After a late week of January, She was walking in the large hall wearing a purple digital printed Kurti above a blue jeans, holding Zoha's hand who was dressed in a gray sleeveless frock with a rainbow painted on its front. Both of them were wearing French braids. The house was of Peters Johnson. It was incredible. Huge and beautiful as ever. Decorated delicately with everything that could make it more idyllic. She was impressed.
Taimur Ibrahim was dressed in a white leather breeches also known as lederhosen in German, whose sleeves were rolled up and the 17 year old girl beside her was wearing a green dirndl. A close-fitting bodice featuring a low neckline. Ladies in Munich wore a blouse under the bodice, a wide high-waist skirt and an apron, just like Sophia. They looked typical Bavarians. The gentle man and the lady walked calmly among the people on the ship.
Zoha had a smile plastered on her face, but the girl holding her hand was nervous. She could feel her heartbeat. Her phone chimed. It was Taimur. She texted him back.
They were walking among the Munich people, like Munich people and everyone was so busy to pay attention to the prince and princess of the Munich.
They sat down in the lounge near the opened sliding doors leading to the lawn outside. The maid served them the juice. She took it, finally something to distract.
They were looking for a man in vest instead of local leather breeches. They wandered their eyes everywhere and finally they saw him, talking to someone else whose back was towards them. He was black.
She was looking in her eyes and proudly telling her that she loved the house. And that that this house should be hers.
They were carefully approaching towards the man in vest and black skin. A large ship behind him, ready to go.
The little girl was saying, "I don't love you because of your religion, Minha. I love you because you seem like a fighter to me."
The slow and steady steps were making them calculate everything happening in the surrounding. The crowd was getting more complicated and jammed. "Ready, princess?" he asked, nearly whispering.
"That's what my religion had made me. A fighter. I am a fighter." She said. The little kid giggled. "Of course you are, ma lady."
"Yes, Mr. Taimur. It's time we make the deal." And then they finally crossed the limitations and walked in front of the man in vest. He was distracted by the Munich as-seemed couple. He excused the man he was talking to. "How can I help you?" he said.
"That's what makes me wanna worship the religion. It does makes you seem weak in front of the people, not interested in worldly matters, but I, Zoha, want to be a part of that illusion. I want to be honest to myself and accept this destination." She clutched her fist in her other hand and said with the confidence that sparkling in her whole existence.
"What are you doing here? Is this your ship, Mister Veisse?" he said looking him in the eyes. The dress he was wearing was so that he may not gather people around. But he'd rather want the vest man to know who he was.
"I am proud of you my girl. I accept that you want to accept the religion with complete faith of never leaving it again. But, are you being honest with me? Is that really what you want? Is there everything in that core that is agreed to this new life?" Minha asked her and she dug into a thought.
"I am Lake. Lake Huntsman. And yes, this is my ship." he said without hesitation. Did he deal with people like Taimur every day? Asking him if that big ship was his?
She didn't dig that deep. She knew the answer already. An answer that was bugging her since days. Since she had met Minha. Her face fell in her lap and she started twirling her fingers. "Actually, there is one thing I think you should know." She said. Minha pulled herself together. "Yeah?"
They looked at each other. "Then, we can check the ship, right Mister Veisse?" she spoke in her calm tone. Sweat started to embed down the black man's face. "With whose authority?" he asked, trying to sound normal. But just as perfect, normal didn't exist.
Outside the lounge, in the hallway, Peters Johnson was walking excitedly to meet her daughter after so many days. On the other side, he was feeling nervous to cancel her surgery. But he wasn't alone in the house who was feeling thrilled and edgy. Mr. Ibrahim and his team was just welcomed into the Ibrahim house, telling the keepers to keep his welcome a surprise. They guard nodded and briefed from his path.
They took out their ID cards and pulled them in front of the vest man. His mouth dropped and he reconsidered the faces of the as-seemed Munich disguised couple. "Mr. Taimur! I-uh-I- um, am very sorry. Please, have a seat." The heart inside the black man was incensed to come out any second. Taimur and Sophia simpered, lifting their chin up. The vest man in front of them was scared to death. As if these two people were angels of death.
"When I was two, my mother suddenly got disappeared. Not suddenly, actually. She died." The little girl in gray frock started to say. The gray color of her life absorbed by her frock.
"Oh no, Mr. Veisse. We are here to check your ship." He said, shooting the arrow with his words into his vital brain.
"No, she didn't die. It's what everyone assumes. It was what my father made everyone assume." The little kid seemed frightened. Minha stood up and sat by her side rubbing her back. "What do you mean?"
"Your mother has sent this ship. We are ordered not to let anyone in, sir." He said with his hands wrapped around themselves. Taimur came a little more forward leaving a few inches between them. "And she pays you to sell the girls, Mr. Veisse!" his eyes red with anger and his face pale with grief. He looked like a hungry monster.
Johnson Peters was climbing down the stairs. A servant came forward fixing his tie. While Ibrahim and his team were approaching the huge lawn. Reporters and cameraman now behind him. They were all walking behind him and they could hear Minha and Zoha. Peters quickly walked to the lounge and was about to turn the knob when he heard the voice. "I saw him that night." The female voice paused, "I saw him kill my mother. They were fighting and he intruded a knife in her heart. In her black and Muslim heart."
"You live as a peaceful merchant in your village. Why are you doing this? Why are you involving yourself in a sin, you don't belong?" he was holding his collar and was talking to him inn a creepy low voice. Sophia was behind him, looking at both of them. The vest man drank the saliva. "What are you talking about, sir? I don't know about any-"he was starting to cry. They were behind a large pile of sand so no one could see them.
