Elijah continued as if he hadn’t even heard Paris’s threatening rant. “If you want to see Sasha alive again, then I say make the exchange.” A solemn look passed across Elijah’s face, and I swear I saw something like regret in his expression. “Because if we don’t get Sasha away from X, I’m afraid he’s going to do the unthinkable.”
“You’re afraid?” Vegas asked the question that was surely roaming through everyone’s mind. Why did he care whether Sasha was killed? He seemed sincere, but then again, why would he want to help set free the very person he was holding captive? This had to be a trick.
“Why him and not me?” Junior snapped, pushing his way in front of Elijah. “I’m the one he should want. I’m the one with Sonya.”
“If it was up to me, you’d be the one I chose, adulterer, but it’s not my choice. I’m just a messenger, and Xavier wants Vegas.”
“Vegas ain’t going nowhere, so whatever you and your boss are up to, forget it,” Paris said as if she were the one making the final decision. “You come here acting like you ain’t got nothing to do with it. Why should we even trust you?”
Elijah cleared his throat. “Do you have a Quran?”
“What the—?” Orlando asked.
Elijah turned to Vegas. “Do you have a Quran?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” Vegas said. “Upstairs. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ll put my hand on the Holy Quran,” Elijah said. He looked directly into the eyes of each of us before he announced, “I may be a killer, but I don’t harm women—and I’m not a liar.”
We all looked around, silently questioning each other about how we should respond. I don’t know what it was about this guy, but something told me that he might be telling the truth.
Sasha
48
Two guards on either side lowered me, blindfolded, from the van and brought me into a building. Immediately I noticed that the temperature was much colder than the last place. They led me through the building, down some stairs, and then I heard a door opening. One of the guards pushed me inside a room and then ripped the black sack off of my head. The other guard left.
Nobody was saying anything, but I could tell something was going down. I hadn’t seen or heard from Elijah since our conversation about H.E.A.T., and the few times I’d seen X, he looked tired and stressed. The fact that he hadn’t killed me told a story of its own. My hopes were that my family was putting pressure on them from all directions.
The guard who stayed with me crossed to the center of the room, where he sat me down in a chair.
“Where is Elijah?” I asked. It sounds strange, but I was missing him. I felt like he had made it his job to take care of me, and if I had to be held captive, at least that had been some small comfort.
This guy looked right through me as if I hadn’t spoken a word. Of course, being a woman I should have expected that. These Black Muslims weren’t exactly known for their progressive ideas about women. Maybe that was why I was feeling a closeness to Elijah. He at least spoke to me like he thought I had a brain. The rest of them treated me like less than a second-class citizen.
“Hey, I’m talking to you. Where are we, and why did you bring me here?” Again he ignored me. “Tell me!” I screamed at him. He responded by walking out the door, leaving me alone.
I wanted to kick myself for actually admiring his rock-hard ass as he left. My body parts might be female, but my insatiable sexual appetite was all male. Even in this fucked-up situation, I couldn’t help but think about sex. Still, I thought, those fantasies were the only thing keeping me sane as I waited for the Duncans to get their asses in gear and free me.
“Miss me?” The door opened and there stood Brother X, smiling like a freak in heat. Now, that was a damn good way to get me to stop thinking about sex.