RUN

Blurb

The local gang murdered Fahida’s brother, so she confronts them seeking revenge. But gangs feature a danger far greater than mere threats.

With her brother’s murderer chasing her, has Fahida bit off more than she can chew?

And will she make it out alive?

A thrilling, dark, and twisty short story by S. H. Miah, with secrets, revenge, and lives on the line.

RUN

Chapter 1

Fahida Begum's first mistake had been thinking that, because she went to a females-only gym class, she could outrun six thugs across cracked and bruised East London streets certainly not meant for easy jogging, or sprinting, heck even easy living.

Her second mistake had been provoking those thugs, who were so-called friends of her brother. Her dead brother, named Sulayman. Her brother who had been killed by a rival postcode not three weeks before. And Fahida wanted revenge for those who'd failed to protect Sulayman, even if it meant putting herself in the firing line.

Unfortunately, gang members didn't take kindly to an early twenties hijabi hurling insults (accurate ones, at that) in their face whilst telling them they were gonna pay for not backing her brother in a fight and leaving him to die.

God, why had Fahida done that? Her mother always told her she was an impulsive soul, but what she'd done was practically suicide.

Fahida let out a breath foggier than a rainy night in Stoke and legged it down another winding street, street lamps flickering as though they were broken like the concrete. Her jeans didn't help her stride, pulling and pushing against her like a tide trying to drown a helpless swimmer.

Grey East London streets, almost like an endless maze, met her every which way she looked. And in the distance behind her, she could hear—

Voices, shouting. Voices of those gang members chasing after her. Voices belonging to men with knives in their hands, tips glinting in the evening embers of sunset and wishing for blood.

The hell have I gotten myself into?

She thought her brother had been in with the gang. But it seemed he'd been murdered by rivals whilst on the way out.

And Fahida was a family relative.

Which painted a large target on the back of her black leather biker's jacket.

A target those gangsters wanted to splash with dark red.

And no, they weren't artists mixing paint colours for fun.

Fahida often watched true crime shows. Murderers, arsonists, the worst criminals society had to offer on the illegal spectrum.

But good old gangsters on the bottom rungs of society—some of them committed the truest crimes ever.

And Fahida was about to get herself caught in one if she wasn't cautious. Maybe end up on some true crime show about East London druggies. She needed to be careful.

And by careful—she needed to run.

Run, and run bloody fast.

Her legs tugged her to another greyed-out street with houses dying of old age on either side, and she paused for a second. Cold hand against an icy black lamp post as she bent and tucked a glance behind her.

But that street she'd come from was empty. Though she heard footsteps, more of them, from side roads on her left and right. Fast footsteps, and she could almost sense the sharpness of the knives seeking her blood.

Were they trying to sandwich her from all sides or something, in an ambush?

Had Fahida trapped herself by stopping to catch her breath?

She rubbed a sweaty hand against her jacket, then listened for the footsteps again. The shouts now followed, low and hard beneath the torrential gusts of wind. Shouts of gangsters wanting her blood for merely being related to her brother.

And then a scream, louder than them all, pierced her ears.

“Get the hell over here!”

Chapter 2

The shout had originated from her left, cutting through chilly winds to graze her ears like razor blades. Fahida stood straight, hand leaving the lamp post’s comforting cold, and glanced to a cream painted house with an open living room window.

The front gate of the house was wide open, as if daring her to enter. And another shout drowned out the myriad of footsteps bustling in the streets around her.

Footsteps that, within seconds, would find her. Those gangsters had played her for a fool. She thought they'd been chasing after her, but they'd actually just split up and predicted where she'd go, and now were converging on her location.

“Get the hell over here, you idiot!”

Another yell, slicing through the thick atmosphere to cut into Fahida. And this time, when she glanced at the house, a face popped up in the open window.

The face of someone she'd seen before. With the huge scar against his right cheek like he'd been hit by lightning there.

Her brother's best friend from the age of eleven called Raffy.

One of those who was supposed to stand by her brother no matter what happened.

Stand by her brother whilst they protected each other, like they had always promised.

But he hadn't done that. Since Sulayman was dead.

And now he was calling her into the—

She hadn't a choice.

She sprinted to the front gate, legs pistoning like a machine without thought. Wind bruising her as she hopped onto the pavement and ran.

But that wind suddenly slammed the front gate, clanging it shut, blocking her.

She rattled it open, hand fumbling, with the noise near deafening in her desperation.

The gate swung open, ominously squeaking. And Fahida bundled herself through. Closed the gate behind her so they wouldn't suspect a thing.

The front door opened in much the same way, almost on its own. But on the other side stood Raffy and his jagged scar, faint red etched into brown.

“Out the back,” he ordered, slamming the door behind her. “And bloody quick.”

“Why?” Fahida said, rounding on him in the thin hallway, glaring at him. “Why didn't you help him? Why did you let him die?”

Raffy’s eyes widened, and when he tried to pull Fahida along by the arm, she shrugged him off and stood her ground. Back straight, head held high, whilst murderous shouts rang out beyond the front door behind her.

“Tell me why,” she ordered.

Raffy lunged into the living room, likely to glance out of a window to check on the gangsters, before turning to her again.

“Look, this ain't a safe place. Like, at all. Just get out of here cos you still can. You stay here for a bit longer—you're a dead man.”

