As Malachi walked along in Jamal's neighbourhood, he remembered the last time he'd come there. It was in the day and was still scary; now it was a thousand times scarier.
He could hear arguments in some of the apartment buildings, an ongoing loud party and two cars raced past him once in what he assumed to be a car race.

He walked faster as he got nearer to Jamal's apartment building and hoped that no one would take him for a thief since he was in all black. When he climbed the stairs the stairs to Jamal's apartment, he chanced upon a make out session between a young boy and a clearly older looking woman. Malachi face palmed himself and shook his head.

When he got to Jamal's, his sisters were huddled against each other and awake even though it was nearly 1am. Jamal gestured for Malachi to enter and when he locked the door again, he pulled Malachi in a hug.

"I thought you'd never get here bro," Jamal said to him before pulling out of the hug.

Ama and Kali, Jamal's sisters waved at Malachi and a smile naturally formed on his face seeing those two.

"Why aren't they asleep?" he asked Jamal.

"They said Forson scared them when he came over. When I found him with my sisters, I wish I could kill him bro,"

"But he came to help right?" Malachi asked and placed both hands on the shoulders of a trembling Jamal. "Chill out bro, I've come to help."

"Yeah yeah," he relaxed and stopped in his tracks. "He warned us to get out of here as soon as possible. de Heer will order a hit on me tomorrow."

Even as he spoke, his hands were still trembling and Malachi wrapped his hands over Jamal's for reassurance. "Hey, listen to me Jamal. My place is safe, no one knows there. Trust me."

Jamal nodded and cast a glance at his sisters which calmed him down more. He said to the youngest, Ama, "Wear your shoes now Ama. We're leaving."

Ama got down from the bed to search under it. She found her shoes and as she was placing her foot in one, her sister moved to her side and helped. The scene was cute to Malachi and he wished he had more time to fawn over it.

"Will an Uber come here at this time of the night?" he asked Jamal.

Jamal shook his head, "Very unlikely. There's one uber driver I know though, he might come."

"Good, call him."

Jamal picked his phone and dialed a number. Malachi watched as he talked to the uber driver and gave a thumbs up to him. Malachi gave him a thumbs up too and smiled.
Now they just had to get to his house safely.

8 hours later

Asha stood at the doorway and stared Simi in Malachi's clothes. Her heart was pounding against her rib cage and she felt fury slowly seeping into her. She took a deep breath and replaced the frown she was sure was on her face with a smile.

The uncertainty on Simi's face was obvious and she didn't know what to say to Asha; the fastness with which she'd switched from frowning to smiling was a bit scary.

"Hey Simi," Asha smiled sweetly and asked, "Is Malachi in there perhaps?"

Simi turned to look at the room and faced Asha again. She shook her head and responded, "He had to go somewhere in the middle of the night."

"Oh," Asha paused. "So you guys were spending the night?"

"I fell asleep and couldn't go back to my place," Simi explained and inched the door more open so that Asha wouldn't think she was hiding anything.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked Asha.

"Girl I'm going to be straight with you. I like Kai a lot. I really do but if you guys have something going on please tell me. I know y'all have been friends along time so I'd understand but please tell me the truth so I don't feel like a fool."
Asha choose logic over mania and poured out her thoughts instead of allowing the fury to control her.
They were in the 21st century after all.

"Please come in Asha," Simi gestured to the room and waited for Asha to enter.

She watched as Asha sat down on Malachi's study chair and she locked the door and went to sit on the study desk, facing her.
Asha arched an eyebrow at her but didn't say anything.

Simi placed her left hand on Asha's right hand. "Please believe me Asha, there's nothing going on between me and Kai. Up until I few days ago, I thought I was falling for a certain cute guy but it turned out he wasn't right for me."

Asha nodded slowly, encouraging Simi to continue.

"Kai hasn't talked about you to me and that means he really likes you and doesn't want to jinx anything by announcing to the whole world that you're his girl."

"You think so?"

"I know so. And we're close friends but that's it. Please believe me."

Asha didn't have a chance to answer as there was two knocks on the door. Simi got up immediately and put a finger to her lips when Asha tried talking.

"Who's there?" she shouted for the second time that morning.

"It's me Si. I'm back," Malachi's bass voice brought relief to Simi as a confused Asha sat there.

Simi quickly opened the door and let Malachi in. She almost hugged him but restrained herself and gave him a playful punch on the shoulder.

"Owh!" Malachi faked a hurtful look and saw Asha.

Immediately he did, the smile that appeared on his face was almost as if he'd seen an angel. Asha's eyes fluttered up and down and she gave him a shy wave.

"Two of my favorite people in the same room," he walked to Asha, embraced her in a hug and joked,
"Were you guys plotting against me?"

"Just having some girl time," Asha replied and winked at Simi.

Simi winked back at her and pretended that she wasn't feeling anything but okay. But something ate her up. It was the look of fury on Asha's face when she thought Simi and Malachi had hooked up. Deep down, she felt an instinct not to trust Asha but she brushed it to jealousy.

On the other side of campus, Abby was meeting her handler for the first time since she'd come back to school.
The first few days, she had been reporting directly to the boss because her handler had been away on another mission.

Abby sat the sitting area at the bus station going through Twitter. A man all dressed in a suit and tie was sitting a bit farther from her and all the others waiting for the bus were standing, eagerly waiting for the bus and not wanting to miss a spot.

A woman dressed in a casual sunflower dress sat down beside Abby and without taking her eyes off her phone, she knew it was her aunt and handler.

"Obtained?" her handler asked her in a low tone.

"Yeah. Had some challenges and I had to hack a phone"

"Good. I'll tell him to get the taskforce ready."

Abby nodded and her handler stood up and walked away. She watched her retreating back and a thought flashed through her mind,
If she were ordered to kill me, would she? Her own family?

She didn't answer herself but thought of a very special person who was taken away from her.