INVICTUS

IX

Even as the ravages lie

Food for carrion and vultures

"Rise and shine sleepy head!"

I groan, but before I can open my eyes I feel myself being tackled. You ask how a person already prone can be tackled, let me tell you one thing. Salih Sarfraz always has a way.

"Gerroff me ye cunt" I mumble.

I open my eyes to his deep brown ones staring up at me. His face only inches away from mine. I take the familiar clear cut handsome boyish features, his bronzed skin and long sleek black hair, like a dehydrated man takes in water. I forget my woes and for the the first time in a while, I feel myself smiling.

Then I shove him off.

"How the fuck did you get in?" I demand.

"I walked" he answers. "You know, one foot in front of the other."

I sit up and his picks himself off the floor straightening his favourite leather jacket.

"So you got any plans today?" He asks.

"James's 18th."

"And I wasn't invited?"

"We didn't you were coming back."

"Excuses, excuses." He says. "I got him the best surprise present."

"Right..." I'm skeptical. "What is it?"

Then he smiles that smile that makes you think he was going to flip the world upside down.

"Myself, I'm coming with you."

Then suddenly the smile falls from his face.

"What the hell happened to your back and neck?"

The perfect moment is shattered, I can't look at him. I feel defiled, dirty, unworthy of his presence.

"Nothing."

"Fucking bullshit."

"It's nothing." I insist.

"It's obviously something," he says. "People don't wake up with hickeys on their neck and nail marks on their back."

I am silent.

"We're mates. It's almost been eighteen years." He urges.

"It's nothing, I'm fine."

He frowns but doesn't pursue it much further. In fact, he looks hurt. This probably the first time I haven't told him something. A tense silence settles between us, the first in many years.

"Do you want to see what I got you?" He asks in a slightly awkward manner.

I force myself to smile.

"Lead the way," I tell him getting up from my bed.

"Get changed you git." He tells me. "Can't have you walking around my house in just your boxers."

My smile widens in what I hoped was a mischievous grin.

"Why? So you find this..." I flash a pose characteristic of Victoria Secret models. "...distracting?"

"More like hideous," he says without emotion as he throws me a shirt. As soon as I was ready we made our way next door.

When I step into his house the first thing I hear is:

"Filthy infidel!"

From the thousands of times I have been here, I deduced it was probably Raihana playing the first Assassin's Creed.