The Siege of Haniya [ONC2024] ✔

12. King Assad's Last Will

CHAPTER TWELVE : KING ASSAD'S LAST WILL

⏳_⏳_⏳

Hurried knocks on the door echoed in the living room, disturbing the peace of the house. I shared a glance with Leila and Sarah, deliberating on who should open the door or whether we should just ignore it. Prof. El-Azizi, on the other hand, had snoozed off on the single-seat sofa, with the news playing on the television. We hardly had any guests in the safehouse, and those who came here were usually because of work-related issues. Since I need to be at some of the meetings but only a limited people in Haniya knew I escaped the regime, they came to the safehouse instead of me going to the headquarters.

"I'll take a look." Sarah stood up from the sofa, making her way towards the door. "Oh my God, what happened to you?"

Hearing her gasp, I hurried to the front door and saw Hamza had his left arm in a clutch, while bandages could be seen around his left shoulder and arm. He caught my eye and reached out for me with his right hand.

My eyebrows furrowed in concern as I ran my hand slowly over his arm, not wanting to hurt his wound. "What happened? Why are you wearing this?"

"Don't worry, it's not that bad. One of the guards shot my shoulder while we were rescuing Malik Shah. The doctors had taken the bullet from my shoulder. Now, I just need to recover from the wound," he muttered as I stood on tiptoe to inspect the bandages around his shoulder. He glanced around the area. "Where's Salam?"

Sighing, I returned to my original height. "Sarah sent her to your parents' house yesterday. I don't want to part with her, but..."

"That's for the best," he reassured, squeezing my shoulders. "We need to focus on solving the conflict in the region. The faster the problem is resolved, the faster we can be with her without any worries. Besides, if something happens here," he sighed with a slight shake of his head. "She's safer there."

I nodded at his explanation. Salam was only a young child; she should be spared from all the problems we have currently gone through. At least, while she was at her grandparents', she could enjoy her childhood with her cousins.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done. But it seemed as though more and more problems arose as a new day passed. Coupled with the recollection of memories of me shooting an officer in Akkadiyah's prison and the confidential document I was entrusted to keep, I felt as though I wasn't strong enough to face everything.

Hamza reached over to my face and ran his thumb over the lines in between my eyes, smoothing out the frown lines. "Everything will be fine. We'll get through this."

"I'm tired. I miss my parents and siblings," I said as tears welled up in my eyes.

He brought me closer to his chest and ran his hand over my back. "When things get better, we'll go to Chermin Kingdom and meet your family. For now, we need to keep going."

I sniffed against his chest, nodding. With the current situation, as the peacefulness of the region was hanging on a thin thread, our primary goal was to restore the safety of the city and bring down Emir Shah from the throne. It was the only way out, or else our city would suffer the same fate as the other towns that had endured the ironclad rule of the regime.

"This is the safehouse. You'll be staying here for the time being." Commander Zaid's voice broke the silence as he entered the house with Nabil and another man. Sarah welcomed them in, and I almost forgot that she was standing by the doorway the whole time.

I quickly wiped away the tears on my cheeks with my fingers as Hamza pulled away from the embrace. Commander Zaid and the others walked past us before giving a small nod to us, ignoring our heart-to-heart exchange.