Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) (54 page)

“Mazen!” My call for him was a scream, my voice hoarse and my tone speaking of undying fear. “Mazen, please, help me! MAZEN!” A new round of tears found their way out of my eyes, as I remembered myself in a situation I’d been in before that’d had me calling the same way I was now. But that was to a man who I’d loved more than the whole world, a man who never replied to me nor came to my rescue because he was already dead, and the memory hurt just as much as the reality had.

“No, stop it!” I cried out. “Stop it, stop it!” The queen was now pulling on the side of my panties, but my arms and legs didn’t stop struggling against the five women that were holding me down. I was trying my hardest to press my legs together so my panties would stay in place.

Being that nude in front of those strange women filled me with shame and embarrassment, and my tears rolled down even heavier.

When my body started to give out, and my throat hurt so bad because of all of the screaming, I knew there was no way out of this. I even started wishing that the queen would just see that I was a virgin and not put that cloth inside of me to see if I would bleed or not. I was
that
desperate, but because I’d been a fighter my whole life, I tried one more time. “Mazen, please, please, please!” I pleaded shrilly. “Mazen! Help me, Mazen, please!”

It was only when I heard his voice and saw him entering the room, followed by an out-of-breath and panting Mona, that my body stilled, and my breaths slowed down just a bit. His orders, that weren’t in a language I knew, caused the women to release my hands and legs immediately–including the queen, who let go of my underwear that she’d pulled from the side down my left thigh.

I saw his eyes which were filled with shock, disbelief and anger as they traveled from his grandmother, who was now sitting on the floor, to my shaking form on the bed, and then to his grandmother again. It only took less than a second before his decision was made to come to me first, especially after his grandmother pointed to me while telling him something, as if she was encouraging him to help me first.

His yelling didn’t stop, not even when the women hurried out of the room. I pulled my legs up to my body and curled into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest as I sat on the bed, not even finding the will to try and adjust my undies back in place.

The prince’s hands pulled his mother off of the bed by her shoulders, not forcibly, but with enough pressure to remove her from the bed, which pissed her off. She started yelling at the prince, who yelled back at her with an even louder voice that was almost deafening. I’d never seen him that mad, not even when he was hitting Jasem. His face was red, and I’d bet that was what he saw as well: red, his anger causing him to forget his promise to only speak in English in my presence.

Their foreign language was scaring me most of all, because I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I was shaking. “Mazen,” I gasped his name through trembling lips, needing him near, to get her out of here, to end all of this, to close our bedroom door and to let it all be peaceful again.

He only looked at me for a second, his hard eyes too angry to soften, before he looked at Mona, who was now trying to help the Queen Mother into her wheelchair again, but failing. He told her to do something that made her leave the room, and the queen started yelling again–but now in shock more than anger.

The prince ignored her and bent down to pick up the lavender sheets that were on the floor. He put them over my body and even wrapped me with them, securing the sheets around me up to my chin. His eyes didn’t meet mine, but his scent was able to calm me just the slightest.

I saw four women entering the room, covered all in black, and the green badges on their right arms told me they were female guards. The prince ordered them to do something that had the queen putting her hands on her hips in challenge. When the guards looked at each other and didn’t move, he yelled at them. Two of them moved right away, and started taking the queen outside, guiding her with their hands, moving her as she yelled and constantly shouted at them like a mad woman.

The two other guards helped the Queen Mother get back into the wheelchair while Mona held the chair still. When she was seated, she gave me a sympathetic look with tears still wetting her face, before she said something to the prince, who was standing tall with his hands folded behind his back. He nodded without saying anything, then Mona wheeled her out of the room and closed the door behind her, her cheek swelling and her eyes crying with silent tears.

The door closed, then so did the distance between Mazen and me. He took me into his arms, hugged me tight, and I cried, only for him to hug me tighter. He rocked us gently, holding me as if I was going to disappear into thin air. He kissed my hair repeatedly, and I managed to get my hand out of the sheets to clutch at his clothes, pulling him even closer to me.

He didn’t speak at all. He didn’t say a word, letting his arms and his heart do all of the talking for a while. My gasps quieted, but my tears never dried. Once I was able to breathe evenly again, I found myself saying, “Sh–she wanted to…” It was all I said before I started crying the ugly sobs again, realizing that this was why Mazen hadn’t said anything and had let me be.

He hugged me even tighter, soothing me with quiet whispers, leaving tender kisses on my forehead, and sweet calmness infusing my heart.

My lips were swelling and my nose was tingling from so much crying, my throat hurt from all of the screaming, and my body was so tired, heavy and aching from all of the struggling. Just the thought of what could’ve happened put my mind into a horrible frenzy.

