"I've told you once and I'll tell you again," I shuffled in annoyance, "They've already treated my wounds!"

"Hush," Shalik pressed the cotton ball to my cheek, "I know what kind of treatment they give. Shut up and let me make sure you don't get an infection."

"They give proper treatment!" I defended my father's employees, "they're professionals."

"Professionals who're ordered to leave you a scar," Shalik turned my face around, "Jeez, you don't even look like me anymore."

"Lol, I never looked like you," which was true. Shalik and I are twins, not identical twins. The difference was very acutely visible. I had a dimple on my left cheek. She had a dimple on her right cheek. I had short hair and she had long hair. She was white and I was brown. I was a boy and she was a girl. And she was shorter than me!

"Who even says lol?"

"I do, lol. Why, lol? Does it bother you, lol? Too meemee, lol?"

Shalik rolled her eyes and slapped me lightly on the bruise.

It hurt. Must've shown on my face, because Shalik smiled.

"So, what's the occasion on Tuesday?" I asked.

Shalik sat silent for a while, the dim white light of the hallway reflecting off the walls of my room making her look as fragile as porcelain. The thought clinked emptily in my heart with the rhythm of the ticking clock above us.

She was as fragile as porcelain. I made her that way.

"Reshma's engagement party," she whispered.

"Oh," I nodded, "Who?"

"Khalilpur DC," Shalik pressed the cotton again, "Owns two casinos."

"Is she gonna be the second wife?"

"Third."

"How's Reshma taking this?"

"I don't know. I haven't-" Shalik's throat caught. The cotton dropped from her fingers and she slumped down, face in hand, "I haven't heard from her all day."

I put a hand on her shoulder. They were small, slight shoulders. Fragile. Porcelain.

And then I realized something. Something I realize again and again, but never enough. Always leaving home for pain to come again.

Shalik was going to be sold someday, perhaps someday soon, and she knew it. Father will sell her off to some rich businessman, or crucial trade partner the moment he finishes using her. To him, she's just another discardable asset. Something to convince people with, until they aren't being convinced any more.

I pulled her close, but we didn't cry. We just sat there, like that, close.

And something howled in my heart. A desperate, primal warning, long outlasting it's time of need. A irrational fear of breaking what you hold. Of strangling of what you mean to protect.

"I-" I freed my hand, "have somewhere to be."

"No," she let go, "Not with those bruises."

"Shalik I-"

"Shut up and don't make this longer. I need to get dressed," she returned to working on my face, "Father's new friends are coming, and I have to go greet them."

"Choto," I grimaced, "You don't have to do this."

"Pot, kettle, black."

"But still-"

"It's just a dress," Shalik leaned back and changed the cotton, "it's fine."

It was not just a dress, and it was not fine. But I swallowed. There's mud in the water. That we both knew. No use disturbing it and making the water muddier.

She worked on me for another half an hour, in mutual silence except for the faint whistle through her teeth when she saw my chest. Some topics take the conversation out of you.

In the garage, I sat on my bike. A Renegade Commando. Father had wanted me to get a flashy bike that gave me a Bad Boy persona. I hated the Bad Boy persona. So I got a flashy bike that didn't give me a Bad Boy persona.

I revved the bike's engine and just sat there, in the wide garage with the five other cars. The dim yellow light made them look like beetles of white, silver, red and black. The Scorpio before me looked at me mourning headlight eyes.

My bike growled between my legs like an enormous metal kitten, the sound echoing between the white walls. It was comforting. Like I could finally rely on something and let my weight fall.

But the woods are lovely, dark and deep.

I put on my sunglasses, swung my bag behind me and stepped on the peddle. Dodging the cars out of the garage, I rounded around the white marble fountain in the driveway, whisked past the rose garden, and shot out the iron gate without slowing down.

Clouds scattered in waves across the evening sky, kind to my eyes. The silver disk of the sun shone meekly from the west horizon. Early spring chill blew from the north. This was a day meant for riding.

The open air placed rushing kisses on my face as I zipped through the everspanning green pasture. Children playing in the fields stood and watched as I roared past them on the gravel road. A sizeable cape of dust rose behind me.

Was it an omen?

I wanted to go to the woods. I wanted to leave my bike outside and get lost in the woods. To lie on an ancient root and let the falling leaves drown me down, down, down and down.

But I wasn't going to the woods.

I was going to the town.

It was small, edging between a town and a village, grown up like a patch of mold around an old rickety railway station. Here were children wide eyed at the spectacle that I rode and adults wary of the sunglasses that I wore. A roadside Fuchka stand produced a string of curses at the dust cloud behind me.

I hit the brakes near Maer Dua Restaurant and hotel. It was a cheep, unhygienic and shabby place, with a large cauldron of oil bubbling in front of the building over an open fire and yellow plaster wearing down from the walls, much like any food court you're likely to find in any small town. But it was one of a kind, at least in this town. It had taken me a week to find this place.

I walked in, bag swung back and bought eight Puri. They were delivered in a newspaper bag inside a polythene one, the newspaper blotchy with oil. I took them and excused myself to the restroom.

They didn't have flushes. That should tell you everything needed. I walked in, pulled the door, and looked up, to the most unique feature of this restaurant.

The stalls had no roof.

