Tasha looked at me with wide disbelieving eyes. "Zara, will you please think about this for a moment? Do you really want to uproot all that you have set up here on just a whim?"

"A whim? He's playing right in my backyard and you call this is whim?" My hand were shaking.

"Zara, nothing's been proven yet. And please think about Ella and Hannah before you just go off and do something stupid. They need a stable life. You might think taking up and leaving every time you see a shadow is an acceptable way to live, but it won't be for them! Don't ruin their lives."

"I would rather ruin their lives than have them fall into his hands," I said, but even I could feel my arguments crumbling. How was it that Tasha was winning this?

"He's not here for you, Zara. At least, not that we know of. You just have to keep a low profile. Besides, what's to prove that he actually even remembers you? We know you aren't the only girl to have escaped him. Over the years Gerald has helped many. Why would he expressly remember you?"

I felt all the arguments and anger leave my body in one thick wave. I could almost imagine it leaving in a concentrated stream of smoke from my ears and through the pores of my skin. I was so sure leaving was the right course. "I don't like not knowing," I whispered. My eyes were starting to smart. And my hand hurt like hell itself.

Tasha clasped on my shoulder. "I know you're scared about what it is these boys are doing. But think about it this way. Christopher said that Meli's death had something to do with what they are doing, right?"

I nodded.

"And Meli worked for Fred. Fred in involved in illegal smuggling and manufacturing of drugs, which would lead us to think about drug cartels and what not. So, don't you think it's logical to assume that whatever it is they are involved in has something to do in that direction? And not have anything to do with him at all?"

"But I don't fit into this equation anywhere. Why would Mr. Rodwell want me?"

"You worked for Fred too," she pointed out.

"But then why would he mention him?"

"Zara, think carefully. Did Alexander or you ever explicitly say his name when he told you this?"

My eyes shot up.

No, we hadn't said his name. I would have remembered that. Since running away, I had never thought of him by his name. I never mentioned it, not even to myself. He was just a dark shadow in my memories; a shadow that sometimes had a face but usually was just twisting and curling smoke, advancing towards me and promising darkness. No, I hadn't said his name. And neither had Mr. Rodwell. For all I knew, he had been talking about someone else. Maybe a big and dangerous mafia lord. Or a cartel head. It could have been anyone.

"We didn't say the name," I admitted, too scared yet to let myself believe.

"See? You could have been talking about entirely different people."

"But--"

"Now you are just trying to find a loophole in this," Tasha said, sounding annoyed. She let go of my shoulder and reached for my hand. "Look--"

I yelped.

"Don't touch the hand," I squealed, pulling back.

Tasha withdrew like she had been shocked. "What happened?" She looked down at it, only now noticing its red, swollen state.

"Granny burned me," I said, clutching the offended limb close. I had almost forgotten about it, being as distracted as I was; but now the pain was back with a vengeance.

"No, I did not," Granny protested.

I shuffled towards the couch and flopped down on it with relief. One might not think so, but walking with only one crutch was a painful pain in the arse. "Just bring me that cold water from the kitchen, will you?" I said. "And you can keep denying it, but we both know it was your fault." The tension and anger was leaking away already. At least I had some explanation to the questions in my head, even if they only came from Tasha.

"How's it my fault that you haven't enough sense to back away from a hot kettle?"

I snorted. "Just go get me the water, will you? I don't have any energy left to banter with you."

She scoffed, but went none the less.

"How did this happen?" Tasha asked as she sat on the coffee table in front of me and picked up my hand.

"I grabbed a hot kettle," I replied, closing my eyes and leaning back against the couch.

Pause. "And why exactly did you do that?"

"It was going to fall over."

She didn't say anything, but I could guess the direction her thoughts were flowing in.

Just then I remembered something. I sighed. There was much to do before I could completely relax.

"Ella? Hannah? Come out, will you?" I called.

I opened my eyes and looked at the door of the room. They weren't there.

"Ella?" I called again.

Slowly, a little auburn head turned the corner of the door. "I am very sorry, Mommy," she said.

"I know, honey. But it wasn't your fault. Come out here, please." I held out my hand.