“Just like my brother, eh,” Fahida said with a dry laugh.

But she didn't fancy dying, so she crossed to another door and looked inside. A kitchen, fitted with every appliance a kitchen should have that Fahida’s at home didn't. Electric cooker, too, rather than the gas one at home.

She whipped round again, whilst someone banged on the front door.

“You not gonna tell me?” she asked Raffy. “Sulayman's dead, and it's cos people like you never helped him.”

A pulse of guilt switched through Raffy's hazel eyes.

“He snitched, that's why,” Raffy said, eyes frantically glancing between her and the door. “That's all I can tell you, man. So get the hell out of here. I can buy you some time. For now.”

His eyes betrayed his inner worry—as if the gangsters outside were gunning for him, rather than her.

But another bang, louder than all those before, signalled that Fahida didn't have time to stay still.

Danger senses sending hot tingles across her skin, Fahida nodded, then crossed over the kitchen to the back door, which led out to the garden. She opened it, hands clammy and fumbling, and stale air smacked her in the face, forcing itself through her mouth and nose like waste through a sewer.

Hard drugs.

Drugs? In a random house like this in a random street? With this stench? How did they evade capture for so long?

Sulayman hadn't been part of a ragtag group of wannabe crime lords strutting around East London. He'd been a part of a legit operation of peddling drugs to the rest of the city. He wasn't rolling out with the gang and loitering for no reason—he was climbing the ladder whilst adding to the addictions suffered by so many on the lower rungs of life.

But how was the gang not getting caught by police, the neighbours, anyone—with rank smells as bad as this?

Raffy finally clicked open the front door from inside the house, and the yells amplified tenfold.

Fahida didn't have time to think.

She covered her nose with a hand and tailed it to the other end of the garden, tall grass cutting into her ankles and calves. There, a little slit revealed a thin path embedded beside the fence, cleverly hidden by leaves, and Fahida sidestepped into it.

All whilst shouts rang out from inside the house. Shouts of gangsters wanting to murder her for, she assumed, Sulayman snitching on them. And Fahida, by relation, was deemed just as guilty.

Fahida's breath came out in ragged pants as she shuffled along, back scraped by thorns and vines and spiky leaves. Her hands bristled across the wooden fence in front of her, and a couple splinters dug into her palms.

But that pain was nothing compared to the sharp gouging of a knife. And reminding herself of that fact tugged Fahida to the other end of the thin path.

She'd been in there for seconds.

It felt like hours.

She reached a little open area, square. Scratched concrete on the ground, potholes in a couple spots. Whole place barren except for a couple dustbins and empty crates.

And a two metre high metal fence.

Fahida wouldn't get her easy escape.

Not at all.

Chapter 3

The fence stared menacingly at Fahida, daring her to attempt to climb it. As if that zig-zag of wiring knew that she was too short, and too weak, to grab the top of the fence and haul herself over it. She'd gone to the gym, could do more than five pullups—but that was on an even cushioned bar, not ready-to-rip thin metal fencing.

Not to mention the spikes glistening at the summit of the fence—like miniature knives lying in wait for skin to gouge. And Fahida must've been their juicy target.

The wind cut into Fahida's face and momentarily stopped her breathing, but she pushed herself ahead on shaky legs and approached the fence. Breathed once more. Scrambled back and forth along its perimeter, looking for a weak point, a chink in the fence's armour.

But she couldn't find one. Or even a hint of one.

This fence, unlike the wooden one before, didn't have a little side route leading to an escape.

So why had Raffy told her to cut into here instead of something else?

So she could climb the fence? But he must've known she was too short and weak for that, and that the fence was just as dangerous as the pack of gangsters.

To hide in this barren place, then? But hide where? There was nothing to hide behind or inside. The bins were too thin to cover her body and could be tipped over easily, whilst the crates were part see-through due to rectangular holes on each side.

A hijabi wearing bright blue jeans would never evade detection, and that was assuming she could even curl up enough to fit inside one of them crates.

So all in all, she was screwed. Likely as screwed as Sulayman had been after snitching on the gang. And, like Sulayman, Fahida would have to face her fate head on.

But Sulayman was also tenacious, and brave, and fearless. And if Fahida could channel those characteristics through herself, then maybe she’d find a way out of this forsaken place.

A big maybe, that.

Her eyes scanned the barren wasteland again, looking for a sign of weakness in the fence, a hidden cut through the side, a potential escape she’d missed earlier in her panic.

But none presented themselves.

She patted her pocket, but nothing other than her phone met her hands.

She could call the police…but that wouldn’t work either. Considering the gang stashed drugs in a garden with a rank smell and weren’t caught yet—most likely the feds were in on it.

Maybe they took a cut, maybe they turned a blind eye since they worked with a gang, maybe they were just a bunch of corrupt pieces of crap tooting their own horns with pulling drivers over whilst ignoring the gangs.

Fahida didn’t know.

But she knew, in this situation, the feds were useless to her.

Especially since a crack sounded behind her. In the little strip of space she’d forced herself through to get here.

The crack was small, like the snap of a twig in the distance. Barely grazing her ears. But it signalled that Fahida was being hunted.

The air sparked into an immense heat that nearly burned her every breath, and desperation fuelled her to cross the rock-hard concrete.