I put the Puri down and opened my bag. In it was my most inconspicuous grey hoodie and a thick rimmed zero powered glasses. They were on me in seconds. I flipped the bag inside out and pushed the bag of Puri, along with my sunglasses and wristwatch, inside. I swung the now strapless pouch behind me.

Rudimentary disguise.

Pushing against the moldy walls of the stall, I hauled myself over the wall, and landed with my feet on both sides of a drain. The space between the two buildings was about two feet wide. Wide enough for me to walk.

I came out from behind a clothe shop. Spending some money for four lemons, and having them cut, I shuffled through a busy crowd to make my way towards the railway station. She should be there.

And she was. Sitting by a column, with her dirty, wispy white hair in her shrunken, sunkissed face. She wore a brown robe that hung to the floor. A sack lay near her feet, changes neatly arranged on it by value. Her white, unseeing eyes gazed towards where the rail rods met, and the night approached from by the minute.

"You should fix your sandal," she said Without lifting her head, "it's about to tear."

I stopped. She had the bowl of water out.

"You knew I was coming?" I asked.

She smiled,"The whole town knows when you ride that bulldozer of yours in."

I reached into my hoodie's pocket and brought out the specimen bag, "I'm here on business."

"You're always here on business. How many?"

"Fourteen notes of thousand taka."

"Ooh," she whistled, "I feel lucky to be holding so much money. My pay?"

I handed her fourteen hundred taka notes. She counted them, finding dots and ridges with her fingers on the paper. Once she was finished, she made a satisfied sound, "You still have that killing intent, I see."

I said nothing.

"It's clearer than usual today. Something the matter?"

"Nothing," I lied.

"I can tell if your sandal needs fixing. Don't you think I'd notice if you lied?"

I shuffled uncomfortably, "Don't pry, old lady. Can't tell."

She shrugged, "Fair. Let me see the notes. Prepare the water."

I handed her the notes and began to pour lemon juice into the bowl. She unwrapped the notes and gingerly ran her fingers over them. The scent of overripe lemon wafted in the air.

Once I was done, she reached towards the bowl with her right hand and dipped her fingers in it. Then she unfurled the notes and went to work.

Her fingers grazed over the notes, over every folds and scratches and tiny crevices. She did not touch, but she touched more thoroughly than a vice grips. A low tune hummed out of her.

"Impatience," she muttered, "he had somewhere to be."

Father always has somewhere to be. It was no news. But I wouldn't be one to rush art.

"He is very good at hiding his intent, you know," She said absentmindedly, "I ought to charge you more."

A single sweat drop appeared on my forehead. It was hard enough to gather her fee as was. It wasn't about getting money. It was about getting money without my father's knowledge.

"Hmm. There's contempt, I think. It's either that, or he was hungry," she licked her lips, "But this fold here is too wide. I'd say it's contempt."

She flipped through a few more, muttering to herself, "Anger, joy, disgust.... Hmm, full bladder? Full bladder. Pride?"

"There's definitely anticipation," she declared.

My heart skipped a bit. I never stutter, but now I did.

"A-anticipation?"

"Yes," she flipped the note, "short term. He awaits an event in hand. I'd say, from the way the edges were scrunched by his palm, that it's important."

Is it now? Is my wait over?

She murmured for a minute more, sitting in the pregnant darkness of the falling evening.

Then she flipped the last note, sighed, and met my eyes with her sightless ones.

"Fear," she spoke as if mourning, "he feels a great fear that he will not admit to. He fears the loss of something important to him."

There was only one thing father cared enough about to fear for. And if what I thought was happening was happening, change was upon us.

I rode back home in a daze. My heart beat like a drum of war that signalled through the dark ether of the night. I faintly remembered handing the Puri over to Her, and watching her feed them to the street dogs. I didn't bother changing out of my hoodie. I would never have to come back here anyway.

The garage was open and there were two more cars there. Our guests. I killed the bike and put it in its designated spot at the corner. The engine tick tick ticked as it cooled down.

I walked into the house, with long, reaching strides but when I reached the living room door, I stopped.

Shalik sat there, wearing a gown that left one of her legs bare, beside a plump man in his middle ages in a clean white shirt and black pants. He looked like he just said something funny. Shalik, as well as the two other men sitting across them, was mid-laugh.

And he had a hand on her bare thigh. It rubbed slowly, feeling; groping.

I felt my knees bend, becoming springs ready to lunge. My hands tightened into claws. Eyesight narrowed in -

And Shalik met my eyes. For a moment. No more than a fraction of a second. And her smile didn't change. Her brows didn't scrunch. But somehow, for less than a breath's length of time, porcelain became granite.

Don't be rash.

How can I not?

You'll make it worse.

And I realized that I would. Whatever good intentions, we had no allies here.

Father appeared from the other side of the room, and the man removed his hand. But not fast enough. He had no intention to hide. He had been given a present, and he had enjoyed it.

Shalik stood up and politely excused herself. The man said something funny, and all except father howled in laughter. Shalik made her way towards me.

I backed into the shadows, waiting, and when she reached me, she just collapsed, all joints unlocked. All strings torn. Her dress drooped from her frame like a wet rug.

"Let's just go," she whispered.

And we disappeared into the labyrinth of hallways.

(Renegade Commando:

😍😍😍😍)