“Don’t touch her!” Shahib yelled.
“Or what? What you gonna do, you sand nigga bitch!” Devon retorted.
Devon was ready to cut off the wife’s finger, but The Kid intervened, saying, “No, not her. Do him.”
“What? You sure?”
“Yeah, do the husband. In their culture he has more worth. Do him.”
“A’ight.” Devon shifted in the direction of the husband.
Papa John held Shahib down and outstretched his arm. Shahib tried to oppose, but Papa John was stronger. He nearly broke Shahib’s arm pinning him down.
The Kid put his gun to Shahib’s head. “Your finger or your brains…pick one, nigga.”
Shahib grimaced and relented. His right hand stretched out and his fingers spread. Devon crouched with the knife in his hand and chose the index finger to sever.
“Please, do not do this to my husband,” Asma cried out. “Allah will punish you . . . just let him go.”
“Asma, it will be okay. Turn away,” Shahib said.
She refused to turn away from his pain. Her eyes leaked tears. She stuck her eyes on her husband, looking on in anguish as Devon readied himself to cut off the finger.
“Bitch, your turn will come too,?
? Devon expressed to her before he did his cutting.
He placed the sharp knife against Shahib index finger. Shahib didn’t budge. He didn’t close his eyes either. He was ready for the physical attack to his body.
Devon smirked and thrust the blade against the finger, simply severing it in half. Blood spilled against the concrete. Shahib didn’t cringe, nor, did he holler from pain. He barely made a sound. It was like he was a machine.
Devon picked up the finger and looked at it like it was trophy. “I still think we should take the entire hand.”
Asma cringed and hollered. The tears drained from her eyes and she screamed out, “You monsters!”
Hearing her call them monsters, Devon stood up and marched her way. “You call us monsters, when your people bomb buildings and kill hundreds of innocent people!”
Asma scowled as Devon towered over her ominously. She breathed with contempt inside her body—her chest heaving in and out with absolute rage for all of them.
Devon continued with, “You want me to show you a fuckin’ monster? I’ll show you the monster inside of me.” He kicked Asma in her stomach, and she hollered and folded from the blow.
Shahib shouted, “Don’t you touch her!”
“Or what, muthafucka? Huh? What the fuck you gonna do?” Devon mocked.
Shahib lay powerless, his hand disfigured, and his rage to attack curbed by sheer disadvantage. He looked fiercely at Devon crowding his wife. Devon looked back, and his eyes displayed something tremendously menacing that made Shahib tremble with worry. The look was obvious.
“Yeah, I see the way this bitch been lookin’ at me,” Devon said chillingly. “Like I ain’t shit!”
“Leave her!” Shahib cried out.
Devon kicked his wife in the stomach again, and she coughed and winced from the blow. Devon repeatedly struck her and said, “You wanna see a monster, bitch? I’ll show you one.”
She desperately tried to fight back, but he was too strong—and too possessed. He punched her in the face, bloodying her lip, and then wrapped his hands around her slim neck and squeezed.
“No! No!” she hollered, straining to breathe.
The Kid and Papa John stood in silence and watched Devon attack the wife. There would be no stopping him. He wrestled with her and tore her hijab, and her face became more visible. She tried to kick and scratch frantically to prevent herself from getting murdered. Devon was impervious to her aggression. His hands were still around her neck, but they changed to become wrapped around her pretty face, gripping tightly. Smothering her nose and mouth with his dirty palm, he quickly bashed her head backwards onto the concrete. The blow put her in a minor daze, and Devon continued on with his onslaught. He banged the back of her head against the concrete again, and blood ran from the back of her head and onto the ground.