She looked at me for a moment before vanishing back into the room again. "You can come out, Hannah. Mommy doesn't look dangerous anymore," we heard her say.

Tasha threw me an irritated look.

"Are you sure?" Hannah asked in her small voice. We won't have been able to hear at all if we hadn't been so quiet.

"Yes, I am. When Mommy calls me honey, then everything's okay," she explained. "It's only dangerous when she calls me Ella a lot of times."

Ouch. Tasha looked really livid now. I shrugged my shoulders at her. How was I supposed to know that?

You are a horrible mother, she mouthed.

Like you could do any better, I mouthed back.

"Mommy?" Ella's head rounded the door again. "Hannah wants you to tell her that you aren't angry anymore. She won't come out until then."

I sighed. I couldn't believe I scared children so much. "Hannah, honey, do come out. I am not angry anymore. I was just being an idiot. Come out and I will tell you why."

There was a pause, but gradually Hannah found it in herself to venture into the dragon's den. It was really sad to know that in this case, I was the dragon.

I held out my good hand, making sure to keep the other one out of the way. "Come here, Hannah," I said. "And you too, Ella." I made sure my smile was really big and welcoming.

Hannah ran towards me almost instantly, burying her face in my shoulder like she had done at the hospital. Ella came much more slowly. She sat down on my other side, knowing that it was Hannah who needed all my attention at the moment. I blew her a kiss. Tasha backed away further on the table to give us space.

"Hannah, darling, how are you?" I asked, slowly stroking her hair.

"I am scared," she mumbled.

"What are you scared of? Nobody's gonna hurt you."

"But what if he comes back? He will beat me."

I felt my face grow warm with anger. "He will not, Hannah. Because he won't come near you again. I promise." I had no idea how I was going to keep that promise, but my doubt wasn't what she needed to hear right now.

"Here's your water," Granny Tonks called as she came from the kitchen. "It had gone warm again so I put some more ice in." She looked at all the people on the sofa with me. "Oh, is this a cuddle party? I am in."

"It's not a cuddle party, Granny. I was just telling Hannah that she needn't be scared anymore."

"Oh." Granny put the bowl on the coffee table close to me, beside Tasha's thigh. "Hannah, darling. I usually make it my business to never agree with Zara, but in this case I think she might be right. You don't need to worry. If you father ever comes here, I will bash his brain in with my rolling pin," she proclaimed.

Hannah sniffed. "I don't want you to bash his head in," she whispered.

I threw a heated look at Granny. She shrugged, as if to say, her loss. "Hannah, Granny likes to exaggerate. What she meant was that she would ask him very nicely to leave and never come back."

Hannah nodded into my shoulder. She still didn't look up.

I put my hand into the cold bowl of water carefully, so as not to rattle her trying to burrow into my skin. Ella looked at the blistering limb but didn't say anything, storing it away for later. She knew full well how I was.

The apartment door banged open. I didn't even bother looking up. "Will you people please stop wrecking my property?" I called.

"This isn't your property," Granny Tonks didn't waste time in pointing out. "It's mine. And I don't mind two handsomes like them ripping it to shreds." She winked over my shoulder.

"Of course you don't mind," I said. "It's not you who has to pay for the repairs anyways."

"I would like to point out that I never banged your door, Miss Mahal," Mr. Rodwell said from behind me. "That's a very frivolous habit."

"Yeah, you didn't bang my door," I said, turning around. "You just banged me against the wall when you came in."

Silence. I pulled my hand out of the water.

Absolute bone silencing silence.

And then Tasha burst out laughing so suddenly she even got Hannah to show her face. Gripping her stomach, she toppled over the edge of the table, drowning in gale after gale of laughter. Her legs stuck over the edge of the table, shaking back and forth in her mirth as she lay on the ground. Tears ran down her temples. Granny Tonks went to sit on her armchair again, laughing too, her little leathery hands fingering the pipe in her mouth.

There was a snort from behind me.

And a very loud, very chilling silence from one particular chunk of space.

My face flamed so hard I had to clutch my hands to keep from ripping my cheeks out and placing them on the side.

