Even though her heart was beating so fast against her ribcage and she could feel her blood pounding in her ears to enable her to hear what he was saying, Maryam surprisingly heard that word. Or name, whatever it was. She squinted her eyes and stare at those calming eyes of his and for a moment, she thought-if only her eyes were like his and he wouldn't have run away from her. But why was he back now? Was it because she had called his name and those men were trying to rip her apart?

She shrugged his hand off her arm and tried to stand up, angry at both himself and her. Did he use those men to scare her for calling his name and more, for scaring him too with her eyes? He thought that if he did that she would run away from him too and never show her face again? She realized she was becoming more dependent on him and it hadn't even been a month since they met!

Despite the fact that she was tumbling on her way back to the living room as she was still being swarmed with too much fear, Maryam tried to get away from him like he wanted. Just that she knew she couldn't get away from him like he wished she would, which was out of his entire life. She knew she was a burden on him, he had said that. And she would try as much as she could to lessen this burden on him by not associating with him and damn the girl he brought, she was going to act brave and live with her.

She knew Intisar had always told her that there were situations that required for her to be strong and be brave, and when Intisar had casually mentioned that 'Maryam I won't be forever by your side to protect you, you have to learn how to do that yourself. Start by being brave and fighting all your fears, okay?' Maryam knew Intisar had meant when she got married, because they had laughed after she made it clear to her that she was never going to leave her until that happened and even then, they would still be together just not live together.

Well, maybe life had a better plan for both of them. Because here she was, in an unknown area in Maiduguri, in a mansion that seemed too luxurious and magnificent to be real. And with the man that had took her sister away, yet she couldn't even ask him about her because she was terrified for both their lives. She trudged back into the house and Na'im watched her do it. She hadn't even looked back even when she closed the door and he saw the lights got turned off through the glasses. He sighed, he didn't know what this girl meant or what she wanted from him. Wait, was she angry that he had ignored her?

Knowing so well that he might not predict what was right about her, Na'im hissed and went back to his car. He had to honk at them before they came out and opened the gate for him. He had to stay away from this girl, he knew. Lest the sympathy he felt for her prompted him to do more things he shouldn't have done for her. And he didn't like the way he was getting accustomed to her, even though they were barely a week shy of reaching a month since they met, but Na'im hated it when he got close to someone that he knew wasn't going to be there long in his life.

Maybe like Hafiz suggested, he wasn't going to wait until she was big enough for the university before he divorced her, not until she was leaving either, like he had thought first. He was going to divorce her in a way, after he was sure she turned 17 and might as well have added more senses to her brain. He drove into the palace with so much going on in his head as he thought about what he should do. Should he add one more year so that that way, she was an adult even in law? Maybe that would be right, and before then, he definitely needed to distance himself.

With that, Na'im swerved to the lane that took him to his chamber and when he saw Sadeeq's car at the parking lot, he was furious by the time he walked to the gate, "What were you doing to give Sadeeq an access into my chamber? Didn't I warn you about that?!" This is why he wished he didn't take his royal guards to Maryam's house, they knew all his rules and wouldn't have broken them for anyone, well, maybe with the exception of Alan Gubro. As he turned to walk away, he muttered, "By morning, take yourself to the prison and tell them to have you locked up for a week. New guards should be replaced." He didn't stay there to hear their pleas lest they changed his mind, but he knew by only punishing them will the new guards be afraid of doing something he had told them not to.

He met Sadeeq sitting on the chair at the entrance as he had a phone call, which meant he had been waiting for him for long and Na'im knew whatever it was that brought him to his chamber even though he knew he would hardly tell, wasn't good. Sadeeq might be there just to annoy him, or think he could talk him into leaking some informations that were meant to stay confidential.

He unlocked the house as he spoke, "Why are you here, Captain Bolori? Or are you here as my brother so I can refer to you as Yarima Sadeeq?"

Sadeeq chuckled loudly as he followed him into the house. "I just realized I haven't been seeing you enough for some time and I thought I could spend some time with you. And yes, Yarima Sadeeq would sound better, because royal orders are a bit less harsh than that of the army. Before you get me locked up in the punishment cell." He threw his head back and laughed, but for anything, Na'im knew this wasn't funny enough to have him laugh this hard unless there was something he was hiding in that stupid brain of his.

