When Diva had been a little boy, his mother had brushed his hair every morning, humming softly to herself. He can still vaguely recall sitting in the living room with her, the birds chirping as the city of New Delhi came alive around them. If he focuses, he can still feel the comb running through his hair and tickling his scalp.

Sit still, nuurii, she would say as he squirmed impatiently in her lap. You have such beautiful hair; it would be a shame for it to get all tangled and matted.

Let it, he'd respond childlishy. I don't care. Nearby, Sera would giggle at his petulance.

His mother would smile softly at him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. But I do, she'd tell him, pinching his cheeks. Such pretty hair my Deva has, my beautiful son.

He wonders what his mother would say now, knowing that his fair looks had been part of the reason he'd been ripped from her.

He'd been warned the dangers of walking the streets by himself. His father's warning echoes in his brain: Be careful Diva; there are those in the world who would do terrible things to children. Our city is beautiful, but it is dangerous. Promise me you will be careful.

I promise Pita! He'd said, far too preoccupied with thoughts of playing outside to think too hard about what he'd been agreeing to.

Not a day goes by that he doesn't wonder what would have happened if he'd taken his father's advice just a little bit more seriously, if he'd taken a different way home from his friend's house that day so long ago, or if he'd just waited for his mother like he was supposed to. The 'what-if' game, Diva has learned, is one of the worst games to play.

He'd been five and Sera had been only a year old when the two of them had been snatched from their lives and everything they knew. His memories of that day are fuzzy at best; he remembers walking down the familiar streets, thinking to himself how proud his mother would be that he had found his way home all by himself. He remembers Sera's hand in his own, and how tiny her fingers had been, sticky with the sweets she had eaten before leaving their friend's house.

He remembers a splitting pain in his skull as he'd been hit from behind, the world blurring into one giant light and then nothing until he'd woken up hours later in the back of a truck. Sera had been huddled next to him, sniffling, eyes red and puffy from crying and snot running down her nose. He'd done his best to soothe her despite the rising panic in his own body and the two of them curled up together in the back of that truck for hours, watching the dark fade to sunlight through the slats in the back.

The next week or so is another blur, a huge gap missing from his memory that he doesn't want back ever. Getting the brand on his forearm is the next solid memory he has and from there his suffering had truly begun.

He knows now what tfive-year-old Diva hadn't, that he'd been snatched off the streets by men looking for children to traffick-both him and Sera. He understands that the brand on his arm had been to mark him as property, as a slave so that he could be tracked down if he ever tried to escape. And he understands that from the second he'd been abducted his life had changed permanently.

By some miracle of God, both he and Sera had been sold to the same man. They're crammed into the back of another truck and shipped off to Cairo. Diva stands to the side, left arm wrapped in heavy bandages that match Sera's as money and hushed whispers are exchanged. Diva's kidnappers leave and the man who's bought them takes their place.

Diva still isn't sure which of the men he hates more.

Cairo is about 5000 kilometers from New Delhi; Diva knows because he's looked at a map once after being taken in by master Shin. 5,000 kilometers from the life and world he'd known. Diva doesn't understand it; the number means nothing to him. He and Sera might as well have been light years away. That at least would have been more reasonable, had seemed slightly more fair in a world that was anything but just. Egypt was not India but he'd had no choice in the matter-it was adapt or die, and Diva discovered at the tender age of five that it wasn't in his nature to take abuse lying down.

And then he'd meet Mani and life had changed again.