"What is it?" Nazreena queried, sitting on her cot and looked around herself.  While she fixed herbmue scarf and climbed down from the cot.

"Wake up, Hafsa." She called out to Hafsa, who stretched herself more on the cot and made herself comfortable to sleep more.

"Five seconds more Hafsa, otherwise I will leave you here and go back." On her words, Hafsa sat up with a jerk and shrieked, "no."

Just then Layla covered her mouth with her palm and whispered, "be quiet."

"Can you all leave behind your sleep and listen to me?" His voice came out calm and deep as he turned around stare at them, stopping there chaos.

At once, they all straightened. Nazreena sat straight waiting for the information, while Layla raised her eyebrows in a teasing manner and sat on her cot and Hafsa scammed near Nazreena and nodded her head at him.

"I have got someone who knows where is the red wall."

Pure silence basked upon them, ad they processed the information. Layla nodded her head, squinting her eyes in a slow motion and then widened her eyes as she jerked up her head and stared at him.

Nazreena was fast enough to catch upon his words, while Hafsa was still in sleep.

"We can't trust anyone here." Nazreena said, her eyebrows drawing together in a frown as she stared at him.

"We aren't trusting anyone, we are just exchanging some information." Baraq said, slowly leaning on the windowsill.

"Exchanging with what exactly?" Layla questioned paying attention on his words making Baraq smirk at her.

"Some things which they will be grateful for." He said in answer and Hafsa sighed.

"The tension is too thick for a minor like me." She huffed out, stretching her hands to stop the stare contest Baraq and Layla were having.

"You aren't a minor." Nazreena commented, then towards Baraq.

"What did you give away?" Nazreena questioned with her hard voice, as if mother questioning her child why he did it, knowing somehow it's going to hurt him back.

"Does it matter?" He played cool, brushing off his shoulder remember it was the chain of his first lover, but it wasn't that important.

"It does matter, you can't just give away things to people you don't know." Layla exclaimed, troubled by the way he played cool.

"It was nothing important to anyone here, and I don't think this thing matters right now. What matters how are we going out of this place without being noticed." He grunted out slowly, as he pushed himself off the windowsill.

"The kid, Qasim, said, we have to go out after midnight. Get all the rest till then, because I don't think so, we will be getting any rest once we reach the red wall." Baraq explained trying to get rid off the tension in his shoulders.

He wanted to get rid of it, the chain because Layla was the only one who mattered now.

"This topic ends here, we will talk when it's time to go." Baraq hushed and sat down on his cot. That was all he could do; sit down until the right times arrive.

Why was it this way? Why people questioned him everytime he did something good? Why they never paid attention to themselves?

The running chaos of thoughts did nothing good to him, instead he fell in a restless sleep, where he saw dreams of reaching the red wall.

"I should wake him up," Layla suggested seeing the sweat of discomfort coating his cheeks as he slightly took turns amd twists in his sleep.

"Beign in reality is good then a sleep of nightmares and restlessness." Nazreena commented seeing his face morphing into displeasure.

"He is a human, too. Don't forget he guarded us all when we were sleeping. And if he wanted, he could've slept, too, but he didn't." Layla defended him, Gritting her teeth as she got closer to him and smoothed out hair, which were sticking out in all the directions.

"Wake up, Baraq or sleep like nothing matters."

Hafsa gasped on Layla's words and yelled in a whisper, "you can't motivate him to sleep, who will save us I'd something happens." Her features morphed into the tales of horror.

"If something happens, then it happens." Layla's voice grew cold and calm, Nazreena sensed her anger before she was even angry.

"Serve humanity, and it will serve you back."

Hafsa exchanged a glance with Nazreena who denied her of speaking anything else and paced back and forth in the small confines of the room.

"We will wake him up, when the boy is here, he knows about it." Nazreena suggested and Layla nodded her head on her words.

♤

Dark blue sky now turned into pitch black. Layla stared out of the window, seeing the stars shining like diamond. Her slow blinks of her eyes, told the tell-tales of her thoughts she was drowning in.

A loud knock was all what shattered her attention away from the thoughts, making her shoulders jump as she turned towards the door. She had been too quiet from the time, Baraq was sleeping. The way she defended him, made her realised he mattered to her more than she ever confessed of wanting him.

Her eyes went to Baraq who was sleeping peacefully on the cot, the earlier frowns of his forehead now faded into the smoothly evened skin. There were no signs of displeasure on his face and that was all what Layla wanted.

Nazreena noticed Layla, how she was too quiet then needed, it reminded her of the tale of black and white swan, her mother used to tell her. Shaking her head, as if wanting to get rid of her thoughts, she motioned Hafsa to stay back as she got ready to open the door.

Nazreena walked slowly to the door, making the person on the other side knock again; announcing the said person's arrival.

Her hands worked faster as she hid a dagger, in the insides of her sleeves and opened the door.