Zahrah's POV
A place claimed to fall silent, yet a scream urged to shake me. At this time, something similar to a frost tore me as my sight wandered in fear, and it had only depended as the days followed.
"Zahrah...."
I turned to look at my older brother, Fahad, as he raised an eyebrow when he noticed that I haven't been paying attention to the conversation he seems to be having as he gave me a lift to the university.
"This is the last time I lie for you," He seemed determined this time around as he handed my phone back, "If you want to take the bus, go out with your friends, practice boxing in the gym. Beautiful! Just don't bring me into your mess and make me lie to Mama and tell her that you were with me in the house when you weren't!"
My brother, the lawyer, seemed to connect the dots and find out that the tracking app which leads Mama to know my IP address every second of the day, an app installed in my iPhone, that I abandon at home whenever I depart for the past couple of days.
A discordant glance crept my face as I turned to confront him, "Fahad, if you tell Mama anything, I swear, I will speak out about how you got the first chair in the hearing!"
"Tell her, I don't care!" he replied with a cold, disdainful look, but his hands on the wheel spoke a different tone.
"Just please be quiet and drive." I turn away from him and look at the device in my hand, my secondary phone, as I threw it with an indifferent look at my large khaki vintage Bag.
"Maybe Mama will understand if you explain to her, just try to talk to her." he wondered with a shrug that followed, "You don't know maybe she will finally see you as a grown-up and dismiss the GPS."
I was on the verge of laughing for the first time in a few days, "Fahad, please refrain from saying those words," My voice grew bolder, "Our parents will never change, especially Mama. I see it every time I look into her eyes. The urge to turn back time and hold on to that fifth-grader, who left to attend school and came back a shattered glass,"
I glanced at Fahad, and his grip on the wheel tightened; just like my parents, he doesn't like discussing those bits. Our world following that point turned into before and after the abduction.
It was never the same, and Fahad knew more than anyone, but he hid it so well that I wonder if it is because of this skill he came across after what happened that he decided to take a job requiring no emotions a lot of conniving. As soon enough, his grip loosened, and what I like to call the trying to be comedian's voice came to show "Seriously? When did you stop being a fifth-grader? I don't remember. Maybe I should ask Baba since he is an expert on your adult actions." He added air-quotes on the last two words.
I bit my lips to hold my tears back. There was an awkward silence in the car; I could feel Fahad's eyes on me, "Zahrah, are you?"
"You are such a Darth Vader," I stated before the car made a stop, and I sprinted out as his powerful words followed, "I love you; I will pick you up at five."
Forgetting all about my anxiety, a laugh escaped me, "My idiot of a brother." I shake my head as the students' eyes followed me for a second and then disappeared as I entered the door. It was a habit of his whenever he thinks back to those times; he forgets that I am his annoying little sister and either give me a hug of comfort or declare his affections, which weren't something familiar to him until after my disappearance.
I dashed to the familiar building and darted into the doorway marked library. Unlike the hallways of the building, the library was bustling.
The library is always occupied by the constant stream of students, before and after lecture hours. My clothes were similar to the ones I wore yesterday and the day before that. During the days, I remained in the library, looking for any clue.
The Librarian, who became familiar with my presence, especially those last several days, immediately sucked her breath, waiting for my usual integration that she was unwillingly absorbed into.
She swallowed bitterly, "The sixth row to the left."
After giving her a sum of money, a librarian's salary was in deep need, in exc. Ine for a specific characteristic, I wished for her to look into for a couple of days with every passing figure that came into the entrance library; caucasian, tall, somewhat lean," She nodded at the vague description I presented to her for the identification's purpose, the only classification I ever distinguished. If he changed, I won't be able to recognize him, which was something that could occur, but I would hardly doubt it.
I sprinted to the place as I glanced into a young man seated at that particular table with the perfect opening to where I was sitting that day, and that is the only table that gave him the advantage of being able to see me while I couldn't see him. Also, there was no camera at that selective view.
The man looked in his twenties, and his dark hair stroked with blue dye.
"How many days does he come to the library?"
"Every Monday and Thursday for a couple of years now."
Too specific to be a stranger, too deep to be a cover. It wasn't him, even though his looks seem to indicate that he was around my age, which excludes him, but I can never know.
I removed the scissors from my bag. I speed to where the young man was and cut a few inches down. The young man was so absorbed in his book that he didn't even notice that I came so close to him, and some of his dyed hair had gone missing.
I looked inside the bag I clutched to as I took out the small plastic zip bag and gently tossed the bit inside before zipping it closed again.
Over the past few days, my bag became full of everything in plastic bags either, hair, containers, fingerprints, spits in tissues, and sometimes it gets easy like today, and some times I gotta act as good as the professor. I have filled over twenty plastic bags. I ran over twenty of them and now one more addition. Yet, I had no idea if this will get me closer to him.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I left the library. My mind was in no position to attend the lectures just like yesterday, so I texted the group to cover for me and sign my name and serial number into the attendance sheet.
Karmel texted back immediately that the lecture was canceled and left a long time ago to the cafe. Her text was cold, and so were the rest of them. They were all annoyed at me for ditching them at the beach the other day and not doing my part in the group projects, so they left to carry my weight.
For the first time, I realized how genuinely empty this hallway gets after three. I felt vulnerable. Some could say detected. The feeling was foreign to me after all these years, and it came back like it never left.
I'm waiting.
Those words made my blood cold. Twelve years ago, I thought I escaped from them. Now I wonder if I really ran away from them in the first place, or if it was all their way to complete their canvas.
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So he invoked his lord, "Indeed, I am overpowered, so help." Quran(54:10)
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