After what felt like hours, my tears were nothing but slow, lonely ones, few and far between. I was still in his arms, still clutching his clothes over his chest with a death grip, still wanting his closeness like never before.

“I was so scared,” I whispered, then pressed my lips together to muffle the cries that were threatening to come out of them.

“I know,” Mazen breathed. I could sense how he was boiling on the inside just from his tone; his control over his feelings still amazed me beyond words. “She has always respected the rules and the law, and she will be punished for her actions, because she had broken those rules and laws,” he added hardheartedly.

I looked up at him in disbelief, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought that the glistening in his eyes was unshed tears. “Punished? The queen?”

“Shhh, don’t think about anything right now, Princess,” he whispered, kissing my forehead.

“I thought that… Oh, God!” I started crying all over again, but this time I went hysterical just thinking of all of the possibilities and all of the
‘what ifs.’
Mazen tried his best, pulling my hand away from his clothes and putting it over my chest, over my cross, giving me any and every way he knew would help calm me down.

“It’s okay, Princess, it’s okay,” Mazen shushed me. “You’re okay now. I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe. Always.”

I held my cross, but with the same hand, I clutched his clothes again. I was simply not capable of letting him go, not even an inch. Mazen started whispering things in my ear, soft words that I think rhymed with each other but wasn’t really sure, as they were in Arabic. It reminded me of the words the Queen Mother had whispered while moving her hand over my hair the first time I met her: the words that Mazen had explained to be from their holy book, verses that were meant to protect me from the evil eye. And I hoped those words that Mazen were whispering were meant to protect me from evil hands–if any.

My cries started to settle down again, as I listened to him while he whispered the quiet words in my ear, and with my cross in my hand I started whispering my own prayer,
‘Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake. I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take; And this I ask for Jesus’ sake.’

My head was heavy and when I felt sleepiness start to approach, I welcomed it with open arms. What felt like a short time later, I sensed Mazen pulling away. My head was no longer on his chest but on a pillow, though I still had the front of his
thawb
fisted in my hand. Without opening my eyes, I pulled him to me again, refusing to let him leave the bed, refusing to let him leave me. I only drifted back to sleep when he held me to him again and I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

I woke up, startled at the sound of glass breaking, sitting up on the bed and searching the dimly lit room with my eyes for the source of the sound, only to find Mona by my side right away. Before she could say anything, I asked her, “Where’s Mazen?”

Before she could reply, I heard more glasses being smashed, and then heard Mazen as he yelled in agony. It sounded as if he was being tortured and the sound just broke me.

“Oh, my God! What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?” I was about to get out of bed when Mona stopped me.

“Let him be,
Benty
, he needs this,” she spoke quietly, her cheeks bearing the signs of abuse and the tears of a broken heart.

“Needs what?” I asked with wide eyes, my throat aching and my heart thumping in my chest. I listened to more glass crashing and more shrieking that wasn’t even words, but more like howls of pain and hurt.

“To let his anger out, he’s seriously livid,” she said, and my shoulders hunched–understanding, but not knowing what to do and hating to hear how hurt and angry he was.

Mona poured a cup of something that looked like green tea from a pot that was on the nightstand beside me, then handed it to me. “Please drink this, Princess.”

“What is it?”

“Just something to help you relax: herbs, some chamomile and peppermint,” she said. I seriously needed something to ease the throbbing in my throat, so I took it without argument. All I could say about it was that it was warm. I didn’t know what it tasted like, or if it was bitter or sweet, because my heart and my thoughts and all of my senses were with the breaking glass that we could hear every once in a while, and the shouted pain that made feel like someone was stabbing my chest.

I listened to Mona and let him be, even if everything in me told me to go to him and hug him tightly, to lose myself in his arms, because God knows how much I needed it. After a while, I drifted back to sleep again, not knowing if it was the herbs or just my body being too exhausted to stay awake.

The next time when I woke up, the room was pitch black, the only light coming from a small lamp in the corner of the room, right above where the prince sat, taking a position that looked all too similar to the pose he’d taken on the wedding night: head buried between his hands and shoulders hunched down, all miserable and depressed.

“Mazen?”

At the sound of my voice, he looked at me, then stood up and lit up the room, making his way to the bed as my eyes adjusted to the light.

“Hey,” he smiled softly, the smile not even close to reaching his eyes, telling me that he only drew it on his lips for my sake. He bent down and kissed my head. “How do you feel?”

“I’m okay,” I said, because he was close; of course I’d be okay as long as he stayed near. “Did you change?” I asked. His
thawb
was a bit different, and there were no traces of any wrinkles where I had fisted it for hours earlier. I wondered why he was all dressed up like that, unless he was…going out.
Again?