Angel's Revenge (27 page)

Roc had to die, and she would kill him. But it wouldn’t be out of hate.

Angel hit the Trenton exit off the turnpike and drove through the city looking for the Muslim girls’ school on East State
Street. She remembered Roc telling her about it in his prison letters and how good he felt at the accomplishment.

The school wasn’t difficult to find. The small brick building was on a corner, a playground and a parking lot in the back.
At nine on a Saturday morning, only a few girls were in school for special Qur’an and Arabic lessons.

Angel had planned on attacking Ayesha first, but Roc covered his tracks well and protected her whereabouts. Even when she
ran the plates of his car, her connect said the address was 25 Branford Place, the masjid in Newark. Angel settled on the
next best thing.

His cause.

She knew how to get at Roc from the start but held her trump card, hoping she would never have to use it. When he made the
fatal mistake of trying to kill her, she put it in play. The move was like everything else was to her. Business. Nothing personal.

Angel got out of the rental, threw on dark-tinted shades, and looked around. The area was quiet and peaceful. She adjusted
her sling, which held a concealed revolver, and approached the school.

“Okay, Rasheeda. I want you to draw me alif,” the female teacher instructed. She wore an orange kemar and white niqab. On
the floor around her were nine young girls between the ages of eight and ten, struggling to learn their religion.

Rasheeda, tall for her age, approached the board and took the chalk from the teacher. She drew a straight line that resembled
the letter L.

“Very good, Rasheeda. Class, this is an alif. Say it with me. Al-lif.”

“Al-lif,” the class repeated.

“Alif is like the letter A in English. Can anyone tell me a word that starts with the letter A?” the teacher asked.

“Allah,” one girl said.

“Asad, which means lion,” another suggested.

“Angel.”

The teacher looked up to find a strange woman in an obvious wig, with a large golden dragon dangling from her neck, leaning
with her arm in a sling on the inside of the door frame. She knew she wasn’t one of the girls’ mothers.

“Can I help you?” the teacher asked.

“I was wondering if I could speak with you for a moment,” Angel requested politely.

The teacher looked at Angel then at all nine little faces.

“All… all right. Class, keep studying your lesson book.”

The teacher walked over to Angel. “How may I help you?” she politely offered, trying to mask nervousness behind hospitality.

“Please, don’t be nervous. I just need to meet someone here, and I need you to wait with me until he arrives,” Angel said
softly.

“I… I don’t under…”

Angel slid the pistol out of the sling. The teacher gasped with fright. “Please don’t…”

“Shh…” Angel quietly silenced her. “Don’t alarm the girls. I won’t hurt you as long as you cooperate. If you don’t, I will
kill everyone here.”

The statement was simple yet so menacing that the teacher knew the woman meant business. Her eyes glazed over with tears as
she contemplated the safety of the children.

“I’ll… I’ll do whatever you ask. Just don’t…”

“Hurt the children?” Angel finished her plea. “We already discussed that.” Angel pulled out her cell phone and handed the
teacher the phone.

“Dial this number.”

Rahman closed his cell phone. He did it without emotion, without words, and without choice. He had no choices because Angel
had left him none. He listened to the Muslim sister’s trembling voice.

“Brother, Angel is here,” the teacher said as tears streamed down her cheek. She finished reading the note Angel had passed
her. “She has a gun and there are nine little girls here.”

Then Angel got on the line and finished. “I know you won’t call the police, but if you’ve changed that much, you know the
consequences. Come alone and unarmed, one hour, your life for theirs. A minute late, start subtracting from nine. You bring
a gun, I’ll kill them with it.”

Click.

Rahman resigned himself to his fate. The game was over and Angel had won.

You can’t win, Roc,
he remembered her saying, but he had brushed it off as an empty threat.

You missed, but I won’t, nigga
, she had promised that day on the train platform.

Angel had laid at his feet his entire cause, represented by nine little Muslim girls, the ultimate sacrifice.

Your life for theirs.

