“I became her.” I pulled my hand back, wrapping it around my smoothie cup just to have something to hold. “Took her identity. Raised her son. Tried to give him the life she would’ve wanted for him.”
Mehar was quiet for a long moment. Processing everything I’d told her. Then she took a deep breath.
“Zainab, there’s something I need to tell you.” She set down her smoothie, her hands trembling slightly. “When we thought it was you who died—when Baba told us you’d been killed in California—I reached out to the authorities. I wanted to bring you home. Give you a proper burial.”
My stomach tightened. “What did they say?”
“Her body had gone unclaimed for too long. No next of kin had come forward, so they…” She swallowed hard. “They cremated her. I paid to have the ashes sent to me. I’ve had them this whole time. At Ahmad’s house.”
My hands started shaking. My sister’s remains. Zahara’s ashes. Sitting in that monster’s house. In the home where my Mehar was beaten and controlled and nearly destroyed.
“Excuse me.” I stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over my smoothie. “I need—I’ll be right back.”
I made it to the bathroom before the tears came.
Locked myself in a stall and sobbed as quietly as I could, pressing my hand over my mouth to muffle the sounds. Zahara’s body had gone unclaimed. She’d been cremated like she was nobody. Like she didn’t have a twin who loved her more than life itself. Like she didn’t have a son who needed to know where his mother rested.
And I hadn’t been there. I’d been too busy running. Too busy surviving. Too busy being selfish. This was all my fuckin’ fault. The guilt would eat at me until the day that I died.
When the tears finally stopped, I splashed water on my face and stared at my reflection. Zahara’s face. The face we’d shared.
“I’m going to find him,” I whispered to her. To myself. “The man who did this. I’m going to find him and make him pay.”
I walked back to the food court. Mehar was waiting, her eyes red like she’d been crying too.
“We’re going to Ahmad’s,” I said, my voice steady now. Hard. “We’re getting those ashes. And while we’re there, we’re going to teach that piece of shit a lesson.”
Mehar nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“And the man who killed Zahara—” I sat back down, leaning forward. “I don’t know his name. But I could never forget his face. Square jaw. Dead eyes. He took my sister’s life like she was nothing. Like killing her was just… Tuesday.”
“We’ll find him,” Mehar said firmly. “One day. We’ll find him and we’ll make him pay.”
“We will.”
We sat there for a moment, two sisters united by grief and rage and the promise of vengeance. Then Mehar’s face softened.
“You know what I want to do? After all this is over?”
“What?”
“Go to a club.” She smiled, almost shyly. “I’ve never been. Ahmad would never allow it. But I want to dance. Wear something pretty. Feel like a normal woman for one night. I know that was a random interjection, but all this talk of death was getting me down.”
I laughed—a real laugh, the first one in days. “We can do that. After we get Yusef back. After we handle Ahmad. We’ll go out. You, me, maybe Serenity. We’ll dance until our feet hurt.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She was glowing. My little sister, finally tasting freedom after years of captivity. Finally feeling beautiful and hopeful and alive.
I didn’t want this moment to end.
But as we gathered our bags and headed toward the exit, something prickled at the back of my neck. That sixth sense I’d developed from years of looking over my shoulder. Years of waiting for danger to find me.
I scanned the food court. Nothing obvious. Just families eating, couples shopping, the usual mall crowd.
But the feeling didn’t go away.