She grabbed the dustbin, wheeled it over to the edge of the fence. Rubbish lingered inside it, smells of something nasty decomposing reaching up to grip her nostrils.

Another snap in the distance grazed her ear.

The person chasing her—likely with a knife in his hand seeking death—was getting closer.

Way closer. Dangerously close.

Fahida needed to hurry.

The crate was too heavy to pick up, so she scraped it across the ground to where the bin was.

If there was any doubt of her presence, that piercing scrape all but removed it.

She rotated the wooden box till it lined up beside the bin, one smaller than the other like dominoes. Fahida steeled herself, held her breath, readied her legs.

But another twig snapped the air, like a gunshot signalling the start of a horse race.

And Fahida didn't want to lose.

She climbed on top of the crate, and the wood sank in a little. Cracked.

But thankfully not enough to topple her wavering balance.

Rancid smells jutting into her nose, she hauled herself onto the top of the bin, knees bearing the brunt.

Her left foot gave out from under her. She collapsed and lay prone on the bin's top. The whole thing wobbled from her weight, but righted itself. Just in time.

A figure emerged where the thin strip of space met the barren concrete. A figure wearing all black, with beady eyes narrowed right at her.

Fahida had no clue who he was since he wore a balaclava. But she knew his intentions.

To kill her.

Just like his gang had killed Sulayman.

She scrambled from her belly to her legs. Shaking legs. Legs that felt like snapping in half by the hamstring.

But she steadied herself, whilst the figure—

Let out a roar—

And whilst he rushed at her, knife swinging—

Fahida leapt.

Chapter 4

Fahida's knees bashed the fence full force, along with the rest of both legs. The shock twanged through her entire body. Electric pulses zinging from her scarf down to her toes, and nearly paralysing her in the moment.

Her hands scrambled up across harsh metal, right as the man's roar filled her ears like the waves of an impending tsunami.

Fingers outstretched, begging to latch onto something. Skin met metal, and it dug into her palms as she held onto the top for dear life.

Mind racing with thoughts of the worst. Of death. Of the truth of Sulayman's death evading her as she evaded the gang.

Spikes scratched her skin, and her legs dangled a little above the dustbin and crate combo. A combo that teetered before toppling over from the momentum of her jump.

Beyond that, the gangster stared at her with beady eyes and a glinting knife.

The dustbin smacked the ground. The gangster sidestepped it, and let out another roar as he charged.

Panic surged Fahida to move. With every muscle in her body screaming, she pulled herself up. Spikes puncturing the skin of her fingers. Hot blood turning cold against her chilled palms.

Her breath releasing in hurried pants.

Right as the gangster below her jumped and swung that knife.

Gashing her right ankle. Sharp pain blitzed through her like a wildfire spreading to the rest of her body. Agonising pain as blood dripped from her foot.

Extra panic fuelled her muscles, and she got her head to the top. Like a regular pull up. Except, if she fell, death would swing its scythe.

She hauled a leg over the side of the fence. More spikes gashing her body, and the pain sent her over the edge.

Tipping her to the other side. And she fell to the ground, bloody hands ripping themselves from the spikes marking the fence's top. Her knees bashed the ground first, and she limped to her feet.

Glanced back at the gangster on the fence's other side. Through silver gleaming mesh, the gangster's eyes flashed red. He grabbed the fence with a hand and rustled it violently, the other hand brandishing the knife.

“I'll kill you,” he promised, voice dark and brooding. As if no chance existed in his mind of that promise passing unfulfilled. “Just like I cheffed up your bro nicely, yeah.”

Fahida grabbed the fence with both hands, ignoring her splitting skin and the pain radiating through her fingers. Anger surged through her veins.

“Why did you kill him?” she screamed, not caring that her shouting would alert every gangster in the area to her position.

She wished—wished with every cell in her body—to tear through the fence and gut the killer there and then. To enact her revenge, truly and properly. For Sulayman's sake.

But her arms were weakening, and the killer merely sauntered up to the fence and glared at her. Glint of his knife simmering the air. An easy, evil grin playing on his lips.

And Fahida let go of the fence.

“Not just you,” the killer said, leaning in close. “But your whole family. So run back to yard—might be the last time ya see them.”

Fahida turned, teeth gritted, anger at bay for now yet threatening to spill. If the killer, whom she mentally called Glare for his insidious eyes, told the truth—her mum and dad were in danger.

Of not just losing their other child, but their own lives.

Fahida had to rush home. And fast.

But she wouldn't get the chance to now. Maybe never get the chance to ever.

A metallic rattle from behind her. Almost gouging her ears like needles. A glance back, with hooded eyes.

Glare had, effortlessly, leapt over the metal fence, escaping the wrath of spikes at the top. Landed smoothly, with finesse, and raised his head.

And now he and his knife set their murderous gazes on her.

Fahia looked ahead. To a single grey door on the far side of the alley. The only bloody thing in the alley on this side.

She prayed to Allah it was open.

Chapter 5

The door's ashen glare didn't deter Fahida's determination as she grabbed onto its icy handle. Then pulled it open, praying beyond anything that it wasn't locked. Praying to Allah that pretty much her only source of escape wasn't useless to her.

All whilst Glare behind her laughed maniacally. Laughed as though causing death filled his veins with pleasure not even the most potent of drugs could induce. That he flourished in the gang not as one of its dealers, but one of its murderers.