Anyone could live for the cause, kill for the cause, even die for the cause in the heat of battle. But to be asked to trade
your life for another’s when you could sit safely at home was what separated the faithful from the false.

Do you think that you will be left alone, saying you believe, and not be tested?

Rahman recited the Qur’anic verse over and over again in his mind. There was nothing he would not do for a cause that involved
Islam. Nothing.

Your life for theirs.

Rahman didn’t hesitate. He had to do what he had to do. Only one obstacle remained. His family.

Rahman grimaced over what he had to say to Ayesha. Could he just kiss her and walk out, leaving her with the impression that
he’d be back, and then go to Angel, never to return?

It would be a lie, and their relationship had never been based on lies. Of all the blood he had shed, lives he had ruined,
and money he had made, he never lied to Ayesha about anything. She had stayed with him through thick and thin, through his
wickedness, his incarceration, and his rebirth, each time sacrificing a part of herself to accommodate his intentions. All
she ever asked in return was his love and support. All she wanted was for him to be a good father to their three children.
She would sacrifice for her family. She already had.

Didn’t Ayesha and his children deserve his presence? Hadn’t he put them through enough? How could he leave his children fatherless,
taking life from them to give to nine more? What if he didn’t go?

He shook off the cowardly thought because he realized he had created the situation. If he didn’t go, blood would surely be
on his hands.

He had no choice.

Rahman rose from his stupor and went into the bathroom to make wudu for prayer, his last prayer. He unfolded his prayer rug
and stood before his Lord to offer the two ra’kahs of prayer Muslims do before imminent death.

He bowed and fell on his face. As he prayed, tears lined his face and wet his beard. He cried not out of fear of death but
because he had failed.

As he prayed, Ayesha came to ask him to go to the store to get some milk. She found him in prayer, sobbing hard, and it made
her want to go to him and embrace him. Instead, she waited by the door until he was finished.

“Baby, are you okay?” she asked.

He couldn’t even look her in the face. She approached him and touched his shoulder.

“We’re out of milk. I wanted you to go to the store for me,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

Rahman wrapped his arms around her waist and cried against her stomach. The force of his tears ran down Ayesha’s cheeks and
they cried as one even though she didn’t know what she was crying about. She held her husband’s head nervously. She had never
seen him cry like this before and couldn’t imagine what had caused him to be so emotional.

Rahman rose to his full height and continued to hold Ayesha tightly. Finally, he said, “I… have to go.”

The way he said “go” she knew it wasn’t the type of go she had heard before. It made her search his eyes frantically for answers.

“Rahman, what do you mean ‘go’? Go where? Where do you have to go?”

“Ayesha, something has happened that… that I can’t stop and I can’t let it go on either,” he said, trying to explain rationally
what her emotions would never allow her to understand.

“No! No, Rahman! Wherever it is, whatever it is, no! You can’t go!” she said, trembling, fearing the worse.

“Ayesha…”

“Then I’m going, too! If you go, I’m going, and the children are going. We’re all going, Rahman.”

Ayesha was hysterical. Her instincts told her that something terrible was threatening to rip their lives apart.

He grabbed her arms with force and shook her, hoping to make her understand.

“Nine little girls, Ayesha. Nine little girls are going to die unless I do! If I don’t go, they die! Do you understand? I
have to go!”

Ayesha would hear none of it. She wrapped her arms around his neck like a vise.

“You promised me, Rahman! You promised me you wouldn’t leave me! What about that? You can’t leave me now, leave us,” Ayesha
pleaded selfishly.

“Ayesha, please. There’s nothing I can do. Please. Don’t make it harder for me. Don’t let the kids hear us,” he pleaded softly,
but Ayesha was in hysteria’s grip.

“No! They will hear if that’ll keep you here! Ali! Aminah! Anisa!” she yelled, tearing herself from Rahman’s arms and running
into the living room.

“Ayesha!”

Rahman followed her into the living room.

“Go to your father! Go to Abu and tell him not to go! Tell him not to leave us!” Ayesha cried from the depths of her soul.