Hannah and Ella looked first at me and then at the myriad expressions of mirth all around us. "What's funny, Mommy?" Ella asked, her little brow furrowed with concentration as she tried to riddle out what she had missed.

"Nothing, darling. Your Aunt has a filthy mind." My voice sounded funny. There was an uncomfortable feeling around my neck, as if something was trying to creep all over it. "Why don't the two of you go to your room, huh? You can show Hannah your new monopoly set."

"But--Oh Hannah, would you like to see my new set? It has the most beautiful pictures ever." Children.

"Okay," Hannah agreed, still glancing around.
Ella stood up eagerly and grabbed her hand, having to step over the prone Tasha to do so. She started dragging Hannah towards the room, telling her in excited tones about all the other boards games she had and how she beat Mommy at checkers ever time--I don't lose on purpose.

When the two of them were safely behind doors and out of hearing and sight, I leant down and grabbed Tasha's shoulder. She was still laughing with the same intensity as before. "Shut up, will you?" I said harshly. "It wasn't that funny, okay? You know what I meant!"

"Y-yes!" She hiccupped. "Yes I know what you meant. But this? This is priceless. This is the best thing to happen all afternoon! I can't believe you said that. I just--"

"Shut up." I turned towards Christopher. He had a smile on his face too. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Take her out, will you? Just take her away." I was very careful not to look at the other person.

"Okay," he complied, enjoying this entirely too much. "If that's what you want."

"It is!"

"If you wanted to be alone with him, you could have just asked."

I looked at him, bewildered, not able to believe that even he wanted to dirty his hands in this. "For goodness sakes, it was a slip of tongue! You two are just embarrassing everyone."

He came forward and pulled Tasha to her feet. She leant against him, taking in deep gulps of air as she tried to control herself. Burying her face in his shoulder, she swayed on her heels, grabbing his jacket to keep from falling over. He placed a steadying arm around her waist.

"Oh, your face!" she wailed.

"Get out right now, the two of you," I hissed.

"Yeah, Tasha, we should," Christopher said. I glared at him in warning. If he said something like that, I would shove my crutch up his nose. He held up his free hand in surrender when he saw my expression. "I meant we should go now. We still need to celebrate our reunion, don't we?"

Tasha's face instantly brightened up. Her giggles stopped and her eyes filled with an almost dizzying anticipation. I looked at them both in disbelief. "You were broken up for all of three hours!"

"And it was the longest three hours of my life," Tasha breathed, looking at his face with stars in her eyes, forgetting her previous laughter almost immediately.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to thank Christopher for shutting Tasha up or kick him in the jewels for turning her into a breathless marionette. No, wait... I think I do have a decision. The guys probably won't be able to have his own children.

"Let's go then," Christopher said, fitting my best friend's head against his chest and kissing her hair. He smiled up at us. "You guys have fun."

"You--" I tried to get up, forgetting the fact that I couldn't walk and one of my hands was burned. I fell back with a yelp. Cradling the said limb, I send them a dirty look. "I am going to kill you the moment I get to my feet!"

"Hey," he protested. "I just meant that as a goodbye. People say that all the time. I didn't mean--"

"Get out!"

They left.

I threw my head over the back of the sofa and breathed a huge sigh as the door closed behind them. My hand started to throb again.

There was silence in the room, interrupted occasionally by Granny Tonks' loud snores--yes, she fell asleep. Then, "Thanks for thoroughly embarrassing me, Miss Mahal."

My face lit up again. "Slip of tongue," I repeated.

"I really don't see how that's an adequate excuse," he protested--in as much as one could protest without sounding like you are protesting, of course.

"Please, Mr. Rodwell," I complained, screwing my eyes closed and concentrating on the orange flashes behind the lids to keep from feeling the pain in my hand. "You don't have to start too. It was just something that came out of my mouth when I wasn't thinking."

He snorted.

"So, you're going to leave now too?" I asked. "It's really late."

"So ready to get rid of me?" he asked.

"Always." I smiled.

"I will be leaving, actually, in a moment. But before that, tell me, how's your hand?"

I opened my eyes and found him standing beside me. "It's..." I cleared my throat, "it still hurts, kind of."

