Zayn picked up his phone, his keys and money from the black security bin at the entrance of the police station. He exited through the door as a middle aged man with a bald head wearing a blue suit entered. Zayn recognized the area as Hydra's police station. Across the street were open convenience stores, tea shops and four restaurants at the end of the street to the left and right.
Calm and quiet. A dark night sky. Stars aplenty. Minimum people strolled the neighborhood, as none of the fast food businesses, ice cream shops or cafes were open at a staggering three in the morning.
Zayn checked his phone for the first time in hours to find six messages from Imane.
Two messages from Volkan. One from Soraya.
One voicemail from Aunt Niibel.
And an Instagram message from Roqaya.
A white sedan taxi approached from behind Zayn, and as he noticed it nearing, he speed walked in the same direction then flagged the driver. It usually took twenty minutes to drive back to Dely Ibrahim but at three in the morning, it took about ten minutes. Halfway to his father's apartment, Zayn remembered he could've went to his own house that he had bought. He wanted to. He was injured. Weak and stressed. His mind a mess.
But he still wanted to see his sister before anything else.
After the taxi dropped him off in front of his apartment's building, Zayn ignored the men smoking and conversing at the corner of street, dressed in ripped jeans and long white and black shirts. It seemed the grandfathers were replaced. Zayn glanced behind him before sliding his key into his apartment door's lock. He slowly turned the bolt and gently pushed the door open to make as little noise as possible. He didn't want to wake Imane.
So after tiptoeing inside his home and closing the door with his fingers, flinching at the slightest noise creaks and of the lock, Zayn exhaled and turned around.
"What were you doing until now?!" Imane shouted.
Zayn jerked and then slammed his head against the door he was practically leaned on. "Ahh," he dragged out.
"If you were trying to sneak in, you did it at the worst time. I was just going to sleep."
Zayn turned with a raised eyebrow to see his sister dressed in light brown pants and a white shirt. Her brown hair tied into a ponytail. "Just going to sleep at three a.m.?"
Imane's jaw dropped. "I was waiting for you! You didn't reply to my messages. I was going to text Soraya or Roqaya."
Zayn nodded. "Yeah, things happened. I didn't have my phone on me." He took his shoes off then walked into the kitchen trying his hardest not to lean onto the right side of his body too much because his left side still hurt from the police beating he survived, particularly his ankles and calves. Zayn saw no juice, vegetables, eggs or cold snacks in his refrigerator. It would've depressed him if not for the millions of dollars he possessed.
He filled his glass cup with sink water then downed it.
"Are you okay, Zayn?" Imane followed her brother into the kitchen.
"Yeah, it's just been a long night." He smiled as he glanced at her. "Did you eat?"
"Aunt Niibel came by and gave me food."
"Oh, that's nice." He glanced to the left counter by the gray microwave and saw two white containers, takeout food. Zayn took the one that felt full and untouched. "I haven't eaten."
Imane yawned. "Okay, I'm going to sleep. But when Aunt Niibel came, she asked about something weird and told me not to mention it to you."
Zayn had just stuffed his mouth with a spoon full of biryani rice and chicken. "What?"
"She asked if you had a new necklace." Imane covered her mouth as she yawned again.
"A necklace?" Zayn repeated. Why was his aunt curious about that? He didn't know, and at 3:36 AM, it wasn't the time where he could figure it out, either. "Okay."
Imane hugged her brother then waved as she walked to her room. "Good night."
"Night," Zayn replied, with an empty spoon in hand and thoughts about the necklaced his mother had gifted him.
Family can be so caring sometimes . . . Omayra's words faded in Zayn's head.
Oh, now you're talking after everything's over? Zayn spoke in his mind, as he strolled to his room then locked the door. Thanks for letting those two officers attack me.
"Controlling people isn't automatic, young Zayn. You know that. It takes preparation, knowledge of your enemy and then execution." Omayra clicked her tongue. "But the information regarding your father's murderer, I retrieved for you. So a thank you I haven't heard."
