Between the Grapevines

11. Ahda 'Ashar

Though she was awake, Harakat did not come out of her room until she heard Riyad leave the apartment. He knew because he'd waited for a moment after closing the front door to hear her lock unclick. She'd avoided him the night before and remained in her room until he'd departed for the trip he'd tried to tell her about while she slept on the other side of the sealed door.

With Hamza in the passenger seat of the vehicle, Riyad departed from their camp with a stack of concealed equipment placed all around the small white vehicle. They'd made sure to bring along their forged identification tags to conceal their identities as members of the Resistance. Once they'd joined the force, their original identities were wiped away to cut off their familial ties and create new citizens under the names of previously deceased members. Members of the Resistance were hunted expertly by the Occupational Forces, so it was even more important to isolate and cut themselves off from a past that might be used against them.

People that might be used against them.

As he drove through the empty roads of the early morning, Riyad couldn't help but wonder how it might be for Hamza who'd entered the force still having his family as potential targets to the enemy military. Amer, Kader, and Farhan had lost their families just as Riyad had. They were not at risk of placing the ones they loved in harms' way because of their lifestyle. In fact, more than often, it was because their loved ones had been placed in harms' way and were taken from them that most members of the Resistance joined in the first place.

Riyad had lost his brother, who'd been his only place of weakness. Now, he had Harakat as his wife, but it was not the same. Not only was Harakat hidden from everybody except the members of the camp and the sheikh so her security was ensured, but Riyad did not consider her to be a point of weakness for him.

He wondered how he might feel if they were to find her.

But they'd already found her, hadn't they? That was why it was imperative to hide her from the Occupational Forces who appeared to still be hunting her. The thought sent him into another distraction filled with questions regarding the girl's identity. Where had she come from? What had she done? Why did it seem like that soldier had been afraid of her while she stood in front of him, unbothered—failing to remember her own truth?

"What are you thinking about?" Hamza asked, dropping his head back against the headrest to watch Riyad, who'd been driving in silence.

Until his friend spoke up, Riyad had failed to notice the conversational emptiness that had sat heavy between them because his thoughts had been overtaken by nobody other than the girl he'd left back in the apartment. He hummed in question when he heard the question. "Nothing," Riyad murmured, his free hand tugging at the growing hair near his left ear.

Hamza snorted. "You're sitting in this silence looking like that and you expect me to believe that your mind is completely empty, Riyad? I may be of an older generation but I am not a fool, after all," he chuckled, raising a teasing eyebrow at the younger boy sat beside him. "You're thinking of her."

"Her?" Riyad repeated.

"Your wife, the one who continues to lack a name for us to refer to her by," Hamza spoke lightly, his tone friendly. "She is the reason your brows sit so heavily above your eyes as they do now. You look quite intimidating when you are lost in thought, you know."

Riyad hummed, continuing to look forward. "Do I?"

"What are you thinking then?"

He took a deep breath, unsure whether it would be useful to share his worries with Hamza. Usually, Riyad only opened up to Kader and hardly ever to any of the other men of the camp, but he had become occupied since his marriage to the girl and Kader's schedule deviated from his. Riyad did not have to share everything, only the shallowest of his thoughts. "She's unusual, isn't she?"