Chapter Six
The door closed. Softly, but the sound of it was like thunder in his ears.
Zahrias stood in the center of the living room, watching where she had gone, but somehow unable to move. It was as though he thought if he only remained still enough, that terrible scene would be erased, and he could go on as he always had.
Worse, he could still taste her on his tongue, smell the scent of her hair. His body throbbed with need for her, and he could do nothing about it.
What did you expect? he thought then. Once she knew the truth of the matter, she would despise him for his weakness, for not being able to move past his pain to claim her for his own at a time when doing so would have made a difference. One might argue that if she hadn’t been in Los Alamos to help them, both Jasreel and
