Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,80

twisted but his eyes narrowed with determination. “He’s an apostate, Ishmael. He told me himself. He can’t come back.”

The change was astonishing. Wara watched as Ishmael’s face crumpled, then darkened, until he was left glaring at Alejo with fury. Whirling around, he grabbed an object from a bench nearby and the sound of ripping pages knifed through the air.

A book.

Wara squinted to see better, then realized it was the same Arabic Bible she had seen in Alejo’s tent that night. The onion-skin pages were fluttering to the grass, torn by Ishmael’s furious hand.

“Is that necessary?” Alejo asked grimly. “You would destroy a book that even the Quran calls holy?”

Ishmael tossed the destroyed book over his shoulder and glowered at Alejo, breathing heavily. “When I heard you say you didn’t mean us any harm, I assumed that my suspicions about you leaving our religion couldn’t be true. We found this in your tent, but I told the others that it couldn’t mean anything.” The older man’s voice was hurt and angry. “I won’t believe it until I hear it from your own lips. Are you a Christian?”

“I believe Jesus is the son of God, the savior,” Alejo said.

Stalin looked up at the sky, as if in defeat, and Benjamin shook his head. Gabriel kept his grip tightly on his gun, staring at Alejo, pallid.

Ishmael Khan took three clipped steps forward and rammed the gun he held against Alejo’s forehead with an echoing click. “Even with this betrayal, I wanted to take you back, Alejo Martir. Say the word, and I’ll take you back again, to be one of us. Say you will leave this blasphemy, that God has a son. Say you will return to Islam and no longer follow Jesus.”

Alejo looked back at him for a moment and then loudly said, “No.”

Wara had never seen one moment pass so quickly. Alejo was on the ground seemingly before the shot even roared. Wara stared in horror at the sickly crimson mist that hung over his body, crumpled on the grass. Ishmael hadn’t even had time to lower the gun, and Alejo was gone.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Wara looked one way, then the other, whispering frantically. She forced herself to focus on the scene outside again.

Alejo Martir was still sprawled on grass that was a deep crimson.

He was dead. She had seen a man die.

And they are coming back here, to the truck, with his body.

That next thought beat urgently against her dazed brain, and she tried to focus. Gabriel and Stalin were pulling Alejo onto a gray wool blanket. Ishmael Khan wandered off towards a more shaded part of the garden. Gabriel and Stalin began to haul the blanket slowly across the grass towards the truck. Something foul tickled the back of Wara’s throat and she choked down the urge to gag. Feeling faint, she crawled in slow motion under the canvas tarps Gabriel had pointed out and tried not to move.

But she was shaking. With every breath she felt like she was making the whole truck tremble.

The truck doors clanged open and someone grunted as the truck swayed. They were going to put his body in here.

With her.

Stalin’s voice echoed around her, crackly and breaking. “I can’t believe this. How could he be so stupid? I don’t think I can do this.”

“The worst is over,” Gabriel said, sounding quite sick as well. “It’s our job. We just do what we have to do, Stalin.”

“It’s Alejo!” Stalin hissed, tone suggesting he wanted to yell. Wara heard a fist slam against the inside wall of the truck near the door. The floor bounced as they stepped to the ground and both doors slammed shut, leaving the truck’s interior in utter darkness.

The sound of the two voices moved around the front of the truck, obviously still in heated discussion, and then the muffled sound of a door shutting and the truck roared to life. Gabriel, or whoever was at the wheel, was driving like a bat out of hell, nearly throwing Wara into the corner of the truck every time they took a skidding turn.

She supposed they were driving away to get rid of the body, and the thought was horrible. She hadn’t liked Alejo much, but he was Nazaret’s brother. Somehow, in the middle of all this mess, he had saved her life.

Her stomach churned, complicated by the wild motion of the delivery truck. She kicked the heavy tarps off her body, desperate for fresh air.

It was really dark inside