Season I

Day III

"Give Me The Weapon"

Afan's hand hangs absolutely still between them. He sees the look in her eyes, even if he tells himself he doesn't recognize it. His sister's never been able to hide what she's thinking, not since the day she was born.

"Aishah," he whispers, but the softness he intends in his voice isn't there. Instead it sounds like a hiss, like a chide, like the last time he saw her before they reunited here. Immediately, Aishah's entire body stiffens. The weapon trembling in her grip doesn't lower.

"You fucking left." Afan doesn't even see her lips move. Yet, he hears the words so clearly it's as if her eyes were the ones to speak. He shakes his head painfully, unwilling to look away for even a second.

No matter how much he loves her, how much Afan would be willing to withstand to protect her, he still knows what his little sister is capable of.

"I couldn't find you," he answers slowly. "I tried, you know I did."

The blade slices the air between them as Aishah shoves it closer. Her eyes are red, her cheeks and neck flushed with the hives she only gets after crying. The steadiness in her posture that the siblings usually share is gone. Just like that night. Afan tells himself to stop seeing it. He tells himself it won't help anything. That doesn't stop the shiver that runs down his spine.

She's done it before. His mind refuses the silence. Someone far less threatening than me.

Stop, he begs himself. Afan closes his eyes but immediately forces them back open again. I can't trust her. He remembers the ferocity in her features when she opened the door to their neighbors' home. Aishah had called him to pick her up. Afan had promised himself that it wasn't blood on her sweater sleeves. She wouldn't tell him anything, he'd had to go inside and see it all for himself.

I'm the one that killed him, Afan reminds himself. It's not a lie. He finished what his sister started, he broke the back window to make it look like a home invasion, he told his sister to call the police when he thought he'd done enough. Afan wonders if anyone believed the siblings even at the start of the investigation. Looking back, he has to doubt it.

"Don't lie to me!" Aishah shouts. If the weapon was trembling before, it's positively shaking now. There are no tears in her eyes, the eyes that won't stop staring at him. It's only been three days. What happened? Afan doesn't know how to ask.

I should've found her. I should've tried harder. I should've-

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

I'm supposed to protect her.

Afan lets out a slow breath, reaching his hand out as slowly as he can. He doesn't want to startle her. She has to listen to him. He's her brother. She has to trust him. She has to.

The look in her eyes makes him wonder if she even sees him. Aishah takes a step closer and he forces himself not to retreat. She won't do this. He knows his sister, she won't do this.

"Aishah," he says with only the slightest tremor in his voice. "Give me the weapon."