"Be patient over what befalls you." [ Qur'an, 31:17]

"WHAT is this, Syeda?!" Halima yelled, looking round, shocked, mouth open, at the bunch of lifeless felines scattered about their house. Syeda felt ever so slightly irritated; it wasn't her who had made the mess.

"Clue number four." She reckoned.

Halima snapped round to look at Syeda. "What are you talking about? And more importantly, how are we going to clean this up? How did these even get here? Why are they around OUR house, Syeda?"

Her brow contracted as she narrowed her eyes at her ward. "Syeda, I hate to have to ask this, but... Did you annoy someone? Like seriously annoy someone?"

Syeda was silent for a while. Halima tried to wait patiently; whatever she was waiting for was worth hearing after all.

Then Syeda spoke. "I've been receiving these... clues since a week ago, Halima. A photo of my dad, a note hinting but not saying where he is, a text, and now this..." Her speech slowly dwindled off. Unlike her, but what else was there to say now? This situation wasn't one she had a premeditated response for.

"Show me." Her guardian demanded.

-------

"I can't believe you never told me any of this before!" Halima exclaimed, as she perused through the clues on Syeda's bed. She looked up at her charge, seriously. "Darling... You know I'm here to look after you, right?"

Syeda gingerly nodded, eyes on the floor. Now was not the time to give an already frantically worried Halima any sort of attitude or defiance, even unashamed boldness.

"Syeda... Don't you trust me?"

Syeda's hand fiddled with the bedcovers, straightening them, then with the material of her trousers, undoing any creases, anything. Anything to delay answering the question.

Did she have to answer?

"Well, I do..."

"But you don't." Halima ended flatly.

"No, I do! It's just..." Syeda ran her hand through her tied brown hair, long enough to reach her waist, but neatly done into a high bun, as always. Some shorter strands came loose, falling in slow motion to frame her face. She absentmindedly pushed them back again, unsuccessfully.

"I didn't want to bother you. You were already busy, you have stress from work, I didn't want to add on to that." Her voice grew quieter towards the end of the sentence.

Halima looked amused. "Honey, when I was younger, my mum looked after five kids, her husband, her two in laws, a sister in law, and worked full-time. As a Criminal Defence Lawyer, for a big-a** firm, those that give you a bed in the office because they want you to live there. If that's not already made to be the most stressful job in the world, I don't know what is. Pile your whole generation to look after on top of that, and well." Halima sighed, looking sympathetically at a guilty but slightly nonplussed Syeda's face.

"Dear, if I couldn't focus on anything or anyone at all apart from a full-time job, I wouldn't be called a woman. I'd be one of those ExcelTeach thingies they use in your classes. A single minded, mentally one-dimensional, emotionless robot."

Though they were both sat on the bed, Halima bent down a little to be on eye-level with Syeda. "I have the time, darling. I have all the time in the world for you. I'm here for you. Just you. When will you understand that?" She observed Syeda wistfully, looking melancholy. She leaned forward to grip Syeda's arms in both her hands. "You don't have to do everything all by yourself, Syeda Sarah Sukie Johannson." She grinned. "If you decide that, I'll have to decide to call you Sukie. In front of all your classmates. In front of everyone. For life."

Syeda grimaced, her face contracting in embarrassment. Halima knew she hated that name more than she hated seeing the incorrect algebra in her classmates' notebooks. Or the badly formatted HTML9 code on the sewage-coloured school website. Or students using Snapple on their paper-thin phones while a substitute human teacher who couldn't metallically detect and remove phones was teaching. More than seeing the annoying Uppers, or God Forbid, Royals, like King Gilead and his son Prince Aetheldred on the TV. More than making mistakes in Auntie Misbah's Qur'an classes. More than seeing that annoying new boy Aman waving and trying to talk to her whenever she walked past their house. Or more than-

Basically, she hated it. Tremendously.

All because... She pushed the thought right to back of her head. She didn't want to think about this. Even Halima didn't know.

It was all because...

Because She had chosen it.

Hatred and shunning accompanied anything that was linked to Her.

But Halima didn't need to know that. No one did.

"Okay Halima..." Syeda responded weakly.

Should she tell Halima about Jack?

... Not yet. Not unless she absolutely had to. After all, Halima hadn't been a part of her life when Jack was.

It simply didn't concern her.

"So Syeda... what are you planning to do about all these... 'clues'?" Halima angled an eyebrow, before answering her own question. "We could update your father's case, tell the police and the detectives could work on it?"

Syeda nodded meekly. "If you could arrange that Halima, I'd be thankful."

"Sure." Halima replied, picking up the photo, but Syeda grabbed hold of it. "I'm keeping that." She insisted.

"Syeda... The police will need it as evidence!"

Syeda wasn't ready to give up. "It's just a photo!" 'The only one I have of him.' she thought helplessly. He never took many photos, or even really kept the ones he took. "I've already analysed it! There are no fingerprints, nothing!"

"Syeda..." Halima frowned. "They will ask for the clues. We will need to give them."

"Just give me a week! Two weeks!" Syeda found herself pleading.

Syeda Johannson did not plead.

"I just... I just want to think about what happened, form my theories, and then I can present them properly to the police and really help with the investigation!" It was all a load of tosh of course; she just needed the two weeks to solve the case herself. Police were useless, with a never-ending abyss of cases being piled onto them every day. Who cared about one missing man?

