t w e l v e

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It was five-fifteen in the morning, and the rhythmic pounding of Fia's feet against the treadmill belt was the only sound in the empty hotel gym. Dawn light was starting to leak in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, softening the cold glare of the LED strips above. Opposite the treadmill, a flatscreen TV played a Saudi news channel with with no sound. It was eerie being alone in an unfamiliar country in a deserted gym. The pristine equipment stood unused: free weights stacked neatly against the far wall, yoga mats hanging on a rack, the cleaning station primed for use. The smell of disinfectant hung in the cool air.

Unfortunately, sleep had eluded Fia, though she couldn't put her finger on why. She'd tossed and turned for a while, but her mind was just as restless as her body. Eventually, when she checked her phone and saw that it was almost five a.m., she knew she'd lost the battle and decided to head to the gym. She'd have preferred to run outside, but it wasn't like she could wear a sports bra and shorts around the streets of Jeddah, so a treadmill would have to do. But god, did she hate it. Time seemed to slow every time she set foot on one of the damn machines. What felt like three miles turned out to be one; what felt like two hours turned out to be two minutes. It was boring.

She'd taken up running in the months leading up to her dad's death, when home turned into the kind of place you wanted to run from rather than to. She'd been a teenager at the time, which was a curse: old enough to grasp what was going on but too young to really understand. Too young to leave; too old to want to stay. And so the late night screaming matches between her parents had escalated, the wine bottles had kept piling up by the front door, and the men who came around demanding money for unpaid bills started making threats. Fia wasn't going to stick around to watch, so she ran.

Every night, after school, in the blazing heat of summer and the icy depths of winter, she changed into her sports kit and put one foot in front of the other until she felt like she might collapse. Sometimes, she did. She liked it when it was freezing, when a bracing wind swept into her lungs and turned her throat to ice, when it felt like she felt like she couldn't breathe, when it hurt.

More often than not, she ended up at the beach, staring out at the frothy white horses pounding across the sand. And beyond that, the North Sea, a churning expanse of green that she found soothing, despite its chaos. The sea was meant to be chaotic. Her home life wasn't.

Looking back, she knew now that running had been a kind of self-punishment. Especially after her dad passed away. He had been the glue that held them together in their final, flagging weeks as a family. With him gone, everything fell apart, including Fia's mum. She didn't often run like that anymore—like she had to do it. For the most part, she did it because it made her feel good about herself. It helped her keep a clear head.

Three miles, the treadmill's electronic display flashed as she hit her target distance, Continue?

She pressed OK and increased the incline. Then, unsatisfied, she upped the pace.

The whoosh of the gym's sliding doors alerted her to another presence in the room, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Charles had just set his bag down by one of the benches. He glanced over briefly, surveying the area, but didn't recognise her. She was pleased she'd chosen a treadmill adjacent to one of the gym's full-length mirrors rather than directly in front of it. With her back to Charles, she could watch his reflection without being noticed.

He spent ten minutes warming up on an exercise bike, a look of total concentration on his face. It was almost amusing that he hadn't realised who she was, but she supposed she looked different with her wild curls tamed into French braids (the handiwork of Claudia). By the time he finished on the bike, a layer of perspiration coated his tanned skin. He walked over to the back wall and grabbed a pair of dumbbells, setting them down by the bench. Then, completely unaware that she was watching, he started working out.

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