The children understood nothing but their mother’s tears. They ran and wrapped their little bodies around Rahman’s legs and
each other.

“Abu? Where are you going? Don’t go. Please!”

“Abu, don’t leave us!”

“Daddy!”

The chorus of young pleas tore Rahman in two pieces, father and man.

“Tell them, Rahman. Tell them! You tell them where you’re going!” Ayesha screamed. She fell to her knees, pleading and praying.
“Nine little girls… but what about your own three? You can die for strangers but you can’t live for your own family?”

Rahman knew if he didn’t pull himself away he’d never leave. He hugged and kissed his begging, wet-faced babies and embraced
his wife for the last time.

“How could you do this to me, Rahman? How?” she repeatedly asked as he rocked her in his arms.

“I’ll meet you in Paradise. Insha Allah,” he said before pulling away, leaving his children wrapped in their mother’s arms,
not knowing why their daddy was leaving.

Rahman looked at them once more and said a silent prayer for their protection. Then he was gone.

Nina pulled up to her house and climbed out of the car. It was still morning but the sun was already scorching.

She looked at the For Sale sign on her lawn. This was the first home she had ever purchased and she couldn’t believe she was
selling it. She never thought she’d move. She never thought this wouldn’t be home. Luckily, the market was strong with the
low interest rates and the house had sold within ninety days after being placed on the market.

“Really good, Nina. Really good. And we got our asking price. What more could you ask for?” asked her real estate lawyer with
papers in hand for her to sign so he could close the deal.

She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, looking at her house one last time, hoping she was doing the right thing. It felt like
the right thing. The burden on her already felt lighter. She ascended the porch and had already taken out her keys when she
noticed that the door was open a crack. Her heart skipped a beat thinking that there was a burglar or an intruder inside.

Maybe it was Dwight. But he had left his key the night they broke up.

Maybe she had left the door ajar. She had become absentminded lately. Just the other day she left a cup of mocha on her car
roof only to have the hot liquid spill all over her windshield when she backed out of Dunkin’ Donuts.

Nina gingerly pushed the door wider and yelled, “Hello?”

She got no response.

Nina peered into her house, afraid to go in, not knowing what could be waiting for her. When she reached for the knob to close
the door and call the police, she saw a rose petal on the foyer floor.

It was blood-red and unmistakable, just inches from her Nike sneaker. It was too fresh to have been there long, and she couldn’t
remember the last time she had flowers in her house. She opened the door a little wider. Her heartbeat accelerated when she
saw another rose petal and another and another.

Nina was frightened. She felt in her heart that Dwight hadn’t left the trail of rose petals. Only one man would leave such
a subtle and alluring message. Only one man, and that’s what petrified her and excited her all at the same time. The trail
of rose petals became one long rainbow, the rainbow Susan said to believe in, the one with the pot of gold at the end. Nina’s
first step confirmed her belief and each shaky step after urged her to run in the other direction.

He’s toying with you.

Run.

She reached the steps.

All he’s ever brought you is pain.

Run.

She reached the landing where the steps turned and climbed to the second floor.

He left you when you loved him most.

Run.

He lied to you. He’s here.

Nina reached the second floor and the rose petals continued to her bedroom door.

Run.

She saw the sun shining on her pillow through the slightly open door. Her knees trembled, her stomach fluttered, and her lips
quivered in anticipation.

She wanted to call out his name but couldn’t will her voice to work. The sunlight took on a surreal aura inside her room.
She approached the door and stared at the knob.

Run.

But she didn’t run, she couldn’t run. The mystery of what awaited her magnetized her. She pushed the door open slowly and
what she found stopped her breath.

•   •   •

“Hello, Rahman,” Angel said as he stepped into the classroom.

Angel sat on the floor with her legs folded under her and was reading a book to the nine little girls circled around her.
Her gun rested on the floor between her legs.

The teacher remained in Angel’s line of vision but was not part of Angel’s little circle. The girls looked around and saw
Rahman.