Storie shrugged as she put the earbud back in and resumed scrolling through whatever had her attention. I made a mental note—twelve going on twenty-five with that attitude. Justice had his hands full with this one.
The guest roomwas at the end of the hallway, the door cracked open just enough for me to see Yusef sitting on the edge of the bed.
He wasn’t looking out the window anymore. He was staring at his hands, turning them over like he was searching for something he couldn’t find.
My heart cracked.
This boy had been through so much. Too much for any thirteen-year-old. His father in prison. His mother murdered. The killing of his bully. Then Rashid’s “discipline.” The kidnapping. The trauma of whatever the hell happened in that compound that had stolen his voice and left him hollow.
And now this. Watching his aunt, his main caretaker get arrested in front of everyone.
I knocked softly on the doorframe. “Hey, Yu. Can I come in?”
He looked up. Nodded once.
I sat beside him on the bed, close enough that our shoulders almost touched. Didn’t say anything. Just sat with him in the silence, letting him know he wasn’t alone.
After a long moment, he reached for the notebook on the nightstand. The one Sloane had given him for when the words wouldn’t come out loud.
He wrote something and turned it toward me:
Is she going to be okay?
“Yes.” I said it with more confidence than I felt. “Prime already hired the best lawyer in the city. Camille. She’s going to fight for Zainab. And Prime…” I paused, choosing my words carefully. “Prime would burn down the whole world to bring her home. You know that.”
Yusef’s jaw tightened. He wrote again:
She didn’t do it.
“I know.”
I know she didn’t because I was there.
Zainab had told me about what happened that day. How they both found Zahara bleeding on the floor.
His hand trembled as he wrote:
When we found her together. She couldn’t have killed her.
The words hit me like a punch to the chest. I’d known the story—Zainab had told me everything at that mall food court,tears streaming down both our faces. But hearing it from Yusef, seeing the trauma still living in his eyes after all these years…
“You’re her alibi,” I whispered. “Yusef, you could clear her name.”
He shook his head hard. Wrote faster:
I can’t talk. I can’t testify. I can’t do anything. I’m useless.
“Hey.” I grabbed his hand, stopping the frantic writing. “Look at me.”
He did. His eyes were wet.
“You are not useless. You hear me? You’ve survived things that would break most adults. The fact that you’re still here, still fighting, still trying—that makes you one of the strongest people I know.” I squeezed his hand. “And your voice will come back when it’s ready. Sloane is helping you. We’re all here for you. You don’t have to carry this alone.”
A tear slid down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away.
I pulled him into a hug, and he let me. Let himself be held like the child he still was underneath all that armor.
“We’re going to get her back,” I whispered into his hair. “I promise you. Whatever it takes.”