Minha's breathe stop breathing and her heartbeat stopped racing. Her face went white. "What are you saying, Zoha?" the name echoed in the ears of Johnson Peters and he knew the voice well. The Qureshi family. His eyes shot. The team outside the sliding doors stopped in their feet and looked at each other. One of them started recording the conversation without their leader knowing.
"Beast, your daughter is getting married to a vise man and do you want her to know that her father is involved in illegal trade for money? You jackass! How can you be the same skin the torturers have been? How can you sell the girls of the skin you belong to for money? Don't you have a heart for daughters of other people?" his teeth were gritted and he looked reckless. Sophia stepped forward.
"You told me to be honest and I can't lie about it anymore, Min. he killed my mother and faked it later. The media believe him because he is powerful. I can't defend him more. I am so done." She started to cry. Her tears dropping down in her lap like crystals of a mountain in the dawn.
"Look, we know everything. Denying it, will not help. If you do not agree with us, you are going to jail for ever with your family knowing about what you have been doing lately." She said, pulling Taimur back. The vest man was nodding his head continuously. "What do you want from me?" he asked in a cat voice. The noise and the crowd behind the slacks of sand was the same.
"I – I can't believe it. That beast has killed so many people that he should be behind the bar now." She said. "He killed my brother, he killed his friends. He killed all the people at school." She was saying and Zoha seemed to have a shocking moment. "What?" A mature question.
"You send the ship, empty. Fill in these slacks and take all the girls out. Give us the data about where these ships go." She was saying in a sharp and composed tone. "We go live now and you are going to accept the fact that you have been working with these people. They blackmailed you into doing this. Tell them that used you. Tell them that you are found by us and we are helping you get out of the crisis." She sounded like a humming bird, humming in a tune. "Understand?"
The man in the halls of the huge house was raged with a lot of emotions. Negative ones. He ran his hand inside his coat and brought out the singing pistol. Minha's voice was heard by the walls, and the ones outside the walls. "He and other people worked together. They killed them all because they were about to reveal their secret." Ibrahim's team didn't know that the other people was not anyone else but the boss in front of them. They started streaming the recording on the web.
"My family will abandon me. I did not need money. I needed to save my family. They threatened me to kill my family or sell my girls to slavery. I didn't had the courage to do that. So I took this option. There was no cop I could go to." The vest man was reasonable. "We will talk to your family and they won't make an issue. You will marry your daughter with due respect. Or else, you are destroyed." She sounded scary. Scary enough to not deliver another chance of thinking. All the thinking was done by them.
"Oh my God. We shouldn't be here, Minha. This is the house of the killer. We should go. I don't want to meet him. Let's go, please." Zoha insisted and Minha wiped the tears dripping down from her cheeks. "Okay, let's go." She agreed. She didn't want to face a killer too.
"I will do it. I will do whatever you ask me to." He said. Taimur regarded Sophia. She nodded. "Great." She said and spoke in her radio, "Set the scene." She ordered.
The door creaked open as the girls were crossing the huge fantasy lounge. Johnson Peters was standing there with a pistol in his hands. Zoha's eyes widened when Minha couldn't move. She could see that her daddy's target was the girl who had taught her to find herself. Who had taught her to live? She screamed, "NO!" louder, and the camera's started clicking behind the sliding doors as the bullet speeded towards the target.
Lake Huntsman was sitting on a wooden chair in front of the cameras going live. The crew had spaced out and was listening to the man speak. "I was very afraid. Afraid that they would harm my daughters. Afraid that they would harm my family. Afraid that they would destroy them. So I took the choice. I traded myself for my reputation." He drank the water. "They threatened to kill my family and sell my girls. They do it to every black man. They are racist. They are beasts. They are killers. They have killed a lot of people." He paused. It was definitely hard for him to admit it in front of the whole world. The truth h had been hiding from a family of 6.
Zoha screamed and pushed Minha back. But she was frozen. The bullet was approaching and Zoha's heart was in her hands. She yelled and picked up the vase form the table throwing it at Minha. Minha bounced back and fell on the ground. The bullet pierced the little girl's body and her soul. Hitting her spine. Her words bounded on her mouth and her tears locked in the eyes. Her heart oozing out the blood and her head spinning. The floor embraced her and she fell into the pull instantly blacking out. The red liquid forming a cruise around her.
"I was scared to death. That someone will find the truth and so happened. Mr. Taimur found me and-"he paused, "and convinced me to be courageous enough to admit it to the world. I can't take it anymore. I can't see more girls going into dark. I have promised to help. Stay safe, Munich." And the cameras flickering stopped. Taimur shook hands with Sophia and nodded.
The blood shot eyes of Johnson petered wobbled out when he saw his own daughter in the pool of blood. He held his head in his hands and muttered, "oh my god, Zoe." The pistol dropped on the ground and the camera stopped flickering. Ibrahim turned in his heels. The reporters kept reporting. They were sincerely not his team.
They were turning back when Taimur's phone chimed. He opened it and saw an update from the daily news reading, "The head of Aims high school has been witnessed shooting a girl which was accidently shot to his own daughter. Mr. Johnson Peters in investigation." And the picture below it displayed the blooded Zoha and wounded Minha lying on the floor. The oozed bloody picture extracted soul from Taimur's very existence. He ran. From between the crowds and camera, he ran to the hospital. The game was turned upside down and all the chessmen of the board game fell on their heading trailing the end.