The door inched open as Fahida pulled, its bottom dragging against the concrete. Fahida tugged harder, then planted and pushed with her feet to help the door move.

After seconds that felt like hours, the door opened enough for Fahida to slip inside the tiny gap. Darkness enveloped her in a tense grip, squeezing tight, as she whipped around in a frenzy.

She shut the door behind her, and the world flicked entirely to black.

“Can't get away that easily,” Glare said outside, again laughing. Fahida could sense the smirk in his eyes, the lick in his lips as he savoured her death.

She pulled the door's handle from inside to prevent Glare entering. Her other hand fiddled in her pocket and brought her phone out. Fingers trembling, tremors shooting through her body, she flicked on the phone's torch function.

Then the door rattled and nearly yanked her off her feet. The door scraped the ground, metal grating against concrete and the noise scratching her eardrums.

Her torch lit up a dead-grey door with scratches marked into almost every inch of it. Top to bottom. As though whoever had been inside was a prisoner pencilling their days in with a shiv.

Another yank.

Fahida's arm almost got wrenched off, her shoulder jutting forwards from the tug on the handle. Her other hand shaking whilst gripping her phone hard.

She couldn't stop Glare from coming inside. Another yank, and Fahida might not survive it. She might get pulled forwards and onto the ground, and then she'd be easy pickings.

She needed to think.

Think fast.

She let go of the handle and crouched to one side of the door, torch facing down so she couldn't be discovered. Her breath released in pants, so she tucked in a huge breath and held it there. Begged Allah to let her legs stop their tremors.

Her heartbeat pulsed around every joint of her body, limbs primed for action. Chest constricted as she forced every doubt out of her.

Another yank.

The door scraped the ground, the sound like metal nails against chalkboard. The door inched open, grating sound deafening, then another yank blasted light from outside into the darkness Fahida was trapped in.

Glare stepped through, confident with head high, knife almost glowing with the need to rip into flesh.

Fahida swung into action, and swung her phone from its position by her hip, and faced the torch up at the same time. Her wrist bent at the perfect angle as she swung.

The torch blasted into Glare's eyes, and he slashed the knife instinctively whilst blinded. The sharpness cut into Fahida's arm, radiating pain and eliciting blood, but not before—

She smacked her phone's metal base straight onto Glare's forehead. Balaclava or not, damage had been dealt. Serious damage, hopefully.

Glare staggered backwards, reeling from the hit, but his body still blocked the door. And Fahida could either choose to push through him or—

She turned and fled into the dimly lit darkness, dodging strewn around crates, as Glare stumbled to regain his bearings.

“I'll kill you, trust me, you little—”

Fahida blocked his voice and rushed to a staircase on the far side, almost hidden on her right. Trying to find an exit on the ground floor of whatever this building was would be a mistake, especially with Glare breathing down her neck.

If there wasn't a back exit, Fahida was done for. She'd be like a boxer, boxed into the corner of the ring with no way out. So, the staircase presented her only realistic option to hide and buy time to figure something out.

If escape was even possible.

She turned off the flash, pocketed the phone, then gripped the metal railing and launched herself up the stairs, two at a time, legs aching from firing too much. She almost slipped once. Twice. But balance found her again, less her own ability and more a miracle from Allah.

The top of the stairs gave her body temporary relief. Panting, dust shooting into her mouth and eyes, she turned and glanced down the stairs, ears ringing with the noise of her raging heartbeat.

Wary of Glare hunting her down. Ready to tear her to pieces for Sulayman's betrayal of the gang.

But Glare was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 6

Instead of turning and heading deeper into the dim chasm she was in, Fahida paused at the staircase’s summit. Stared down the black steps, searching for Glare amongst the murkiness. But no shadowy figure wearing a balaclava flitted across her vision. No glint of a knife. Nothing.

Not even the sound of footsteps or breathing. She only heard the breath lodged in her throat, unwilling to release.

It was as if Glare had totally, utterly, disappeared.

And Fahida's mind sank into the lowest depths of possibilities. What if Glare knew Fahida had no way out, no escape, and was calling reinforcements for the kill? Calling them over for some fun?

Fahida could only imagine how a group of murderous men would treat her before finally putting her out of her misery with a quick slit across the throat. She'd read history, and about what occurred to captured prisoners who happened to be female. If the same things were forced upon her—

She tried to rid her mind of those thoughts, but even Sulayman had spoken of the way his “friends” talked and acted when he was alive.

And those same “friends” had gutted him clean through the stomach and left him on a wet, cold alleyway floor to bleed out and die.

So what would they do to an enemy like Fahida?

Light blasted in from the door she'd entered this building through. Like salvation at the end of starvation, that door beckoned her closer. But if she stormed towards it, caution thrown to the wind, maybe she'd make it out. Maybe she'd reach safety once again—

A clang down the stairs. Not at the base near the front steps, but somewhere directly beneath her on the ground floor. As if Glare waited there, breath bated, knife salivating at the thought of Fahida's blood.

And another thought pricked Fahida's mind. Glare had likely called reinforcements, since the entire gang was after her. And those reinforcements, if they'd heard the earlier commotion, were likely right outside that door. Waiting to pounce on Fahida.

Or somewhere down the road beyond the alley. That door, bellowing light into the building—that door presented almost certain death.

