Alara
This place is incredible. I never knew it existed—although, I'm glad I didn't. If I needed money to help feed my mom and I, I definitely would have come here to steal and sell one of these lamps in Qadura.
It would have left me well off for a long time. I wouldn't have felt the need to fake being a royal and throw myself into the mess of a situation in the first place.
Zayen and I turn the corner and enter into another market. There seem to be different markets and stalls all over the area—way more than Qadura and Wadi combined. The smell is warm, like home-cooked food. It is filled with all kinds of foods, from bright fruits to crispy tamriyeh.
My mouth begins to water. Tamriyeh is a dessert I only remember having as a very small child. It is dough that is filled with pudding and then fried.
A soft cry for help draws my attention, and I push past a few people, not bothering to look back for Zayen.
A man holds a small child down on the floor, his face pushed against the sandy floor, while another man crushes the child's fingers with his foot.
He cries, begging them to stop. "I should take your hand! Your head!" The man's voice is like sandpaper. He looks vengeful, like he has spent years looking at everything with a deep frown on his face and now it is stuck like that.
"Ghalas!" Enough! I rush to the man, using the force from my running to push the man off the child's fingers.
The other man reaches for me and I duck out the way. He steps away from the child, and the child gets up and runs around a corner, disappearing.
People are staring already, but they don't seem to do anything. Why? The man grabs for me again and I duck away, straight into the other man. He holds my arms tightly behind me, the position uncomfortable and painful.
But not as painful as the realisation that I am in this situation again. My heart caves. Maybe this is never going to end.
Zayen is nowhere to be seen. I search for him, but I can't find his face. If he saw, I know he'd help me. He wouldn't run. He promised he would protect me.
Right?
Maybe he left because he could see how badly I wanted his arms around me on the top of that minaret. I didn't crave to be kissed or to be touched, but to be loved and caressed. By him.
For a moment, when he had asked if I want him, I had imagined him pulling me in close and letting me rest my head on his shoulder or his broad chest. I remember how comforting it was to be carried by him before, and it would have been a thousand times more so if I was cuddled by him.
But, as the man jerks my body back, it is a startling realisation that Zayen is gone. Whether by mistake or on purpose, I'm on my own. And stupidly, I still didn't learn how to fight—even after the many reasons I've been given to learn.
Even the tactic I used before, of trying to use my body as a weapon, doesn't work here. Maybe it's the distraction of knowing that I am completely on my own, and I don't have anyone who will have my back.
As if I am back in the streets of the souk again, having to fight for myself because nobody else will fight for me. I am that girl who steals because nobody else can provide for me. Nothing has changed, even if everything is different.
The feeling of loneliness crushes me as the second man comes to stand in front of me, his towering form nearly making me step back into the first man who holds me from behind.
His gaze leaves mine and calmly looks around at the people walking by who stare at the scene, but do nothing. He knows they won't try to do anything. He is nearly as big as Zayen. I wonder if Zayen would have—
YOU ARE READING
One Night
Teen Fiction[Arabian Nights meets Atlantis] She wants to save her family. He wants to save his people. After selling all of her belongings to survive, Alara has nothing-except a burn scar left by her unknown father and a sick mother she has to take care of. In...
