Chapter 88 CHAPTER 88
Hide and seek
When the van rolled into the guarded compound two streets away, Ethan flicked off the lights and killed the engine. He lingered for a second, tasting the strange air of triumph that rises after a plan executes without immediate failure. This was a victory born of calculation, not a blunt blow. The gates answered the security code with a soft click, and the van moved into a driveway where stone and glass met in quiet opulence.
Ayisha turned to the backseat. “It’s all right,” she said before undoing straps and opening the rear doors. “We’re here now.” The children’s recognition was immediate. Jamal’s brows lifted and, as if the world had shifted back to some earlier reading of familiarity, the boys and girls called out in a chorus that surprised Ayisha: “Aunty Ayisha!”
The sound caught in her throat. Jamal reached forward with a small, tentative hand, and Kamal followed with a similar motion. Beauty threw herself forward as much as small limbs would allow and wrapped both arms around Ayisha’s waist. Pretty clung to Beauty, her face pressed against the soft fabric of Ayisha’s shirt. For a moment, the entire operation froze into a quiet tableau of stolen tenderness.
Ayisha had rehearsed dozens of responses, cold authority, gentle lies, feigning distance but she hadn’t planned for this. The kids’ trust was a small, fragile thing that softened her resolve even as other parts of her mind remained hard. She crouched and returned the hug, feeling the rapid heartbeat of Jamal against her palms. Her voice, when she found it, was low and efficient. “We’re playing a game, okay? A game of hide and seek. Be brave. Stay close to me. When I say it’s safe, we come out.”
The kids nodded, chewing their lower lips, trying to be brave in the way children sometimes manage. Beauty and Pretty giggled through their fear, as children will sometimes do when the adrenaline presses too close to the surface. They trusted the word auntie, the small ritual that softened strangers into kin in three syllables.
Ayisha guided them into the house with a practiced hand, leading them through a corridor that smelled faintly of lavender and polish. The mansion was handsome and careful, all clean lines and guarded warmth, but it had never been arranged for the chaos of small life. That, perhaps, made it feel even more like a stage set, a place where actions could be performed.
She took them up winding stairs to a sunlit room arranged with four beds, stuffed animals perched on pillows, a carpet with a map of cartoon islands, and a small table with crayons that looked as if children had used them recently. She placed them on the beds as if tucking in guests at an inn. “Okay,” she said with a soft authority. “It’s hide and seek. You hide in your beds. Don’t open the door for anyone. Stay quiet. Be brave. It’s going to be fine.”
They obeyed with the kind of compliance that comes from exhaustion and confusion. Jamal and Kamal flanked the two girls, their small hands finding each other, a circle of reliance. “We’ll be brave,” Jamal promised, though the tremble in his voice betrayed a younger child than his posture suggested.
Ayisha’s hand lingered on the doorknob. For a breath she allowed herself to feel the warmth of their tiny bodies near her, and then she pulled the door closed with an efficient motion, masking whatever small softening she had felt. She walked down the stairs, the soft sound of her heels barely audible against the stone floor.
Ethan leaned against the island in the kitchen, his face lit by a half-smile that resembled triumph. He poured two glasses of something dark and heady and handed one to Ayisha. “To the first step,” he said with a dry cheer. “To a clean victory.”
They clinked glasses. Ethan’s eyes glinted with the kind of satisfaction that belongs to men who have computed the cost and found the gain acceptable. Ayisha lifted her glass to her lips and let the liquid burn. She watched the staircase as if the sound of tiny footsteps might betray them, as if the house might suddenly turn into a courtroom and the world would call them to answer for what they had done.
Downstairs, in the room with the beds, Jamal looked around at his siblings and tried to be the solid one. He was not old, but there was a steadiness to him that made the others quiet. “We stay together,” he whispered. “We will act like we don’t know what’s happening.”
“Like it’s a game,” Kamal said, his voice barely more than a thread. He tried to smile to make it feel true.
Beauty pulled the blanket up to her chin. She was small, lips pressed tight, eyes luminous with a mixture of defiance and longing. “We can run,” she said, as if the word itself might be a strategy.
“It’s not yet,” Jamal answered calmly. “First we find out where everything is. We don’t show we know anything. If they believe us, they’ll let their guard down. Then we look for the door. Then we go.”
“How will we open the door?” Pretty asked, face pinched with the practical logistics of escape.
Kamal shrugged, trying to steady his voice. “We watch. We learn. We wait.”
“Don’t cry,” Jamal whispered to the girls. “If they see you cry, they’ll know we know they’re the bad guys.”
A soft rustle came from the hallway as the adults downstairs celebrated their ‘victory’. Laughter and clinking glasses sounded distant and obscene in the quiet of the children’s room. Jamal pressed his back against the headboard and let the rhythm of his siblings’
Jamal told a story to distract the others. He spoke of a field he had once seen on a rare trip, the yellow grass bending, a kite caught and flapping and then severed with time. The image was a promise of running and of open space. He looked at his siblings and saw the same tiny spark of ferocity he had felt the day the van had stopped.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered. “And when we get the chance, we run together.”
Beauty and Pretty nodded, shutting eyes briefly and breathing as if they were at the rhythm of a practiced calm. They imagined the door, the street, and the faces of people who loved them. They held to those faces like a talisman. They believed in the possibility of being found by a real touch, not the borrowed softness of an aunt who was a stranger.
They squeezed hands and promised each other, in the silent language of shared fear, that they would not lose one another. For that promise, they felt the future unspool, small and tentative.