Fahida turned, faced the darkness glaring back at her on this floor, and shuffled forwards. Deeper into the deep. Keeping her footsteps light, treading as though the ground was filled with landmines. Her trainers scraping the floor. Hands reaching out to gather her bearings, as though she'd been rendered blind by the darkness.

Her fingers wrapped around something cold, about the thickness such that she could wrap a fist around it.

A…ladder?

She touched the chilling metal again, this time with both hands whilst turning towards it. If she used the flash of her phone, she’d get a greater read on the area around her.

But that was far too large a risk. Using her phone's torch now was as much of a death sentence as rushing out that door below. Especially when she couldn't sense the silent Glare slinking somewhere surrounding her.

She had to climb. Higher. Even if it meant Glare following her up somehow. Narrowing the possibilities of where she could be.

She gripped the ladder hard, then stepped onto the first. Hands shaking. Which caused the metal to rattle and vibrate as though a ringtone pinpointing her location.

Another bang from downstairs. Shuffling movements. Scrapes of something against hard ground.

Just what was Glare doing down—

Fahida climbed the next step without thinking, then the next, not glancing up or down but right in front of her. At the boarded up windows carrying little to no light into the building. Ignoring the dust lurking around her and waiting to be inhaled.

This place appeared to be some old factory, abandoned entirely. And the smell of something foul met Fahida's nose, like a concoction of oil and rotten vegetables from a dustbin. A stench she couldn't quite place, and an unsettled feeling draped across her shoulders and limbs and legs as she stepped upward again, heart nearly plummeting into the depths of fear.

She reached the ladder's top moments later, hands flattening against dusty ground. Wooden floorboards, they were, and a bit of broken wood pinched her skin.

Little pain compared to what Glare and the gang risked doing to her.

She pulled herself up, swivelled and sat on her butt. Breathed in heavily, and glanced around her.

Here, a sole window on the roof dashed in shafts of light, and Fahida glanced through the space beside her to find illuminated by those shafts and swirling with dust—

Bodies.

Dead bodies.

Chapter 7

The disgusting stench punctured her nose like a knife first. The smell of rotting flesh, of death, of a sin so foul she didn't want to even think about it. Let alone gaze at its aftermath. Let alone stare at the horrifying scene first hand.

But, for a reason she couldn't fathom, her eyes kept fixed on that pile of bodies. Some with blood seeping out of fleshy wounds, blood that splattered the ground in both dull and fresh stains. Other bodies were unmarked, unscathed, yet the lifelessness in their eyes was plain to see when lit by those shafts of light.

A lifelessness that was probably in Sulayman's eyes, too, not that the body had ever been discovered. Only a finger, the DNA of which matched her brother. The janazah had been done with an almost empty grave.

Was Sulayman's corpse in that pile of bodies? Did he fester here, as though fate wished Fahida to discover her brother's dead body?

Terror struck into every pore of her skin, she stumbled to shaky feet and pressed a hand against a metal desk to her right. Balanced herself just about. Teetered on the edge, Then righted herself again and sucked in dusty breaths.

Just as a sound rang out beneath her. Low, but in the deathly silence, the sound echoed like a funeral bell.

Glare rattled the ladder, as if announcing his presence. As though cosplaying as an angel of death, and Fahida didn't wish to wait to see that side of fate.

So she turned ahead, glanced through the slits of light, and noticed a door to the other side of the little aisle she was in.

A door beyond those dead bodies.

She'd have to—

Sprint through the aisle as the ladder rattled louder this time. And Glare grunted when reaching the top, just as Fahida crossed the pile of bodies, slits of light attacking her face.

And her eyes glanced down, betraying her will, and Fahida noticed another detail she'd missed from afar. That some of the bodies had their stomachs ripped open, and their bowls had been emptied out. Blood still dripped, but vital organs appeared to have been removed with surgical precision.

The sight so horrifying that Fahida clamped a hand over her mouth to avoid retching. Sickness flooded her stomach. She reached that door, eyes firmly away from the bodies, and turned the handle.

Glare hunted her, his eyes almost glowing red as though he was a devil incarnate. He didn’t rush for her, though. He and his knife stared at her whilst she slammed the door behind her. Stared as though he knew she had no escape. Knew that she was trapped here, and as good as dead.

Glare being unworried in turn worried Fahida. But she had to remain calm. So stilled her nerves. For now, at least.

The door, thankfully, had a lock from the inside. But when Fahida turned it, fingers trembling, the lock didn’t work. She heard a click, but could see in the tiny gap between the door and the wall that the chip of metal meant to hold the lock in place was missing.

Cut off perfectly, as though it had been sliced on purpose.

And Glare had approached the door slowly, leisurely, as if he knew that fact.

Meaning she had to turn and—

Ran through the room she was now in, more slits of illumination guiding her like Allah was showing her a path she’d never have found on her own. Exhaustion rattled her bones as the door rattled behind her. Glare and his beady knife and crimson eyes were coming in, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

She crossed the slices of light. Shadow flitting around corners to the back left of the room. And another discovery shook her to her core, right as Glare smashed open the door to her rear.

She’d hoped, deep inside somewhere, that this room would provide another exit. Another path down to the ground. A different way to escape this forsaken building. A path that didn’t result in certain death.

But all that met her was another set of stairs. Wedged into the room’s corner like an afterthought. Standing tall and menacing.

