Sarah
Dante went to get everything we needed to tear down these extravagant and sinister foundations. He' s taking longer than he said he would, and my anxiety is increasing by the minute. Bruno is my biggest concern at the moment.
One step at a time, Sarah.
Will he be looking for me? Or will he keep negotiating with that poor boy...?
“Amira...” I whisper to the woman who is going through a silent and complex mourning. She’s suffering because of her brother, but when I explained to her what had happened, she was not surprised at all.
She has a strange beauty, frightened dark eyes and a tiny body.
“Yes?” she whispers.
“Where are the slaves being held?”
“In a room behind the stage, why do you ask?”
“There was an American boy, I need to get to him.”I’m not asking.
“They stay there for the rest of the night.”
“What happens if nobody buys them?”
“Well, they’re going to the slave house or sold at a lower price.”
She talks about this subject as if it were a normal thing, an everyday business, and it makes my skin cold; well, I guess it is normal if you have this kind of life.
Finally, Dante enters the room in a hurry. He is carrying two jerry cans, one in each hand. That’s roughly ten or eleven gallons of gas between the two. He’s clearly determined to light this shit up.
I want to cremate the body as soon as possible, but Amira makes this whole thing really uncomfortable.
I look at Dante, hoping he understands, and he gets my order perfectly.Get her out of the fucking room.
“Wait! Dante,” both turn to see me. “Change that shirt, you can't be seen wearing that.”
He looks at his clothes, surprised that he didn’t notice the stains Wasim’s blood left on them.
He walks to the bathroom and closes the door behind him. A few minutes later, he comes out looking good.
“How did you do that?”
“The master always requests to have a change of clothes ready in the bathroom.”
Once they leave, I douse the body with gas and the rest of the room while making my way to door.
I find them at the kitchen next to de door, the two of them are talking very quietly. Dante is close enough to her to think they are rubbing against each other, but their bodies don't touch at any point.
“Ready?” I ask, with a match in my hand, they both back up and walk towards the beautiful garden I saw before.
“Ready!”Life says full of excitement.
I drag the match across the roughest surface of the box and throw it on the gas to light it. The fumes catch fire immediately and the flames rush through the kitchen, before I can feel the intense heat on my face. The fire jumps quickly to the second floor as we walk away from that inferno.
We start running under the cold Arabian sky and hide in the bushes and look around from a safe distance, just in case curious eyes decide to show up.
Dante is the one who guides us, taking us directly to the door where I had been dragged by Wasim a few minutes ago. Though it was a few moments ago, the distance seemed longer then. I turn around to observe that hideous place only to find it already red-hot and crackling with long flames coming out of both windows and doors, the image is terrifying and relaxing at the same time. Nobody else will suffer in there anymore.
“Amira, go back to your brother, Sarah, come with me.” Dante says.
Amira looks taken aback by something, but I don't know why.
Dante is taking a different passageway than Wasim, but somehow we enter directly into the white, suffocating room.
Nobody is there, I walk to the same seat I was before and Dante positions himself like the first time, regal, authoritative and deadpan, it's only a matter of minutes until Bruno enters through that door.
“Dante, trust your brother, you're getting out of this filthy place today.”
Dante looks at me and I could swear a little smile appears in the corners of his mouth.
