Worship Series

Chapter # 4

"I want my leadership back. I am sure Nathaniel would think I want to kill him but I won't make decisions hastily. I won't let emotions lead me again." Zariah said.

Staring into the devoid, tapping her fingers on the table, lost in profound mysteries Sufiyan was interested to encrypt.

"Did your friend know about it?" He asked but she sighed, taking a long inhale from her smoke and releasing it in the air.

"I don't know. I had no idea Fath- Issac was using his own daughter for his selfish causes."

Ending in a hiss, her hands curled into a fist with a clenched jaw, visibly showing the effect on her face.

"Okay. But, What if your friend knows about it?" He asked again, wanting to know what extent she could break for her lost integrity.

"Even if she does, the decision to name what belongs to me to her was his and he has received a justified outcome of what he has done to me." She mumbled, finishing her smoke and putting it on the ashtray, not bothering to think much about it.

"Then why did his death anguish you?" He asked, leaning forwards, curling his lips from one side.

"It was not his death." With an exhalation of disappointment, she leaned forward as well, affirming her words.

"He was eradicated from my heart the moment he used me for his own self."

"Then what took so long for you to react? Was it Nathaniel's betrayal which left you incapable?" He asked, moving further, contemplating her aesthetic features playfully.

"One could say it.." The internal dejection of this sentence was only felt by her alone.

"But?" He asked, smirking, tracing his finger on the side of her face but yanking his hand back, she replied coldly, rising from her seat.

"But I wanted to punish myself. To be reminded of my outcome for excessive trust, devotion, delusions-"

She was looking in the other direction, impotent to face her own self and to enhance the agony, he cut her off.

"And love?" Chuckling darkly, he leaned back, wallowing on her non-existent expression.

"It was not love." It was much more than that. She enunciated half of her sentence.

"Oh, You never loved him?" He teased her.

"It was an oddly yet unavoidable attraction I wanted to become the foundation of my existence." She replied nonchalantly, walking around their patio.

"But sadly what you desire is sometimes incongruous to what you gain." He whispered.

Glancing away for a moment when the image of his beloved appeared before him but deceived by love, he no longer believes in it.

"Exactly." She nodded, taking an apple and biting.

"And that's why I have stopped being a puppet. This alone is not enough for me to survive." She smirked, eating her apple.

"Even when you have ultimate protection?" He asked, looking over at her.

"Ultimate protection?" She asked in perplexity but he didn't say- Him.

Considering it a joke, she let out a dry laugh, placid words no longer function but as a joke.

"The status of his wife grants me nothing but humiliation and misery." She scoffed, throwing the core away, coming closer.

"And if you want to call it the price of this baseless 'ultimate protection' then I don't give a fuck."

Putting her hand on the armrest, she moved lethally closer to his face, amusement replaced by nothing but direness.