“What do you think dad will do with them all?” Dana asked. Then she answered herself. “I don’t want to know… he sent us away… he didn’t do that because he was going to let them go.”
Her little sister looked at her like she’d just said their father was a monster. “He wouldn’t do something like… what you’re not saying… Besides, and I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I think I like the boy who took me there.”
“Like him? He kidnapped you!”
“But he didn’t mean to.”
“Well, he hardly did it by accident.”
“He thought he was kidnapping you,” she said. “He didn’t even know I existed.”
“You’ve lost me,” Dana said.
“It’s simple enough. He was looking for Lebna’s girlfriend. You, not me.”
“So why was he looking for me?”
“To try to find out who killed him. They were friends. Brothers. They went through a lot escaping their homeland. They got here; they were finally safe. Then someone murdered Lebna.”
“I still can’t get my head around him being dead,” Dana said, but there were no tears this time. “I don’t understand though, who wanted to kill him if it wasn’t one of those men?”
Her sister shrugged and stared into the darkness outside the car.
In the distance the sky had begun lightening, only a little, it would still be some time before they actually saw the sun.
“What do you think, Uncle Rakeem?” she asked then. “You must have an idea?”
“Who knows,” Rakeem said, “They’re scum. They’re not like us. Plenty of people want them gone, back over the border where they came from. They don’t belong here. None of them. They’re not good people.” He kept his eyes on the road ahead, not once glancing towards her. It felt odd, the three of them sitting on the bench seat in the front. Although it was intended to carry three, it felt a little too tightly packed, though neither she nor her sister were particularly big.
She could feel the heat of Rakeem’s legs through her own jeans.
It made her feel uncomfortable.
She tried to inch away from him without drawing attention to it.
“He wasn’t good enough for you,” the man she called uncle said eventually. “That boy. He wasn’t good enough. You deserve someone better than him.”
“What makes you say that, Uncle?”
“Because once I knew he was part of that gang… and I knew what they did… trafficking young girls… I just knew… he wasn’t good.” Not good enough this time, she noticed, just not good.
“He’d left them,” Dana said. “That was why he had the apartment in town. He wasn’t part of that. It might not have been much, but it was going to be our home.”
Rakeem snorted. “Not good enough,” he said. “The boy was trash. He went back to where he belonged.”
She let that settle, not liking where the insinuation was leading her mind.
“So,” she said sweetly, after a moment, “Who do you think is good enough for me?” She let that dangle there for a moment, before she asked, “You?”
She twisted slightly in her seat, sure that a blush came to his cheeks in the dim green light of the dashboard.
“Why not?” he snarled. “Why wouldn’t I be good enough for the precious Dana Danjuma?”
Dana laughed, unable to stop herself. “But you’re Uncle Rakeem,” she said realizing he was serious.
Then the other shoe dropped.
And for a moment the world seemed to stand still.
“You did it,” she said then, knowing she was right. “You killed him. You killed him because you didn’t want us to be together.” And beneath it, the understanding that he thought that for as long as she was on her own, he had a chance to lay claim to her. Do some sort of deal with her father. Get her as a reward for his loyal service. She felt sick. “Well, let me tell you something. You’d have never had a chance, even if dad had made me, even if you were the last man on earth, I still wouldn’t want to be with you. I’d rather be dead. Now stop that car. We can walk the rest of the way.”
“Don’t be silly. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“I don’t care. I’d rather walk than spend a moment longer in here with you. Stop the truck!” she screamed, but he kept driving, their speed increasing. “Stop the fucking truck,” she screamed again, and when he failed to acknowledge her, she clawed at his face, trying to gouge at his eyes with sharp nails.
He shrugged her away, throwing his arm to keep her at bay.
Then the truck’s cabin was filled with light. Blinding. Bright.
It took her a moment to realize it was from the headlights and halogen lamps of the jeep behind them. It was brighter than sunshine.
“Stop this fucking van!” Dana screamed again, then without thinking, grabbed at the handbrake, and yanked back on it, hard.
The truck shrieked, then a heartbeat later she was stuck inside a metal box, rolling and tumbling, the world full of agony and sound, of twisting metals and screams.
And then there was a moment of silence, but everything inside it felt wrong.
Only the seatbelt had saved her.
She couldn’t move.
She wasn’t sure if it was because she was trapped, or because her mind wouldn’t let her body respond with the fear coursing through her limbs.
“Sis?” she called out, not daring to hope Lori would answer, but needing her to.
There was a groan in response.
That was enough.
For the moment, at least.
She tried to turn, frightened to see what Rakeem was doing, imagining him clawing at his seatbelt to get out and at her, only to see him wedged at an awkward angle against the door. His head was twisted. She saw a bone pressing out against his neck. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing, and in that moment she didn’t care.
There was something warm and wet on her cheek.
She couldn’t tell if it was tears or blood.
She wanted to close her eyes.
She wanted to sleep.
To escape the pain.
And then one of the doors screeched open.