Not leading down, but up.

Glare roared behind her, footsteps loud. “NOWHERE TO RUN,” he shouted, words echoing both inside Fahida’s head and out. Off the walls. Off the stairs.

Fahida climbed those steps two at a time.

Higher.

As Glare chased her.

To where—she had no idea.

Chapter 8

The stairs weren’t blessed by the shafts of light beaming in through those high-up windows. So it was darkness through which Fahida climbed, steps barely visible beneath her unsteady feet. Like before, she almost tripped one more than a few steps, climbing higher and higher.

Glanced down at the ground. A ground that was far too low, teetering beneath her, and her eyes blurred as though the earth was swirling, tumbling, curling into a ball that Fahida was in the centre of, her veins pulsing all together and squeezing as many ounces of blood as they could to each of her muscles whilst she—

Reached the top of the stairs, stopped for half a second and heaved in a heavy breath, and shot off down that aisle, air shooting past her, a rusty metal railing to her left with rectangular gaps revealing Glare stalking her up the steps.

Moving with a leisure she could’ve never imagined.

As though he knew that she was trapped. Utterly trapped.

Metal pangs accompanied her every step. Ringing off the walls, pinging her eardrums and echoing as if she had tinnitus.

And then a door at the end of this walkway—a door glaring at her just like Glare below with his red eyes.

The door dared her to open it, and every doubt ran through her mind as her fingers extended and almost automatically—

Tugged that door open, stepped into the overwhelming light bashing her closed eyes, and slammed the door behind her.

Fresh air snatched at her body—both a relief and a terror—as the redness of her eyelids subsided. Eyes opened. Because she was now in a vacant area much like the one at the rear of the gang’s weed-smelling safe house, but this one was fifty feet in the air, and there was no way in hell Fahida would find a way down.

Unless it was to her own death.

She glanced back at the door she’d closed, and imagined Glare walking across the sheet of metal, and realised her fate. No chance of a way down, whether through the building or outside of it.

She was, to put it bluntly, as good as dead.

She rushed to the edge of the roof, glanced over the thin railing separating her from a nasty drop to the ground. Almost certain death as a forgotten splatter on a pavement. Car rumbles below, faint and distant and carried by the wind, with other buildings opposite staring bricks into her, stone-walling. Whilst she spotted gang members circling on the road adjacent to the building, near its boarded up front entrance.

Heck, even if she did somehow make it back through the building and down—they’d be waiting for her. With their knives and their hatred for the sister of the snitch, the snake, Sulayman.

And she’d be dead. Just as dead as him.

Why on earth had she done this to herself? Leaned into that thirst for revenge? Not stepped back and been sensible about the whole thing?

Ya Allah, that voice in her mind said. The voice that only called on Him when she really needed His help. Or thought she needed His help. The voice that ignored Him almost all other times in her life.

She rubbed a clammy, sweaty hand against her jeans, then scrubbed the other, then glanced up at the door.

It had opened, but the gusts of terrorising wind had masked the noise. Fahida straightened her back, stared just as hard at Glare as he was at her. Squinted brown eyes facing bulging red. If she was about to die, on this abandoned roof and at the hands of a monster with his glinting knife and creepy smirk—she was going to die standing on her own two feet.

Best believe that.

Against Sulayman’s killers—Sulayman’s murderers—Fahida wouldn’t bend the knee. No matter the consequences.

Glare approached her, beady eyes and all. Raised the knife, to his mouth, and licked its length. Almost as if he was worshipping the thing, worshipping his own capacity to cause death.

The sick, twisted piece of—

“Why did you kill him?” Fahida immediately asked, stepping forwards on both feet, unwilling to let the scumbag gain any kind of upper hand.

Even if he was, clearly, the aggressor in this situation.

“You already know the reason,” Glare said, spreading his arms wide. “But shall I tell you more, dear girl?”

“Don’t you dare call me that!”

Glare was entirely unperturbed by her shout, choosing to laugh in response. Not a natural reaction, but an intentional provocation. And that response sent shivers down Fahida’s arms and rage into her chest.

Her heartbeat pulsed with the intention of smashing this guy’s head into a pulp.

This man…this cretin of a human being was the one that murdered her brother, murdered Sulayman, no doubt about it. The smirk in his eyes and along his lips told her the entire story.

And now she was supposed to stand, facing him, and play these kinds of stupid games?

Not a chance.

So Fahida, with breath held, stepped ahead once more.

Chapter 9

“I’m sure you want to know, don’t you?” Glare said, that smirk constantly in place. A vicious gust of wind whipped Fahida’s scarf to the left, fabric covering her mouth for a second, but she pulled it back.

And breathed. In and out. Whilst she still had the chance to do so.

Then mustered her own glare, whilst squaring off against Glare.

Strangely, her earlier fear of dying, of either falling to her death or succumbing to his sharp blade, had entirely vanished. Whooshed into thin air. Replaced by this steeliness she had never felt before. A strength in her chest that told her she’d be fine, would thrive in fact. And something within her told her that she’d never feel this way again.

This feeling was a blessing—a blessing that, if she took, she’d make it out alive.

“Know what?” Fahida shot back, through gritted teeth. Words carried by a fierce wind.

Oh, what she’d do for the chance of this situation reversing itself. Of her holding the knife with Glare cornered on a roof. A drop behind him as one option of dying, with the knife being his second.

