Some distance away, in one of those places where people who needed to disappear disappeared in, a Pakistani man tucked his cellphone back in the pocket of his coat. It was a big, wool-lined thing, something bought on the cheap and worth a lot more than the money paid for it.
He focused his attention on the young woman in the makeshift cell. The tattoos were quite garish, as were the piercings, and the hair, and the gore splatters from her fellows didn’t do much either. She was shouting all manner of vile things at him, screeching about how she’d paint the Prophet in shit and menstrual blood all over the kaaba.
He would have loved to make her suffer for that. The young man with boiling blood shook the cage his older self had built around it, screaming to make himself heard over her blasphemies. Drop the act, just kill her. She’s nothing. Less than human. The lowest of infidels. Let the worms eat her and her soul rot in fire for eternity. You’d be justified, completely justified. The ritual just holds back the real justice…
As he did many times before, Salah reminded the young man with the boiling blood what that hate had gotten him before. The young man resisted, and he fought a lot harder than Salah could. He dug through the bag on the ground, looking for an excuse to busy his hands. As he always did, with each time the young man shook his cage, he thought it best to use the weapons of an old man: A calm tone and a quick tongue.
He stood up. In one hand, he held a slim tome bound in black, opened to a pre-marked page. In his other hand was a pistol.
“As is customary, you may take this moment to make a final atonement. If you wish to make a plea for forgiveness, please do so.”
The woman spat in his face.
“Very well. In the sight of God all-mighty and all-merciful, I find you guilty in the deaths of fifteen individuals and the .”