He folded himself gracefully onto the coffee table in front of me and picked up said hand.

"It's okay," I said, uncomfortable, feeling like my heart was about to take flight and come out of my mouth any second. Too close, too close. Once again, he was too close. "I was going to wrap it up in a moment anyways."

"Are you sure you know how to do that?" he asked, keeping his eyes on my hand like he wanted to burn holes through it. "There's nobody here to help you."

"I am sure I can manage," I said again.

"Look," he said, glancing up. "I will just help you wrap it up, okay? Will you let me do that?"

I tried and absolutely failed to stop my heart from going into hyper drive. And man, was it hot in the room...

"I did not know you were the helping type," I said, my voice curiously quiet.

"I am not," he admitted, going over to pick up the ointments Granny had dropped earlier. "But neither am I a heartless bastard who doesn't help helpless people."

Okay... My heart slowed down considerably. "I am not helpless," I said.

He collected the ointments and brought them over. "Shown, of course, by the fact that you can't walk on your own two legs and you didn't have enough sense to not touch something hot." He picked up my hand.

I pulled it back, wincing as his nails scraped against the scorched flesh. "You don't have to be condescending. It was just reflexes! Surely you have them too."

"Of course I do," he replied, wrestling my hand back into his grip. "But usually my reflexes tell me to back away from danger, not go and touch it."

"I can't control my reflexes!" I snapped. He didn't give me a chance to pull my hand back this time.

"That just goes to prove the helpless part," he pointed out, unscrewing the cap over the tube while still keeping a firm grip on my hand. "Are you sure you are still fighting your case and not mine?"

I pursed my lips and kept silent. The infuriating man would find something else to make fun of if I said anything anyways.

And so, that night, in the early hours of dawn, when the sun was just shy of the horizon, I let Alexander Rodwell rub soothing ointment into my hand and then wrap it up with gauze, before leaving in silence, while all through it trying and failing to ignore the butterflies in my stomach and the leaping frogs in my chest.

I didn't say a single word and neither did he--apart, of course, from when I had to tell him the reason I had called was to inform him that I won't be able to make it to work for some days; he threatened to fire me twice.

Who would have thought...

***

Melissa Hudgens' funeral was a silent one. There was only one family member present, her five-year old daughter, who cried through the whole service, clutching at the hands of a stranger.

That stranger was me. None of Melissa's other friends knew me. I didn't know any of them either; one month isn't really long enough to exchange friends. All of us stood silently around the grave and coffin as words were said about Meli that seemed to describe someone else, nodding and bowing our heads.

Everybody was dressed in black in their sadness. Everybody except me. I wore my trademark black abaya, but underneath I had put on my gaudiest and showiest of tops, a colourful rainbow printed monstrosity that Meli had loved the instant she had seen it. The top described Meli perfectly, just the way I liked to remember her. It made me smile. Just like Meli had made me smile.

The day spreading over Meli's funeral was not a sober one either. It was bright and sunny around the mourners, with a fresh breeze sweeping through the graveyard like a sigh. It almost felt like while we little people on earth cried, Meli was laughing all around us, drying our tears and telling us she was okay. It lightened my heart just a little. I still missed her terribly, but to think that she was happy wherever she was and out of pain made breathing just a little bit easier.

After the funeral, Tasha and I took the girls and Granny Tonks to Papa Wen's bakery. In the shade of the outdoor canopy, we devoured four boxes of donuts and slurped a huge mug of hot chocolate each. Then we went to Tasha's house downtown and watched a Harry Potter marathon, casting spells and cutting each other's noses off with imaginary knives. I killed Tasha five times with the Avada Kedavra charm but her dead body still managed to caste the Expelliarmus on me, cooking up a cock and bull story that she had been protected by love.

The next day I arrived at the office feeling like a truck had run me over. My limbs hung around me like logs. I staggered to the inner office after somehow managing to greet Mr. Rodwell without falling all over his carpet.

When I finally sat down on my desk and put my head on my arms, trying to catch a little wink, Mr. Rodwell's voice boomed from outside, kicking me in the senses so hard I saw stars. "Type out the Codwell email and send it immediately. Do I have to do all the work?"

