Chapter 11 #4
Aicha felt it bore repeating, because despite having travelled this route countless times since she was a child, she had never done so alone.
Fouad, Samira and the men who worked under her father had always been present.
Now, she would be responsible for a group of women who had most likely never learned to swim.
She could be the cause of their deaths, and that was something she was unsure of being able to live with.
Both Ilham and Naima listened attentively.
“Once I have as dependable a plan as I can get, I will come to you past midnight tomorrow. Have only necessary belongings packed and ready when I arrive.”
Ilham’s response was to move towards her dressing table and open a drawer, pulling out a sack of coins that appeared heavy in her palm.
“I can pay you the second half when we reach the ship.” She reached her hand out to Aicha.
“I don’t want your coins.” She shook her head. “I’m sure you will need it, wherever you go.”
Ilham pulled her hand back and nodded her gratitude.
“They will get you killed, Aicha,” Samira spat out.
Aicha had never seen her as angry as she was tonight, but there was something just beyond the veneer of fury. Something that Aicha could understand far more, despite rarely seeing it in her sister.
Fear.
“It’s worth the risk. We keep our own safe.”
Samira said nothing, and pulled the hood of her cloak up above her head, eyes in shadow as she moved to leave.
Naima stopped Aicha before she followed through the door after Samira, and Aicha turned to her friend.
They stared at each other, and Aicha wondered if her friend was almost unsure of whether she had the right to reach for her and pull her into a hug.
Which was just as well, since her ambush had left a lasting taste of bitterness on Aicha’s tongue.
“Thank you, Aicha,” she said, a small smile gracing her lips as her features attempted to soften.
“Thank me when we’re beyond the citadel walls.”
When their eyes met, it was with a promise of where they would find each other again. Naima nodded, knowing that come daybreak she would find Aicha at the docks for one final morning walk.
Aicha remembered the first time Rachid had made his feelings known very clearly.
She had been eighteen, in the middle of her routine deliveries, when a ruckus in the square had drawn Aicha closer.
The yells of “thief” and “dirty rat” were common insults that the Portuguese enjoyed hurling at Maghrebis.
She had pushed through the crowds of merchants, seeing a clump of dark red hair.
That particular shade, paired with dark brown skin, was a characteristic of only one family within the southern region of the citadel, and Aicha instantly recognised the small frame of Elias Hassan.
“I’ll have your hand for that!” A guard’s fist was wrapped tightly around little Elias’s throat.
“And three lashes for stealing from my cart!” yelled a merchant, supplying Aicha with a fury that burst from inside her.
It spread to her fingers with an intensity that stifled her breathing.
She violently pushed merchants out of her way, until she reached the guard and Elias.
When he raised his free arm to deliver a backhand to the child, Aicha gripped his wrist, twisting it with a fervour she had never been granted the opportunity to use.
He yelled out, releasing Elias and stumbling back, attempting to yank his hand away from Aicha.
Yet she did not let go. Instead, she basked in the flames that burned in her chest. It felt good.
“It does not surprise me that beating children is your preferred act of violence, Francisco,” Aicha grunted, releasing his wrist and pushing him away. “As you were never able to actually beat a grown adult.”
“Always a Sanhaji!” he spat, black hair falling into his eyes before he pushed it back with his good hand. “Your boy is a thief!”
“Is that so?” Aicha tilted her head, feeling her fingers tremble as the shadow in her chest begged for her fists to be unleashed on Francisco. “I do not recall that.”
“He stole one of my pears!” screamed a merchant from the crowd, and a chorus of agreements followed his statement.
“No, he didn’t,” Aicha countered, moving so that Elias was hidden behind her thighs. “I gave that to him, and it was paid for.”
It was a lie, of course; she hadn’t seen Elias since the evening before, when his mother had offered her ghouriba and atay and a seat on the goatskin rug beside her outside their front door.
“I saw it with my own eyes!” came another yell, and Aicha’s hard gaze pivoted towards it, seeking out the speaker in a mob of angry faces.
“Did you?” she grit out, teeth clenched and eyes dark as the group began to shrink back.