Take your pick, she’d tell him, and watch as he squirmed and struggled and—

“Begging me, he was,” Glare said, as if deliberately timing his words to interrupt her thoughts.

And Fahida’s blood chilled. Stilled all at once.

“Begging me not to kill him. Said he wouldn’t tell anyone—”

“Tell anyone what?” Fahida interrupted, voice near screeching. “About them bodies back there?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Absolutely the wrong thing to say. If Sulayman had been murdered over his knowledge of those bodies…Fahida had just set herself up for the same fate. If she wasn’t already in the firing line anyway.

“I see,” Glare said, eyes intensifying in their glow. “So you ain’t as dumb as you look. Nice to know.” He licked his knife again. Up and down the length, as though sweetening the kill with his salivation at the thought of her death. Then he pointed the knife’s tip at her. “Very nice to know.”

Then he rushed at her without warning. Knife bared. Eyes wide with intent. To kill her. The surprise attack causing that stilled blood inside Fahida to fire all at once. Fire her into motion. As Glare was mere millimetres from her body.

She threw herself to the right. Far too late. Far too late to avoid getting hit. The knife grazed her shoulder, tearing a cut into her scarf as she hit the ground.

She rolled twice, stopping herself with a scrabbling hand against concrete.

Glare blinked once, as though shocked that she’d managed to get out of the way. Turned towards her. Eyed her with an increased wariness.

Not fear in those eyes. But anticipation of a real fight. When Fahida, after everything she’d been through today, barely had a fight left to give.

With her last ounces of strength, she pulled herself together again. Mentally and physically. All that gym training hadn’t been for nothing, thankfully. And Fahida hopped back to her feet. Unsteady feet, but feet nonetheless.

As she glanced around her, observing the situation in the brief reprieve.

A rock and a hard place. That was what she was stuck between.

One the one hand, beelining it for the door back into the bowels of the building would sandwich her between two sets of gangsters—Glare, and his goons downstairs waiting outside.

On the other hand, remaining out here would more than likely ensure her death. With no insurance against that fact. Glare appeared to be a seasoned killer, and would enjoy this meal in all its flavour.

In fact, Glare seemed to live for that. Something that could potentially be used against him.

Though how—Fahida hadn't a clue.

“Can't run, can't hide, only die,” Glare growled, stalking forwards again. Knife dangling lazily by his side. Wind whipping Fahida's scarf but powerless against his balaclava. “Don't you even think about—”

He lunged at Fahida, but luckily her stance was staggered. One leg back, the other bent ahead. She threw herself again, off her back foot, to the left. Rolled across bruised and battered shoulders. Back to her feet.

Back to the deathly drop behind her.

And an idea strung her mind, an idea spawning as though it had been planted by someone else. By something else.

The railing standing between her and the drop pressed its cold against the back of her knees. Almost freezing her.

But her idea would work. It had to.

Wordlessly, as Glare watched with red, narrowed eyes, Fahida stepped onto the railing's other side. Feet now firmly on the ledge separating her from a perilous drop.

Both her hands lowering to grip the icy metal in tense, curled fingers.

And Glare's eyes widened, just a little. The hand on that knife hilt strengthened.

Fahida had gotten to him. Gotten to his nerves. Just as she'd planned to.

“You want the satisfaction of killing me, don't you?” Fahida said, voice stronger than her chest felt. She tightened her grip on the railing. “Well, what if I don't let you?”

She was playing with suicide, quite literally. But this appeared her only available option. Drastic times required drastic measures. And Fahida readied herself for an imminent death.

Because Glare, perhaps sensing that her bluff might not be so, stormed at her. Knife raised. Ready to rip.

Chapter 10

When he reached her, Fahida's mind did a somersault. She had to make it seem like she was falling off the edge of the railing, and make it seem realistic. Whilst also keeping herself alive, because she had a mission of staying in this world and protecting her family.

Sulayman was killed because he snitched on the gang. Snitched about something so immoral Fahida couldn't stomach it—and so couldn't the corpses.

But Sulayman was already dead and couldn't be brought back to life. That was a stone hard fact that Fahida had almost ignored in her tirade against the gang.

But if Fahida died now—who was next? Her mother, father? What if the gang went after them, and Fahida didn't warn them or protect them?

More innocent people dead. At the hands of these crazies. All because Fahida bit off more than she could chew.

So when Glare swung the knife at her, lunging forwards as though her dying from suicide represented his worst failure, Fahida dropped from the edge. Down onto her tip toes with bent knees. To evade the knife arc. The whoosh whizzed over her scarf, nearly grazing it.

Then, the gap in the railing between its two handles—Fahida threw herself into it. Face down, praying inside. Shoulder smacking right into Glare's knees with more force than she thought possible.

He didn’t topple backwards like she’d hoped, but the move was unexpected. So he couldn’t stop Fahida from getting behind him. Not dead.

Fahida turned and, with both hands tensed, shoved Glare as hard as she could.

Thankfully, those gym muscles actually had some use.

Glare turned as she shoved him. His torso twisting, contorting such that his balance was wrecked. Unrecoverable.

The back of his knees smacked the railing. And he fell on his backside. Except, of course, that ledge behind the railing wasn’t large enough to sit on.

So Glare kept falling.

Knife scrambling in his hands.

