine. Word was that Pablo Martir was still a pastor. Not much appeared to have changed.

Alejo’s father leaned back in his chair with a firm, metallic clink as the legs shifted against the uneven concrete. Alejo jerked his head around to look at him, eyes blank, ready to be verbally decimated. He was almost looking forward to it.

“Amor,” Pablo began, in a deep, only slightly unsteady voice directed at his wife. “Please go back downstairs with the kids and stay with Wara. I need to talk with our son…alone.”

Fine, Alejo steeled himself. Man to man.

Alejo was glad his father appeared sufficiently cool-headed and rational, even after Alejo’s horrifying revelation. He