Only his family. Composed of his only daughter.

No one else. 

Halima sighed. "Okay. I'm not in favour of this, but okay. Two weeks. Next, next Wednesday morning I'm heading to the police, and you're coming with me, to register all this."

She looked out the window at the dead cats. "I've called the Council to get rid of our..." her nose wrinkled "moggy mess. I believe that's them already outside actually."

Syeda's green-grey eyes, a storm that changed according to the storm inside, opened wide in alarm. "No, wait! I have to examine them first! They're valuable evidence!"

With that, she rushed out the room, grabbing a scarf to swiftly and neatly wrap on her way out.

------

"So like... You find anything?" Jack asked bemusedly, rubbing the back of his head with one hand as he watched Syeda, wearing rubber gloves, turn each cat onto its back, observe its belly and all round its fur, press it down hard to see if there was anything hard and notable inside, before rapidly moving to the next one. She was on her 78th cat out of 90.

"You could be a vet, you know, Sarah." Jack squatted down, to watch Syeda's goings-on more closely. "A school nerd, a badass weirdo, or a vet." He said casually, looking at the pile of cats Syeda had carelessly but calculatedly lopped all the 'checked' cats onto.

Suddenly, Syeda's eyes widened, and she stopped him, holding a finger up. "Shush, Jack! Look!" Syeda hissed excitedly.

'Ah, better get over there before she gets hiss-terical.' thought Jack, chuckling to himself. 'Maybe this discovery will make hiss-tory.' he smiled lazily to himself. 'Better hurry before she gives me the hiss of death.' He nearly snorted. 'Honestly, what am I waiting for? Hissma-'

"Do you want to see or not?" Syeda snapped. Jack hurriedly came closer and looked at what she had found.

"Honestly, sometimes I wonder how they ever made a warrior out of you."

On the belly on one of the cats, it was engraved, in red: 116 Brentwood Grove, Swindon, SW8 9FJ.

"Aha." Syeda smiled (creepily, it appeared to Jack). Jack and Syeda both took photos of the address.

Syeda also lived in Swindon, and the address didn't look like it'd be too far from them.

"Want me to check it out?" Jack chirped. Syeda shook her head. "Not yet, Jack. I want to see its full dimensions online first. What kind of place it is. I've never heard of Brentwood Grove."

Syeda had called Jack to the scene just when she'd started examining the cats. The council binman was waiting patiently for Syeda to be done for him to pick up the mess. Syeda nodded to him, hastily checked the remaining cats, and went indoors with Jack.

Syeda had told Halima that Jack was a friend as well as a 'valuable acquaintance' from school with 'unique skills' that could help her investigation. Sure, Halima felt like getting her ears checked when she heard the words 'Syeda' and what sounded like 'friend' in the same sentence, but after half an hour of sitting by herself, bemused, trying to really get herself to believe she didn't need to visit the doctor for a check-up, she finally believed her.

"Be careful, Syeda. He is a non-mahram. I'm only letting him round because he's helping your investigation." Halima cautioned. Nevertheless, she was glad that there was finally proof that Syeda was interacting with her fellow schoolmates. And Jack seemed like a nice, trustworthy boy. Maybe she could eventually get him to help move in that wardrobe she'd had her eye on for so long. And put it together too. Halima smiled slyly to herself. Maybe they could teach him about their religion as well... And eventually make him a permanent part of the family. Halima sighed happily to herself, and started preparing dinner. For three.

Her little girl was growing up so fast. 

------

Jack's phone vibrated against his side, and rang loudly, connected to his small, non-visible earpiece so only he could hear its ringing. He pressed a button on his earpiece to pick up, it acting as his microphone too.

Syeda's phone was a 'projector' phone, that displayed its screen from a paper-thin body into the air as a hologram, as well as being able to be used traditionally in-hand. Jack's phone was similar, but was one of the newer models that was also designed to be hidden and not seen; it still had a paper thin 'traditional' phone body if he really needed it, but also an earpiece. It also had connected contact lenses (detachable from the phone) which he could put on to 'see' his screens, apps, etc, and could swipe the screen in the air. Though that was only really to make peasants jealous; mostly he referred to the handheld, to also avoid looking like he was trying to moonwalk everywhere.

It was a really expensive piece of kit, but that meant nothing compared to the fact that it was the last thing his brother Alexis had bought it for him. For his fifteenth birthday. It even had his smiley engraved into the case. He'd upgraded it every year, to keep the phone first held by his brother.

He hoped he never lost it. It would be like losing his last part of Alexis.

Jack had picked up using his earpiece this time. "He-"

"Jack, isthatyou? Youfree?" A frantic voice asked. Jack frowned, and was silent for a few moments as he tried to work out the owner of the voice.

"... Frank? Is that you?"

"No, it's a monkey's uncle, you dingbat. Of course it's me!" Frank fumed.

Jack was silent, worried. Frank was always calm.

"What's the matter, mate? Everything alright?" He asked cautiously.

Frank sighed, heavily. "It's just... No, everything is not alright." Jack could almost see Frank rubbing his hands over his face, as he did when he was worried.

"What happened?"

"It's Didier. My little brother. He was at home and then he just... disappeared."

"Jack... I think he was taken."

There was pause as Frank seemed to muster the right words. The only thing he knew. The only fact he could rely on.

"By Angel."