“I HATE YOU!”
Farah’s scream stopped me in my tracks.
“You hear me, Prime? I HATE YOU! You’re leaving me with one of your sick-ass family members AGAIN!” Her voice was ragged, hysterical. “After what Thad did to me, you’re just gonna walk away and leave me with another one of your people?”
I turned around slowly. “What are you talking about? Thad was just supposed to watch you.”
“WATCH me?” She laughed—a horrible, broken sound. “Is that what he told you? That he just WATCHED me?”
Something cold started spreading through my chest. “Farah. What did Thad do?”
“After you cut off my ear and left me bleeding in that warehouse, your precious cousin was supposed to take care of me. Guard me until the trade.” Tears were streaming down her face again, but her eyes were filled with pure hatred. “He raped me, Prime. Multiple times. While I was tied up and helpless and still bleeding from what YOU did to me. He raped me over and over again and told me no one would believe me if I said anything.”
The room tilted.
I felt like I was going to be sick.
Thad. My cousin. My family. The man I’d trusted to handle a simple task.
“You didn’t know.” Farah’s voice was quieter now, reading my face. “Of course you didn’t know. You were too busy playing hero for your precious Zainab to care what happened to me.”
“I didn’t—” My voice came out strange. Strangled. “I never would have?—”
“But you DID. You left me with him. You let it happen.” She was crying again, but there was a sick satisfaction in her eyes. The satisfaction of finally landing a blow that actually hurt. “So don’t stand there and act like you’re better than me. Don’t pretend you’re not a monster. We’re the same, Prime. We’re exactly the same.”
I stood there, frozen, my mind racing through every interaction I’d had with Thad since that night. The way he’d acted normal. Laughed at family dinners. Shook my hand like nothing happened. Smiled in my face while carrying that secret.
He’d violated a woman I was responsible for. A woman I’d promised to protect.
And then he’d walked back into my life like it was nothing.
“Prime.” Quest’s voice cut through the fog. “You good?”
I wasn’t good. I was far from good. But I couldn’t deal with this right now. Couldn’t process what it meant or what I was going to do about it. I had to focus on Zainab.
Thad would get his. But not today.
I walked back to Farah and crouched down in front of her. She flinched away from me, expecting violence, but I just looked at her. Really looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked, thrown off guard. “What?”
“I’m sorry that things got this bad. I never wanted you to get hurt like that. That wasn’t—” I took a breath. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. And I’m sorry it did.”
For a moment, something flickered in her eyes. Something almost human.
“What would it take?” I asked quietly. “For you to go away and leave me and my family alone? What do you want?”
She stared at me for a long moment. Then: “You.”
“Farah—”
“Come away with me.” Her voice was urgent now, desperate. “Leave her. Leave all of this. We can start over somewhere new, just the two of us. I have connections. I can get us new identities, new lives. We can disappear and never look back.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Because you love HER?” She spat the word like poison. “She’s in jail, Prime. She’s going to prison for murder. What kind of life is that? What kind of future?”