But a hand holding a knife was a hand that couldn’t hold a railing. So all that accomplished was metal clattering metal.

His other hand clasped the railing, but momentum cut off the grip.

And just before he fell, Fahida witnessed the first emotion other than bloodthirst in his eyes. As he fell to his death. Abject fear—fear of death, and fear of Fahida and what she’d done.

And she knew—knew it like she knew life was real and Allah was her Lord—that Sulayman hadn’t let fear overtake his eyes when he’d died. Sulayman had been fearless, right to the very end. Him snitching on the gang, at the expense of himself, proved that fact.

Fahida didn’t hear the smack of body against ground below, but she snuck a gaze over the edge and saw a splatter of blood fresh on the concrete. A limp Glare in the centre of that red. His knife just as splayed out beside him. With pedestrians crowding around, gasps and shocks faint as they made their way up through the wind to Fahida.

And, in the roads to the left and right, gangsters peered around corners to see Glare plastered on the ground. Undoubtedly dead. And those gangsters, like the cowards they were, completely ignored their so-called friend, so-called comrade, who’d died.

Ran away from the scene, unwilling to help him. And likely unwilling to fight Fahida, who’d done that to Glare. But perhaps gangsters were merely like that. Scared children inside, boasting their toughness in groups but rarely alone.

Still, Fahida couldn’t take any chances. She stalked to the other side of the roof, glanced down at the entrance to the building she’d come through, in that alleyway behind the gang’s safe house.

No gangsters lurked there. They’d all run away. Leaving their ‘friend’ on his own. And Fahida scoffed at the irony of it all. Glare had been tasked to kill Sulayman who’d deserted the gang. And now the rest of his gangsters all deserted him.

Fahida sighed, breathed in the now fresh wind, and watched the cloudy sky drift along for a few seconds. As though nature had, oddly, righted itself again now that Glare was dead.

Fahida took her phone out, pressed record on the camera, and walked down the stairs leading into the bowels of the building. She’d get footage of the building, of the corpses below, and make sure to store the video evidence somewhere safe. East London still wasn’t a haven for her, not when she’d gotten a murderer of the gang killed.

But still, if Fahida had footage of their crimes…and threatened to release it if the gang ever endangered her or her family’s lives…that could go a long way to ensuring their safety.

And, if she sent an anonymous tip to the police, even better. Sure, some officers were no doubt protecting the gang given the rank smell of weed going unnoticed in that safe house. Perhaps those officers had outed Sulayman as a snitch in the first place.

But the feds couldn’t ignore dozens of corpses lying in a pile like this, not when it was caught on camera.

There was much to do. And too little time to do it, it seemed.

But for now, and for the future, Fahida was safe, at the very least.

Epilogue

It had been years since Fahida confronted the gang that had killed her brother Sulayman. Years since that fateful day on which she had taken a life and killed her brother’s murderer—no regrets about that. That murderer had been threatening her life, and Fahida took the only option she had. The police, thankfully, never questioned her for too long, especially with the man’s knife having her blood stains on it, and with the evidence she presented of those corpses through recording the video on her phone.

Apparently, the gang had been killing people, usually vulnerable people, then using their organs for profit on some underground market unknown to the police. The closer to death the organs were sold—the higher the profit margins. And Fahida’s discovery had reignited the police investigation into that crime ring. And families, many of them, finally got closure as to what had happened to their loved ones.

Fahida, of course, didn’t mention a word of this to the police until after she and her family had moved out of East London and now lived in a quiet part of Kent, where there were rowdy boys, for sure. But no gangsters hunting her blood for being related to a snitch.

At first, she’d been angry inside at Sulayman, at her brother. Pissed off that he’d gone and joined a gang for no reason, gone and ruined his life. And that ruin had ended in his death at the hands of the very people he’d begged it with. At that time, Fahida hadn’t been understanding, hadn’t had the life experience to understand why people did the things they did.

But now, with years more experience on her back and with a profession of working with people from underprivileged backgrounds, Fahida realised that her brother was one of many children with a lack of purpose, of direction. With the promises of a stable life further and further away from kids who grew up in ghettos and broken homes—where were they going to turn?

To the education that stigmatised them in favour of private boarding school elites and the rare geniuses?

Or the kids down the road wearing too-low tracksuits and vaping that tell them they’ve got a future, tell them they’re important, that they have something to live for and could get money for living it, tell them that they’re all working together against the system, tell them they’ve got each other’s backs and are brothers till the death?

Many kids similar to Sulayman passed through Fahida’s office, many of them in their teens, some older, a lot unfortunately younger. They all shared that same chip on their shoulder, that same helplessness, hopelessness in their eyes, and it was through assisting them that Fahida found closure for her brother’s death.

Sulayman, though he had his faults, was just another poor broken kid trying to find people that accepted him. And the first people that had—he’d latched onto them. And perhaps it was only Allah's blessing that Fahida's coin flip of friends turned out to be the religious type, not those hanging around street corners and drugging themselves up.

But now Fahida had a new mission. Not to deride those who caught themselves in gang warfare, but to help them, assist them, and do her part in creating a better future for which these children and youngsters could aim for and achieve.

And finally, Fahida was feeling a sense of peace.

JazakAllahu Khayran for reading!

Feel free to read any of my other free short stories, or click the all fiction tab above for info on where to find my longer works.