They ran through smoke.
Zaid gripped Lina's hand as they sprinted down the back stairwell of the safehouse, the building crumbling above them. Each explosion felt like thunder ripping through her bones. Dust clung to her hair. Blood—a stranger's—splattered across her bare shoulder.
She didn't remember screaming, but her throat was raw.
"Car in the alley," Zaid shouted.
"How did they find us?"
He didn't answer. But he didn't need to.
It had been Karim.
He'd sent men to kill his sister.
They reached the alley. A black motorcycle—stolen, probably—was waiting. Zaid tossed her a helmet. "No time for debate."
"You think I'm debating?" Lina climbed on behind him. "Go."
The engine roared to life, and they tore through the labyrinthine streets of Casablanca like hunted animals. Lina held on tight, every twist and turn a heartbeat from death. But her thoughts weren't on the men chasing them.
They were on Karim's voice.
"She becomes collateral."
How does a brother say that?
How does a heart survive it?
They escaped the city by sunrise, riding for hours until civilization dissolved into endless dunes and open sky. Zaid pulled off the main road and stopped near an abandoned outpost, silent and sun-beaten.
Inside, it was nothing but a cot, cracked tiles, and the sound of their breath.
Lina sank to the floor.
And finally—finally—she cried.
Not a pretty, cinematic cry. Not the kind that earns sympathy.
This was the kind that rips from your chest like something dying.
Zaid didn't speak. He sat beside her, his arm a silent offer. She didn't resist. She rested her head against his shoulder, the heat of him grounding her to the earth.
"Everything I knew about him," she said quietly, "was a lie."
Zaid's voice was almost a whisper. "He wasn't always like this."
"Then why did he change?"
"Because we all do, eventually. War doesn't ask permission. It just... rewrites people."
She turned to look at him. "What did it rewrite in you?"
His silence was the answer.
So she kissed him.
Not for comfort.
Not even for love.
But because the world was on fire, and this moment—their bodies, their scars, their silence—was the only truth that hadn't betrayed her.
Later, wrapped in an old military blanket, Lina stared at the sky through a broken window.
"What's next?" she asked.
Zaid sat across from her, cleaning his pistol.
"We head east. Across the border."
"To where?"
"To the last place Karim trusts. A camp in the mountains. That's where he's building something. Recruiting. Training."
She nodded, numb. "And then?"
He looked at her. Really looked at her.
"Then I give you the choice I never had."