“That’s different.” Quest grinned. “Rita just doesn’t trust any woman who would agree to share a man. Says it goes against nature.”
“Your life is a mess,” I said.
“My life is full. There’s a difference.”
We laughed, and for a second, things felt normal.
But Farah’s words were still rattling around in my head.Some things aren’t meant to last.
“I gotta go,” I said, heading for the door.
The second I was in my car, I pulled out my phone. No new texts from Zainab.
I opened Find My and pulled up her location. The dot showed her at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Still there.
I checked the tracker on the Acura I’d let her borrow. Same location. Parked in the hospital garage.
She was still inside.
My fingers hovered over the screen. I wanted to call her. Wanted to hear her voice.
But I’d promised to let her do this alone.
So I put the phone down. Started the car. And drove toward home to wait.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming.
Something none of us were ready for.
15
ZAINAB
Baltimore hit different now that I wasn’t running from it. I gripped the steering wheel of Prime’s Acura and watched the city unfold around me like a wound reopening. Every block carried a memory. Every street corner held secrets.
There was the bus stop on Greenmount where me and Zahara used to wait after sneaking out to see the boys. The corner store where we’d buy Hot Cheetos and quarter waters with coins we’d stolen from Baba’s register. The laundromat where we’d hide sometimes, just to have somewhere warm that wasn’t home.
My hands turned down our old street without permission. Like the car knew where I needed to go even if my brain was screaming to keep driving.
The house looked smaller than I remembered.
Same faded brick row-house. Same chain-link fence. Same narrow porch where Baba used to sit like he was king of his own kingdom. Twelve years ago, I’d walked out that front door with blood on my clothes and nothing but my sister’s hand in mine.
Zahara should be here. We were supposed to face him together.
But Zahara was dead. And I was alone.
I wiped my eyes, put the car in drive, and pulled away from that house for the last time.
The hospital smelledlike bleach and bad news.
I walked past the information desk, past the gift shop with its sad teddy bears, toward Room 412. ICU wing. Critical but stable.
Good. I wanted him awake when I said what I came to say.
I rounded the corner and stopped.
Mehar was standing outside the room, arms wrapped around herself. She was wearing a long dress and hijab—modest, conservative—but even from twenty feet away I could see something was wrong.