They lied just as commonly as she did in order to excuse the punishments they inflicted. So when she was not met with a definitive answer, but rather with growing silence among the murmuring, her suspicion that they had lied only fanned the flames of her rage.
She looked behind her, down to Elias. “Run home. Don’t stop.”
His response was a shaken nod, before he bolted, weaving between the hips of the crowd and disappearing from her sight. When she turned back to the soldier, Francisco, his eyes had hardened. He reached for his sword. “You dare challenge my authority?”
“A fairly easy task when your swordsmanship is below average.”
Her words escaped without thought, her rage too potent to allow for anything to be held at bay.
When he drew his sword, moving to strike her, she sidestepped his first few attempts. The fury that flared inside her continued to beg for release, reminding her how good it had felt to inflict pain on Francisco merely minutes before.
Do it do it do it do it.
“You think I won’t simply cut that rat’s hands off another day?” he spat.
And as if he had sparked a flame, Aicha exploded, pulling her arm back and balling her fist to deliver a punch directly into his left eye.
Control had abandoned her, and Aicha could have almost described it as someone else taking over her limbs.
Moving everything for her as she bore witness to the violence of her rage.
She felt his bone shatter beneath her knuckles, and the scream of satisfaction that erupted from inside her elicited a wave of euphoria so potent that she could only laugh as he fell backwards.
As she stepped forward, ready to deliver another punch amid screaming and yells for guards, Aicha only thought that it had not been enough.
She longed to scratch at his eyes, dig her fingers into his sockets so deep that his eyeballs burst. She fantasised over the feeling of her teeth digging into his tongue and ripping it out, so that she would no longer have to listen to his taunts and idiotic gloating of all the ways he would punish her people.
The image of his blood dripping down her chin and staining her teeth, forcing every bystander to run, brought a rush.
When Aicha pulled him up by his collar, feeling a spurt of satisfaction over his howls of pain, she raised her fist up to deliver another punch.
This time it was her wrist that was violently yanked and twisted as she was pulled away.
She released a yell of frustration, swivelling to deliver a punch to whoever had intervened.
Only they anticipated the move, and her angry eyes met Rachid’s dark ones—blazing with his own fury, at her—as he gripped onto both fists and forcefully dragged her away.
She fought against him, digging her elbows into his chest and twisting around his grip.
With her back to him, her arms crossed over her abdomen and still within his grip, Rachid pulled her close. His voice was cool in her ear. “Calm down. Breathe.”
She struggled for another moment, her vision still felt dark around the edges despite Rachid’s voice breaking through. Until the feeling of his chest rising and falling at her back finally began to seep into her.
“Count down from ten.”
Without realising, she did exactly that, feet dragging backwards on the floor as he pulled her away. The weight of his callused palms, wrapped around her wrists, soothing the burning beneath her skin. Like sand being tossed onto a fire.
“Are you insane?” he whispered furiously, pulling her along with him through the crowd until he forced her to break into a run, and out of the square. “You’ll kill us both!”
Rachid was forced to relinquish his hold as she pushed away from him, but he followed, hot on her heels and unwilling to part just yet. Aicha sensed a lecture, one that would only exacerbate the simultaneous rage and excitement that clashed against her ribcage.
“You’re lucky it was me that intervened, and not your baba,” Rachid grunted, the softness in his low voice replaced with disapproval as he pulled Aicha by the elbow away from the town square.
He hurried her along, only looking back once to see if they were being followed.
“Why? Baba would not be as cagey as you are right now.” She laughed, and Rachid waited until they had turned into an alley before stopping.
He pressed her into the wall, and his scent surrounded her in the way she hated.
An intoxicating mix of iron and the sea, it muddled her senses.
Made her heart trip over itself and her cheeks warm.
“Is nothing serious to you? Did you not think of the repercussions if you had been hurt?”
In truth, she had not expected the exchange to turn physical, but Francisco had attacked with his sword.
Vicious enough that she knew he intended to hurt her, or kill her, if he could.
Like every time when provoked, she had felt that sudden lick of black fury that erupted in her chest, and acted without thinking.