Zayn threw his sweaty clothes into the beige laundry bin in the left corner of the room then switched into a black shirt and joggers. I planned all of that. My thank you was the blood you ate. I don't owe you anything, Omayra.
She laughed. Her eerie voice echoed in his head then trailed off, before returning again loud then louder. "I like that, young Zayn." A tingle ran through the back of Zayn's neck, as if Omayra ran her fingernail down his spine. "The first to speak their mind. You did provide me with energy to feast on. So now what? How will you proceed?"
I'm going after his cousin. Sabrina. I'll find her tomorrow. Zayn scrolled through his phone and read Roqaya's message.
"The cops took me home, Zayn. They recognized me. Please stay safe and message me when they let you go."
Omayra whistled. "How sweet of the girl. How would she react if she were to know you orchestrated those deaths? That you even felt nothing when watching them both die." Omayra seemed to be enjoying Zayn's actions. He didn't like how she found entertainment in Zayn risking his life for revenge.
"She never will," Zayn spoke aloud that time. He clicked his tongue then glanced out of his closed window to his left at the street lights in the distance, at the glistening city lights and tall apartment buildings of Dely Ibrahim. "She won't . . ."
"You're a murderer now, young Zayn. You've tasted blood. I feel you slipping."
Zayn's attention turned to his closed door. A light brown and black hoodie hung on the back side, with a backpack and a gray robe. And it wasn't as if Zayn was missing something. But he continued staring at the door. A blank expression. Zoned. "Omayra," Zayn spoke aloud. "They're here watching me."
"Who?" she asked, voice high in curiosity.
"The shadows . . ."
What Zayn could see was identical to the shadows he saw at his father's graveyard. Outlines of humans bodies consumed in darkness. No facial expression, no eyes, no arms. Nothing but a wicked feeling emitting from where they floated or stood. Zayn pushed himself back in his bed towards his gray headboard. His breathing increased to panting, clawing at his bed sheets, nearly hyperventilating at the shadow figures he saw by his room's door.
"Get out. Get out. Get away," Zayn ordered, his voice grew with each statement.
As Zayn's erratic behavior increased, Omayra's silence ended, and the first thing that happened as she hummed was a gust of wind blew from beneath the door to the ceiling, causing Zayn's clothes to drop to the ground while his backpack barely hung on to the silver hook after violently smacking against the door.
"Leave if you value your pathetic lives. If you make yourself known again, you will all cease to exist."
And just as quickly as the shadows appeared in front of Zayn, they vanished, leaving nothing in their trace but a sickening odor that only Zayn could smell and a lingering fear that implanted in the back of his head.
"They said something . . ." Zayn muttered after a deep inhale.
"What?"
"They said they would come to take me . . . as they were ordered to."
"Ordered?" Omayra asked, her voice deep, as if angered at threats Zayn received. "They follow orders from a clueless fool unaware of my return. But I will find out who, young Zayn. That I guarantee." That odor of death ceased as a burst of wind slammed against the room's door across from Zayn. "Your future is full of conquest."
Zayn grabbed the water bottle to his left on the wooden brown bedside stand. He downed half of it. "What are they?"
"Low class, garbage eating spirits, easily summoned and ordered to complete a bidding. They will all look the same to you, young Zayn, but each one is its own being. Differentiated amongst themselves."
"Are they coming after me because I'm using your power?" Zayn expected an answer. He turned the light off on his right, slid to lay on his bed, under his black sheets then stared at the ceiling above him. He waited. Waited. Waited. But Zayn knew that silence either meant Omayra refused to answer or had left the conversations. Where she went, Zayn would never know. He thought she had nowhere else to go because he was possessed, and Omayra was inside him.
Yet the rules and operations of his power and of Omayra remained ambiguous.
What remained fact, sleep.