I'm being taken to a fucking Kabul prison!
Sure enough, she was dragged into the prison building. Right past the door, armed guards stood to the right. To the left, female ones. The policewomen shoved her to the female guards, starting another torrent of Dari. One of the guards pulled on her upper arm, leading her into a cramped corridor on the other side. Out of the corner of her eye, Anika saw the cells were all in a single row, each holding several women sleeping on the floor. They arrived to an empty cell, the last in the row. The guard shoved her in, then locked the barred gate. The sound of her footsteps echoed down the hallway as Anika stood there, motionless, white-knuckled grip on the metal bars of the gate.
She felt her throat constrict and her eyes well up with tears. Alone, inside a Kabul prison, with no way to contact anyone, no cell phone, no passport. She slowly slid to the concrete floor. She raised her fingers to her aching lower lip; it pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. Gently prodding the place where it had split from the force of the blow, she came away with blood on her fingertips. She knew her entire lower lip was swollen.
She curled up on the floor and, gratefully soaking up the cold radiating from the concrete, closed her eyes. She felt herself floating on the edge between sleep and wakefulness; she badly wanted to let go and drift off into sleep, but didn't dare to.
Voices jerked her from this half-sleep. She tried to sit up, but fell back immediately, the world swimming around before her eyes. She shut her eyes and tried to force back the tide of nausea. When she opened them, three silhouettes were approaching down the hallway. Someone flicked a light on and Anika's squinting eyes made out the shapes of two policewomen and a tall, large man that followed. Doctor Rashidi.
Anika painfully sat up, but was instantly forced to lean on the wall for support, darkness threatening to swallow her vision again. Her mouth was dry and her lower lip was numb except for the painful pulsing. She knew dehydration and exhaustion were making her faint, but she refused to allow Rashidi to see her so powerless. Gathering up the last of her strength, she pushed off from the wall and stood.
Wordlessly, Dr. Rashidi entered the cell, lifted Anika's scarf from the floor, then nodded toward the exit. Unsure and weak-kneed, Anika slowly followed. He paused in the hallway, clearly impatient, but it was all she could do to drag one foot after the other even though she felt her strength slowly returning. Rashidi walked back, grabbed her forearm and roughly dragged her after him. A cool night breeze swept over her in the courtyard; never before had she enjoyed this much the sweetness of the fresh air that filled her lungs. He led her to the big black jeep parked in front of the station. She saw the national crest of Afghanistan on the doors. He held the back door open for her, the slammed it when she got in.
Oh, fuck; if he was angry earlier, how am I going to survive this fury? Just keep quiet.
“Where's your cell phone,” he demanded angrily as soon as he had gotten next to her in the back seat and signaled the driver to leave.
“In my bag.”
The left eyebrow arched questioningly. “And where's your bag?”
“I have no idea. At the Wazeer Akbar Khan intersection, where I was assaulted by three policemen, maybe.” She knew how stupid it sounded, but couldn't think of anything else to say.
***
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