Sakher Tarazi works as Sheikh Hamdan's personal assistant and while he has developed a brotherly-like relationship with him, he bears scars from a tortured past.
One day, he unexpectedly runs into a familiar face he has not seen in a long time and o...
Hamdan was on an all-day meeting and I was at what was now technically my new home, which was also my job, answering the phone and taking messages.
I sat in his office, noticing a photo of him and Rashid together, smiling. I knew Rashid was a bad boy but he was always caring and loving with me, which was vastly different from his outward appearance. Then it hit me that Rashid-X was the opposite of Rashid-Prime.
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As I surfed the net, I came across a news headline that spoke about Sheikh Hamdan and Sheikh Mohammed attempting to outlaw vigilantes and criminalizing them through a proposed bill. As I further read, Sheikh Mohammed claimed vigilantes were a danger to society, even though a lot of people believed that they at times accomplished what ordinary law enforcement didn't.
Sometimes, I felt like a hypocrite working for Fazza because I was living a double life. One as me, living my life as an ordinary citizen – and the second one as a vigilante who brought criminals to justice and neutralized various other threats, even otherworldly ones.
But most importantly was the reason behind Why I became what I was now. The eventual reason why I teamed up with my friends and became a permanent member of The Canaries.
When my dad disappeared, after the second Anti-Monitor Crisis, my mom had him kidnapped because she had quote-on-quote, wanted to teach Dawoud a lesson. He had disappeared without a trace, only to later find out he'd been killed by the very people my mom had hired to have him kidnapped, leaving not just me but my little brother Dawoud, to suffer the consequences of her actions.
He had lived on Earth-2 his whole life, believing our dad had beenkilled when he was a child. I had no idea about this or of Dawoud's existenceand yet our dad had been the one who secretly came to visit me every chance hecould with my Aunt Nasreen's blessing. He had done this blindly, not realizingthe kind of person my mother was or the fact that she was practically willingto kill to fulfill her goals; as twisted as they were.
At that point, I realized I had nothing left. All I knew was that I had to find my dad's killer because my mom refused to help and insisted we should move on despite her having been directly responsible, even if she was not the one who pulled the trigger.
For this reason alone, I stuck with The Canaries. It gave me the chance to help those who would otherwise be stomped on by the very people who should be protecting them. I wanted to give them what my mom had taken from me and my little brother. Our choices and our lives.
Fazza showed up moments later, looking quite tired.
"Hey buddy, settled in?"
"Yeah. And you're looking tired."
"After spending the entire day in meetings, I need to relax and do as little as possible."
"In other words, nothing."
"Yes" he gave me the thumbs up as he lied his head back with his eyes closed. "But there is something I want to talk to you about."