Because if anything, they both knew he couldn't have Sadeeq locked up for any personal grudge unless he did something offensive by law, he was a Captain too, for heaven sake! But just like Sadeeq thought he was going to fool him, Na'im had also shown him that he didn't know everything about him but he was going to let something off today.

He chuckled as well before he began to walk towards his room, "I might as well nab you in one of those hotel rooms to have a sturdy reason to punish you, Yarima Sadeeq. And that way, you know Alan Gubro will even be glad if I do that." He watched the blood drained out of Sadeeq's face and Na'im had never appreciated being silent over all the things he knew about him until today. What? Did he think that he could do all that and still no one in the palace will find out? Funny.

He was about to go into his room when he spoke a bit loudly, "Call the royal kitchen for us for a light dinner, Sadeeq! This is an order from an older prince to his younger one. I'll take a quick shower." He had to laugh when he heard the sound of his front door being banged close as he stripped off. Even though he knew Sadeeq wouldn't take this lightly, he might try to silence him with something, only if he knew how long he had known of everything he was trying so hard to hide, just that he admitted that he didn't know all of Sadeeq's secret but he knew some.

He had a quick shower and took the dinner that was brought in lightly. He didn't have the appetite to eat but he just forced everything down to his throat because he didn't want to wake up tomorrow on an empty stomach. The night seemed long for him because he hardly turned without having to change and re-change his decision about Maryam but in all, he came to the decision of divorcing her when she turn 18 years old. That's if she didn't even demand for it before she turned that.

•

Maryam had cried herself to sleep, woke up in the middle of the night and cried long enough to have her sick before she slept a few minutes before subh. She was saddened when she was late for subh and after she had prayed, she just laid there on the praying mat as she thought about her life. The turn it had took and how she was now left alone in a world that seemed too big and too cruel for her to live. She didn't want to think about him, but she had to.

It seemed almost impossible to think of her life without having to think about Na'im. Like she was both indebted to him and resented him altogether. She was indebted to how he had saved her father and bought him the minutes he had added before he left this world. She knew that if it wasn't because of him and his men, she wouldn't have been able to speak to Baaba before he died. That 'Thank you, Baaba' she had told him when he sprayed the perfume on her would've been the last words she would've uttered to him. But Na'im made it happen, he made it possible for her to hug him alive and while dead, to hear his voice one last time.

But then he took away the other wall of her life. She had watched how he mercilessly held Intisar by her neck and threw her into the back of the van. He was the one that separated her from her sister, all the while wearing that army's soldier that he used to both save lives and destroy some. She hated him so much for what he did to Intisar, for not even knowing where she was now or if she was even alive. And for making her so afraid of him that she couldn't even ask him that.

Na'im, she repeated the name in her mind. But even though she had hated him enough to be glad if be never to show his face again at her, Maryam had noticed something else about him. There were dark clouds of grief that always surrounded his eyes and they seemed to have the same hold on his heart even though he might hardly notice about that. But she seemed to notice everything about people, not knowing whether it was because she hardly spoke and all she did was stare at people as they went about their lives?

The soft knock on the door jolted her out of her reverie and she heard a voice that nearly made her flinch. "Your Highness," the lady's voice uttered and Maryam wondered who the highness was? Was she referring to someone else in the room apart from her? Or maybe she thought that he had slept here tonight because if she wasn't mistaken, Maryam had heard her calling him that yesterday.

She clenched her eyes shut and waited until she got tired of knocking and leave, "I've prepared breakfast for you, please open the door. I won't come in, you'll just take it yourself." Maryam heard her and the slight grumble of her stomach told her of how she was starving. Even though she was terrified of the girl and didn't want anything to associate with her, Maryam knew she had to eat and so, she took tentative steps towards the door.

She unlocked it and opened it wide enough to see Bilkisu holding a very huge tray that she knew she might not be strong enough to hold. "Hold on, I'll bring it inside for you and I'll leave." Maryam didn't argue when Bilkisu said that, but she made sure she was far away from her as possible while she entered the room and went out after that. She heaved a sigh after she had closed back the door and walked to where she had placed the tray on the table beside the sofa, won't these people ever know what it meant to eat something on the floor?

