The Voting Machine

A Web of Scars

We got her to the hospital, where the doctors took her into ER. After taking measures to stop the surface bleeding, they ran tests for internal hemorrhaging and swelling.

Ravi and I waited outside while they ran CT scans to get a 3-D image of her brain. After that, she was taken to the intensive care unit. Annabelle joined us at the hospital later that night, having received a call from me and driven straight up from Victorville. I also left a message with her father, who was coming back from Reno.

The doctors finally returned with an update. The CT scans showed no signs of internal brain damage. Fatima was conscious now and she was able to respond to questions testing her memory and math skills. She had a serious concussion but was spared the worst possible outcome. She'd been very lucky.

Fatima was asleep when Abdul and her mother arrived at the hospital. He was furious about everything that happened. And he directed his anger at Annabelle and me.

"I trusted you both. I told you to keep my family and my business out of this mess."

"Mr. Shahabi, we didn't ask your daughter to do this," Annabelle said.

He ignored her, addressing me instead.

"You should have stopped this. My daughter is still a child. She didn't understand what she was getting into. I told you this is a nightmare! People struggle and suffer and it only leads to disappointment."

"That's not true," Annabelle said.

"What do you know?" he shouted at her. "You've never suffered the consequences." Abdul raised his shirt, revealing a web of scars across his stomach.

"This is what they did to me back in Egypt for getting into politics when I was her age. Now she will have a mark just like me. A good father protects his children, so they don't make the same mistakes that he did. I am not a good father."

Abdul told us to leave the hospital immediately. We didn't argue with him.

The following day, the attack on Dollar Delight was all over the news. Fatima's iPhone video of the attack spread across the Internet like wildfire. It made her attackers infamous, offering evidence that was impossible to ignore.

The next day, Clark County police arrested four members of the Midnight Riders caught on tape and impounded their black pickup truck. The young men all had misdemeanors on their records and ties to white supremacist gangs. The District Attorney charged the suspects with aggravated assault, prosecuting it as a hate crime. The men all pleaded guilty to the felony and each received ten years in prison. This didn't seem like a lot of time to me, considering what they'd done, but I heard it was the maximum sentence for the charge.

I had a feeling that by the time those guys were released from prison, Fatima would already be a lawyer. She'd catch them doing something else and send them back for good.

A week after Fatima was released from the hospital, Abdul visited the campaign office again. Once again, he asked Annabelle and me if he could speak with us in private and we took him to our meeting room.

"I owe you an apology," he said. "Both of you." He was careful to make eye contact with Annabelle this time and treat her as my equal. "My daughter told me what happened. I know that she is the one who made the plans to put a booth in front of our store and catch the vandals. I know you didn't push her to do any of this. In fact, she says you tried to talk her out of it."

"Please don't be too hard on her," Annabelle said. "She was only trying to doing something good. Just like you when you were her age."

"My daughter is very willful and stubborn. Sometimes it is foolish to try to change things. But she is a fighter. She is smarter than I was. Maybe she can succeed where I failed. I should have stood by her."

"You still can."

"I've decided I will help you all. You can come to all my stores and sign up voters. Not just the one by the DMV. You can use all of them. I can't back down after what they did to Fatima. I have to try and defeat them. I have to make a stand."