OCTOBER 10TH

TWENTY FIVE

BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA.

Finally, she raised her head to look at the man of the room himself and her breath caught. She never expected to see him standing right in front of her looking over her short form and for a moment there she thought he was going to strangle or harm her but he just viewed her for a brief second then yaw his attention away to the wall behind her head as if talking to an invisible genie behind her. She shivered at his scary presence, preponderating her breath itself. She's forgotten just how intimidating he is, exact opposite of his pizzazz brother.

How could they be twins? It is just the face and nothing more. This man here in front of her should've looked like a skeleton living with only his organs, bones and tissues but he is just as handsome as ever if not more fine looking.

She's noticed how his strong and sharp features are a bit smoothened but still ever so intimidating. His eyes, the color of autumn is crinkled from aging fringed with eyelashes lush and luxurious beneath fierce and elegant brows. Her eyes wandered all around his face, angled to perfection and that is when she noticed that he is more handsome than Asad. Although Asad was also handsome in his own way, Aman have this whole combination you cannot get rid of. His bulkier form for example, height and calculating eyes.

Something has changed, this isn't the same Aman she's accused of murdering her child years ago. His eyes are now expressing something other than satanism, they are filled with emotions now. Going to serene, hatred clearly meant for her and galvanization because he knew who she was without her removing her niqab. She beseeched her heart to stop palpitating needlessly, wander around the room to see some more stuff inside while at the same time avoiding him and his intense eyes. They are enough to make her knees weak again with pure weakness raging to unpleasant side, not the way Asad's eyes makes her feel pleasant frisson.

She stood beside the cemented bed with lumpy pillows, scratchy blankets, pilled sheets that'll definitely be rubbing at one's skin and making it itchy but not an ounce of sympathy crossed her heart at the thought. From luxurious kind sized bed with Egyptian duvet down to a scratchy one only God knows how many people used it before him. She saw a picture on the end of the bed but when she approached it, she heard his voice halt her in a chillingly bleak and gelid voice.

"Don't." Just one word but it brought a cessation to the movement of her entire body and she retreated languidly. She sat herself on the edge of the bed knowing he is probably going to sit at the other end.

Mahnoor doesn't know what to say, her head simmering now with another curiosity of who that person is behind the white coated photo. She's seen his wallpaper, it was a picture of a baby those years ago but it never occurred to her then that the baby could be her husband's with another woman. There is no doubt this is her picture he keeps dearly, Mahnoor frowned at the thought. Both the brothers are going to make her head to detonate, they want her to lose everything. Sanity and rationality and that is something that won't be hard to someone who's gone through so many emotional trauma in the past few years. She is standing on the precipice.

She heard the sounds of his quiet footsteps, the lionlike grace he uses and for such big man, his gait is rather agile. She thought huge people don't know how to walk with grace and elegance but Aman is proving her wrong. Asad wasn't as big as Aman which is another huge difference between them, something she appreciates. She thinks Aman's large frame is what is scaring the living daylight out of her but his entire presence does. Whether he is lying down, sitting or standing, she is entirely afraid of him.

He sat on at the farther end of the bed like she's predicted, where the room is completely dark. That's definitely where he sits in the day to avoid talking to people.

Swallowing yet again, she decided to get this over and done with. "I have a few questions for you." Sensing that came out in an extemporaneous way and sounds rather dictatorial, she added. "If-if you don't mind."