"I thought you didn't even need me here!" I yelled back, still slightly bleary eyed.

"I don't. But that does not mean I can't work you to the bone. Now, get on with it!"

I got on with it. I have bills to pay, remember? I knew now that he in fact didn't need me to work for hi; but he hadn't kicked me out yet. I would stay until he did that, and I would work so hard he would finally realize what an integral member of this establishment I was and won't let me leave.

It felt like ages before lunch break finally came around. True to his word, Mr. Rodwell had successfully worked me to the bone; if I looked hard enough I could have sworn there was something white at the tips of my fingers and the side of my thumb. The burn had been healing alright till today morning but now I could feel it acting up again. Today's work almost felt like a punishment for missing two days.

I put my head on my arms when the time finally rolled by. My eyes closed on their own volition.

I was so tired. I had tried to call Howard today but he hadn't been answering his phone, which led me to think about Meli and how she had died, and finally the image of her grinning skull broke through the fog in my brain and ramming into me like a train.

Funny how you always think about things you wanted to avoid when tired.

I looked up. The room revolved around me. I couldn't see straight. Meli's head smirked at me from the shadows all around.

"Meli?" I called. Was this her ghost? Was she back to attain vengeance on those who had killed her? If that was it, then what was she doing here? I hadn't killed her. Or was it that she was angry we had dared to laugh on the day of her funeral? Was it that I had read the whole of yesterday wrong and Meli didn't in fact want us to be happy?

Suddenly Meli vanished. Where she had been, now red curtains bloomed in a non-existent wind. Wait... Red curtains?

"Zara," a voice whispered from the shadow. I whipped my head around, standing up.

"Zaraaaa," the voice said again, and this time I recognized it. My blood ran cold. No, no, no...

"Zara, darling, don't fight it..." the voice said.

I backed up against the wall. Something seemed different. I looked down and realized I didn't have my crutches anymore. I was walking on my own two legs.

"Zara, honey, you will love it, I promise." The voice was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. "You will love it..."

I squinted into the shadows. There was something there. Or rather, someone. I looked harder. Had Meli come back? Had she come to save me? Maybe she wasn't angry anymore. Maybe she was my guardian angel.

The figure in the shadows stepped forward. I screamed. No, it wasn't Meli. It was a man.

He stepped forward. He was bare chested and he walked towards me on bare feet. He had a lean and toned body. But that wasn't what had made me scream.

I had screamed because I couldn't see his face.

No matter how hard I tried, the man's face would not come into focus. Almost immediately after I had convinced myself he had grey eyes, the light would reflect over blue orbs. His nose remained neither long nor short. His lips alternated from wide to thin, from pursed to grinning.

He stopped a few feet away from me and held out his hand.

"Don't worry, Zara. We love you. You will like it, I swear."

I screamed and screamed and screamed.

"Zara," the voiced kept whispering. "Zara, Zara, Zara..."

"Zara..."

"Zara?"

"Zara!"

Something shook me hard. My eyes flew open and my head shot up. I looked around wildly. There was white light around me. White light. The walls weren't wreathed in shadows anymore. There wasn't any man with no face. The room was empty.

There were hands on my shoulders.

Maybe not so empty after all.

I screamed again and scooted backwards, as far away as my desk chair would allow.

"Zara, wake up! It was a dream," a voice insisted, filled with alarm.

I was shaking so hard I felt like a lone leaf in a gale.

"Leave me alone!" I shrieked. "Please leave me alone. Let me go!"

Hands suddenly grabbed my cheeks and turned my face around sharply. I tried to fight, but they were too strong.

"Zara, look at me," the voice demanded again. "Look at me! It was only a dream. Only a dream, Zara! You're safe."

My eyes finally focused on what the insistent hands were trying to make me see.

Alexander Rodwell's face.

I stared at him for a moment. I stopped thrashing and just looked. There was concern on his eyes. Concern and doubt and fear.

"Zara?" he said, uncertain, his eyes skittering over my face.

I threw my arms around his neck and promptly burst into tears.