Enemies in Embrace: Episode 14 – We Were Being Heard

 

"We played her message twice more that night, once for us, once for the silence, and then shut it off. Neither of us could sleep."

 

By Julia M Cross

The device felt heavier than it looked. Maybe it was just the weight of Dalia’s voice still echoing inside it. We played her message twice more that night, once for us, once for the silence, and then shut it off. Neither of us could sleep. The air in the schoolhouse suddenly felt different—less like a hiding place, more like a trap.

By morning, we had a plan.

The journalists who brought the recording were already pulling strings with a local internet café owner named Farid, who agreed to help us upload the file to a secure channel used by activist networks across the region. We were told that once the recording hit the encrypted servers, it would be impossible to erase—mirrored across countless proxies, carried on by voices we’d never meet.

But getting it there was the problem.

“There are eyes on the cafés,” the tall journalist warned. “Government informants. Military plainclothes. And worse—fanatics.”

“What about a burner router?” Yousef asked.

Farid shook his head. “Too risky. The signals can be traced within seconds. Your best chance is to do it the old way—walk in, upload fast, and vanish before the upload finishes. We’ll take care of the rest remotely.”

I looked at Yousef. “We’ll need to split up.”

He didn’t like that. I could see it in his eyes. His hand found mine under the table, fingers curling tight.

“No,” he said. “We stay together.”

“It’s the only way,” I replied. “You go with the file. I’ll take the kids and stay moving. We meet again after.”

Farid offered a meeting point—an abandoned well two kilometers outside Madaba, near a grove of pine trees. “No one goes there,” he said. “The ground is cursed, they say.”

“Good,” I muttered. “Let them believe it.”

We changed clothes. Yousef shaved his beard. I pulled a headscarf low over my forehead. The twins wore oversized jackets, their tiny hands gripping mine like anchors. We rehearsed the plan again and again until it became muscle memory.

But as Yousef stood to leave, the door creaked open.

And everything changed.

A man stepped into the schoolhouse like a shadow falling over sunlight. He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in desert camouflage pants and a plain black jacket. His hair was cut short, and a faint scar traced the edge of his jaw like a memory someone tried to forget.

Yousef froze.

“Majid,” he whispered.

I had never heard that name before.

The man smiled. Not a warm smile. Not cruel either. Just something cold. Final.

“Still running, brother?”

“I'm not your brother,” Yousef said, voice low.

Majid stepped forward, hands visible. No weapon. But his presence was a weapon of its own.

“You left without saying goodbye. I heard whispers… married a Zionist. Stole children. Hid like a rat.”

I stepped between them. “We’re not hiding.”

He looked at me like I was a puzzle missing half the pieces.

“You must be Leah,” he said. “The ghost of Tel Aviv.”

Yousef moved faster than I’d ever seen him. In one second, he was in front of me, hand clenched into a fist, ready to strike. But Majid didn’t flinch.

“You won’t win this way,” Majid said calmly. “Not with fists. Not with love letters.”

“What do you want?” Yousef asked.

“To give you a choice.”

He sat down like this was a negotiation and not an ambush.

“I work with a network now. One that doesn’t believe in speeches. We don’t post hashtags. We act. Real resistance. Real sacrifice. And we could use someone like you.”

“I’m not interested.”

Majid raised a brow. “Are you sure? Because this”—he tapped the device—“won’t change anything. It’ll get a few clicks. Maybe some sympathy. But in a week, it’ll be buried beneath a thousand louder tragedies.”

I felt something coil inside my chest, something tight and angry.

“So you’re what? A freedom fighter?” I asked. “Or just another man who confuses blood for bravery?”

Majid turned to me, his eyes empty of hate but full of certainty. “I am what your government created.”

I wanted to say more, but Yousef cut in. “Why are you really here?”

Majid leaned forward. “To offer you one mission. One chance. Join us. Record something real. Not your marriage story. Not your refugee lullabies. Show them what the occupation really looks like. From the inside.”

“What are you asking me to do?”

“Use your access. Your Israeli wife. Get into the settlements. Film their operations. Give us intel. You want peace? Help us strike where it matters. Then we’ll talk about peace.”

“You want me to use my wife?” Yousef spat.

“She’s already being used,” Majid said. “By you. By the media. At least this way, it means something.”

“Get out,” I said. My voice surprised even me.

Majid didn’t argue. He stood, brushed the dust from his coat.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said. “But I won’t stop you. When your video changes nothing, and your children ask you why their father died nameless in exile, remember I gave you a way out.”

He turned to the door.

“And Leah?”

I looked at him, jaw clenched.

“If you ever want to see who he used to be before he turned into your shadow, ask him about the checkpoint riot in 2019.”

Then he disappeared, like smoke from a cigarette nobody wanted to admit they lit.

Yousef didn’t speak. Not for a long time. He just sat there, fingers wrapped around the recorder, as if trying to crush the memory of Majid with his grip.

“What happened at that checkpoint?” I asked finally.

He didn’t look at me. “Not now.”

“We can’t have secrets, Yousef. Not anymore.”

His voice was barely a whisper. “I threw a grenade.”

The room spun.

“It didn’t explode,” he said quickly. “It was old. Faulty. I didn’t even know how to arm it properly. But they saw me. Took me in. Beat me for weeks before my uncle intervened.”

I sat beside him. “Why?”

He stared at his hands. “Because I was tired. Angry. Because everything they taught me was rage disguised as justice.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “You’re not that boy anymore.”

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“You’re the man who carried me through barbed wire. Who stayed awake during our twins’ fevers. Who asked me to marry him in a ruined village.”

His hand found mine.

We left an hour later.

I took the children. Yousef took the file.

At the internet café, he walked in with his head high. Uploaded the recording in under two minutes. When the sirens started, he didn’t run.

He waited.

Let them come.

Because this time, we weren’t running.

We were being heard.

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Tuesday at 8 PM.