Gaping at her, I had a hard time processing what she just said.
“Can you?” she prompted.
As the whining engine sounds grew louder, I shook my head and massaged my temples with my thumbs. “Yes, sure. I can do that. What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I will hide. Just walk.”
With my heart beating hard against my chest, I pushed myself to act just the way she had asked. I wasn’t even sure if the tanks were sent to capture us, but I felt safer without any one of them around me because if the tanks were here solely for the freedom-pursuers, I should be able to walk away without troubles, and this thought alone bolstered up my bruised confidence.
So I walked. I tiptoed with a casual pace, trying my best to imitate the local’s gait in an inept way, and never looked back. Then as the first few tanks finished climbing up the steep road and moved in our direction, I saw two fully armed soldiers climbing out from the hatch on the turret of the leading tank, which was slowing down. And I went on walking calmly even when they were then sprinting toward Frederick and Ciara intimidatingly, which in some ways resembled the officers’ chasing behind the headband man at the airport. And I continued to walk even when they punched him right in his face twice without saying anything beforehand and dragged him all the way back to their tank by gripping his frivolous hair with one hand. I walked even when I saw Ciara attempted to stop them but was kicked and shoved to the ground thrice, contusing her limbs. I walked even when I saw Ciara struggled to get up but still somehow managed to limp forward lamely and stand defiantly right in front of the tank after they had shut the hatch close, literally blocking its way with human flesh, with her arms stretched outward firmly and her chin jutted out with determination, glaring at the view point of the tank, her shoulder length hair tangled beyond repair but was dancing in the wind, setting her feet parallel to her shoulders.
Never before had I witnessed such a grand exhibition of heroic valor, which looked like a fine reproduction of the scene captured in the framed photo at my home and nothing else. But of course, witnessing it in real person was so much different from just looking at a photo. And she looked so entrancing that I just couldn’t take my eyes off her, not until the effect of mesmerization dwindled after some moments, nor before I gathered my mind and resumed walking.
But soon as it occurred to me that it wouldn’t end well for her, I decided to shield my eyes with my hands because the trepidation about what was going to happen had easily preponderated over the perturbation brought by the darkness of shielding my eyes. Then I prayed for God’s mercy when the rolling engine sounds were petering out, though I knew it was just a matter of time before they would reignite the engines. I was right. Shortly after taking a couple steps forward, vrooming sounds reverberated across the gloaming sky again. I bet Ciara was still standing at the same place, but I didn’t have the courage to confirm, or I just didn’t want to confirm at all, I am not sure.
And as the track of the leading tank happened to pulverize a pebble while moving, making a muted exploding sound that stuck out from the whining rumble, I urged my legs to go faster so as to avoid hearing the most stomach-churning thing that was just around the corner, I supposed so, possible. But I was too late.
An extremely repulsive prolonged bang, which sounded like what you would hear while violently flattening and grinding minced meat into dust-like smaller pieces with a super hefty steel rod that could only be wielded by the God himself and was like a dozen of gigantic bulls was stamping on that same crushed minced meat incessantly at that same time, waltzed into my ears. And it gave me goose pimples that I felt like I could never get rid of. Then, after a vain attempt to cover my ears with my hands to mitigate the overwhelming impact on me, I rocked backward and forward and inevitably ended up retching up a stream of vomit at the roadside when I reached out fumbling around for something that could support my weight.
The traumatizing upheaval of emotions significantly disrupted my rhythm of breathing. And I was completely transfixed and was unaware of the surroundings when I was disgorging, mostly mixture of stomach acid and thread of saliva. After unwittingly emptying my entire stomach, I staggered forward like a drunken man, with my upper torso inclining forward, as though I were depressed and somewhat suicidal. My head was empty, my soul as well; they were well drained.
Then I wondered if God would spare a minute to save someone as contemptible as me like someone had once told me he would, and I pleaded him I would be genuinely glad to be a believer if he showed up. But I bet handling other matters had already occupied every white spaces on his schedule and that’s why there was no faith in me. So I thought I was asking too much. Seeking solace was too much, or I simply didn’t deserve it. So, dropped my knees to the ground and sat back on my heels, I instead prayed for his mercy to undo what had happened, with my fingers interlocked and my head craned skyward, soliloquizing aloud, until someone shoved me to the ground from behind angrily, almost breaking my nose, tiny shards of rock on the street scraping my forehead.
I was resentful. No one should interrupt my praying, especially when my faith in the prayer was about to be heard. And I got to my feet quickly and spun around like I was trying to lash out when a stream of fresh blood was trickling down on my face.
“Are you out of your mind!?” I barked before I was able to identify who it was.
Kriss seemed startled; my fury outweighed hers, I thought. “What!? Didn’t I tell you to remain a low profile?”
“You did! But where were you when… they… when they…” I stuttered.
“What?” she said. “I was hiding in an alley behind House Heaven. I can’t let them see my face.”
“Hiding? They took him away! God knows what will happen to him now. And she—” I choked back a wave of nausea.
I tried to continue, but every time when I was ready to emit a syllable, the same queasy feeling would catch me.
And she had blinked twice rapidly like she didn’t know what I was talking about before she blurted out. “She? Ciara? Where is she? And Frederick? What happened to them? Where are they? Huh?”
Informing others about this tragedy was the hardest part as there was a warm and sticky feeling that clogged up my air passageway bubbling up from my chest through my throat to my eyes, thwarting me from uttering a word.
“They were… She was…”
“What!? Say it clearly! You are stuttering!” Kriss prompted and strode toward me, shortening the distance between us to a point that I could feel the warmth exuding from her body.
“They took him.” I finally managed to let out a terse sentence.
“What do you mean they took him!? What happened!?” she asked, her eyes started out of her skull.
“They took him! They punched him and dragged him all the way back to their tank! And – and she, Ciara dashed out and tried to stop the tanks from going, standing right in front of the muzzle of the barrel! And—”
“And what!? What happened to her?”
But I then burst into tears spontaneously when I found them suddenly prickling my eyes. And I covered my face with my hands and knelt down before her like I was sinful.
“Sorry. I am sorry. I am so sorry,” I wept repeatedly.
She then had remained silent for quite a while that seemed ages, probably imagining what could’ve happened that made me feel so guilty, before I heard her stomping away swiftly, and I reckoned that she might have guessed what had happened by the time she acted, though I have never directly confirmed this with her even we are getting married now. I guess we just don’t think it’s necessary to bring it up. That being said, I think we have once hinted at this tragedy when we were talking about Ciara by the pond side, and I can still remember that amazed look on Kaylen – he seemed to be amazed by the fact that Ciara has become The Tank Woman now – when he finally realized what we were alluding to.