She hissed softly as she served herself and went back to her praying mat, and while she ate her meal, Maryam wondered if she was ever going to see him again or he was going to get out of her sight for good.

•

Na'im had knocked, but he didn't wait for it to be answered when he barged into the office and he found Hafiz drifting into a slumber, yet he was fighting so hard to stay awake. "Lieutenant Hafiz Kabir!" He yelled and watched how Hafiz stumbled out of his chair and nearly fell when he saluted and screamed a 'Yes, Sir!'

Na'im burst out laughing while he watched how disheveled he looked at the moment and it seemed that Hafiz was back into his senses when he heard the sound of Na'im's laughter and he realize he was just pulling his legs. He sighed and slumped back on the chair with his shoulders shagging in relief. "You've really scared me, Na'im!" He whined and Na'im pulled the chair in front of his desk before he laughed and sat down.

"It seemed like the perfect time for me to revenge on what you did to me days ago. Even though not enough, I'll keep on doing this until I get satisfied with my revenge." Hafiz knew that he meant the two days he practically forced him to live in the mansion together with Maryam.

He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair, "But I did nothing wrong, and in the eyes of Allah, I'll even get a reward for trying to bring two married people together..."

"That's if your decision didn't nearly kill the girl, you dummy!" He swatted his arm and Hafiz pulled his arm away while he rubbed it as his eyes grew large as though they were a saucer.

"Did you really try to kill her? I thought you were just saying it that day." Na'im hissed and tried to push that topic aside, since when he decided that since she had everything she needed in the house and he had done his duty as a husband in islam-that he would never go back to that house unless there was an emergency, he didn't want to think about her again, lest guilt pushed him back into it.

"I came to speak to you about something," he began solemnly and Hafiz seemed to drop everything he was about to say as he tried to listen to him. "Last two weeks, Captain Bolori went to my chamber in Shehuri and he made a lousy comment about doing something wrong to me that I'll have to lock him up in the punishment cell. Even though I had managed to silence him at the time, I thought about it for a moment before I let go." He fumbled for his phone and went directly to his gallery.

"But today, I went to his office to ask him for a file but he wasn't there. And my eyes caught this on his table. Isn't it like an application for job? In an orphanage?" He asked as he placed the phone in front of Hafiz that immediately took it. "And it brings my mind back to that matron. She has been released, right?"

"Yes, you ordered for her to be released in the morning. So I'm sure they did that." Hafiz said as he properly checked the form Na'im had snapped.

"You mean you weren't the one that signed for her released?"

"I went in the morning to sign her release but when they told me Captain Bolori has signed for it the night before, I left, thinking maybe you stopped by at the barrack and knowing your heart, you might've pitied her enough to release her." Wait! Hafiz thought and before Na'im was able to say something, he exclaimed, "But I practically had you locked in that mansion and I'm certain you didn't come out, I would've known!"

They immediately stood up as Na'im felt himself feeling terrified of the what if. "This only meant that Sadeeq was the one that got her released and knowing him so well, he might've asked her a few questions especially when he heard I was the one that ordered for her lock up." He wasn't guessing, Na'im only knew this was what had happened.

"And what explains this is that, he promised to help her to buy some information from her." Hafiz said as he lifted the phone in his hand, not even bothering to check it any longer, "He tries to get her a job in the orphanage they think you've taken her. Probably curious enough to know who the girl you've done that for. And..." He let his words trialed off as he involuntarily swiped through the next picture and when an image of Maryam appeared as she stared-confused-at the camera made him speechless. It was obviously night, even though the lighting was making it hard for him to tell.

"Speaking of the devil, I think your baby bride might not be safe for long in that house, Captain Bolori." He turned the screen to Na'im that instantly yanked his phone away from him and Hafiz chuckled, "We'll find a way out of this, but for now, let me swoon over this!" He exclaimed dramatically as he pointed at the phone Na'im had placed back in his pocket.

He walked towards the door before he uttered, "If you find the solution about this, let me know. But we all know that she has to be in that house, unless I'm taking her out of Maiduguri, which isn't possible but might as well make things a lot easier for me." He walked out of the office and Hafiz smiled at his retreating back. That picture, that look on his face while he momentarily took a glimpse of it before he turned the phone, meant something. And he would be damned if he didn't force Na'im into going to that house today.