SHADOWS THAT WOULDN’T FADE

Refik had already been jailed once for kidnapping and endangering Alisa’s life. We believed prison might finally sever his grip on us, that steel bars could contain his violence. But even locked away, his shadow seeped into our days—an invisible presence that haunted every silence, every sudden knock at the door.

At that time, I was in Zagreb, waiting for an interview that could secure my move to the United States. Alisa remained with our parents, finally able to sleep without the nightly terror of a knife at her throat. For the first time in years, she tasted peace.

I took my son and came to my parents’ home while I waited. For a month, we lived together as if time had rewound to our childhood. My mother prepared breakfast and coffee each morning, her voice soft as she woke us.

We gathered around the table for hours, talking and laughing, forgetting the darkness that had scarred us.

The smell of fresh bread, the clink of cups, the rhythm of our laughter was the most beautiful month of my life.

When my husband arrived to take us back, I felt torn. I didn’t want to leave that cocoon of warmth, but his joy pulled me away.

That fragile peace shattered with the fourth kidnapping.

It carved into Alisa’s spirit in ways she would never recover from.

I remember the second kidnapping vividly—it happened from my own house.

The first and third blur in my memory, fragments are too painful to hold.

My mother tried to recount them, but I stopped her. The tremor in her voice was unbearable; I couldn’t let her reopen wounds that had barely begun to close.

Then Halid came.

“Our cousin.”

The man I had always suspected.

He arrived at the house with a chilling message. Alisa was to bring her son to Refik’s parents’ apartment. He claimed it was a judge’s order. Two hours of visitation. Supervised by police.

Trusting his words, Alisa entered the car with her child. As they drove, Refik emerged from beneath a blanket in the back seat.

A knife pressed against her throat.

The betrayal was complete.

Halid drove them to the Mihaljevice cemetery. Among gravestones and silence, Refik shoved Alisa out of the car and struck her in the stomach. She collapsed, gasping for breath.

Halid closed the door and drove away with her son. The child was delivered to Refik’s parents. Later, Refik’s brother returned him to ours.

Alisa was left bleeding among the dead.

CAPTIVITY IN THE WOODS

Refik’s cruelty reached its most grotesque form in the woods near Mihatovići. For eleven days, Alisa was held captive in ways that defy human comprehension.

He suspended her upside down, one leg bound, forcing her body into unnatural positions until dizziness and pain blurred her sense of reality. The world was inverted around her. Sky became ground. Ground became sky. She no longer knew where safety existed.

He stripped her not only of freedom, but of dignity. Deprivation became his weapon. He denied her food, denied her rest, denied her humanity.

What he gave her instead was humiliation. Every act was calculated to break her spirit, to make her feel powerless, to convince her that her body no longer belonged to her.

Pain was only one part of the torture. Degradation was the deeper wound. He wanted her to carry it inside her long after bruises faded.

Near the end of those eleven days, he threatened to bring our mother into the woods. He promised to force her to witness the violence. His goal was not only to destroy Alisa, but to poison our entire family with terror.

Yet even in that abyss, Alisa found strength.

When he left briefly, she fought against her restraints. Her body was battered and weak, but her will was stronger. With effort driven by survival alone, she freed herself and ran.

THE ESCAPE

She ran through the woods until she reached the edge of a neighborhood. Trembling and terrified, she knocked on doors and cried for help. Fear kept people from opening.

Finally, she threw herself in front of a passing car.

The driver stopped.

She climbed inside, pleading with him to drive. At first, she asked to be taken home. Moments later, she begged to be taken to the police.

At the station, officers realized she was the woman they had been searching for during those eleven days. They took her statement and rushed her to the hospital.

At the same time, police surrounded our parents’ home, hoping to catch Refik. Once again, he fled.

When Alisa recovered enough to speak, detectives asked her to return to the place where she had been held captive. Our mother went with her.

Together, they collected evidence. Restraints. Metal objects. Remnants of the cruelty she had endured.

Eventually, Refik was captured.

He was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

He made sure that the final kidnapping would do as much damage as the time had given him. I still don’t know how he got out of jail when Halid came for Alisa. Did he escape? Was he given time outside? I will never know.

And I don’t want to know.

What I do know is this: wherever he was in trouble, Halid was there. Always. They followed each other like sickness.

I named them parasites. Because parasites don’t have limits. People do.

His relatives threatened openly, promising that he would return and finish what he had started.

Alisa’s health never fully recovered.

For years, she had coughed blood. Her body carried scars that medicine could not erase.

Her spirit carried wounds no one could see.

Prison had not ended the terror.

It had only paused it.