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“Ra’if,” Zamir repeated, standing in front of him and crossing his arms across his chest.
With obvious reluctance, Ra’if opened his eyes. Where they should have been white, they were so yellow it shocked Zamir more than anything else. He stared past Zamir, at the wall.
“How do you feel?” Zamir asked.
“Fuck you,” Ra’if answered in his own language.
Zamir shook his head. It was pointless. He crouched down in front of his brother. “You are a prince of Dashan. You must remember that.”
“Fuck off.”
His anger was a palpable force. Were he stronger, he might have leaped from the bed and attempted to fight Zamir.
“I will come tomorrow.”
“Why?” A bleak question, and his eyes shut again.
“Because you are my brother.” He stood and put a hand on Ra’if’s shoulder. The thinness was appalling; he was barely a clutch of bones contained by sagging skin. “And I am yours. Let these people help you, Ra’if.”
“Is that a command, your highness?” His words groaned with resentment.
“Yes.” Zamir walked away from him and towards the door. Doctor Swan unlocked it at the moment a team of housekeeping staff arrived.
The fresh air beyond the room was a welcome relief. “I want his windows opened and his room cleaned regularly.” Zamir, impotent to make his brother better, took control of those matters he could shape. “He is royalty, for God’s sake.”
Doctor Swan had heard this speech from thousands of people, over the years. “He’s a celebrity! Don’t you know who he is? My brother is worth millions! My daughter is a supermodel!” Everyone who came through the gates of the prestigious Evergreen Rehabilitation Clinic was someone. Rich, famous, important, or a combination of all three.
But drug addiction and its effects were harsh levellers. Here, no one was immune from the ravages of suffering and withdrawal. “We will do everything we can to help your brother.”
Zamir wanted to rail against this man; to rage at him and shout. But such a display would have been beneath him. “Fine,” he said thickly. “I will return tomorrow.”
“Sir, it might be better for you to hold off for a few days. Allow us to work with him.”
“No. I will come tomorrow. You know drugs, but I know Ra’if. He needs to know I am here, even though he appears to wish otherwise. He needs me.”
Zamir squared his shoulders.
He would be there for his brother. For as long as it took.
Twenty two years earlier
“It’s okay, Zami,” Ra’if crept into bed beside his brother and pulled his arms gently, so that the smaller boy was sitting. His eyes were red from crying and his lip was quivering. “It’s okay. It’s all okay. It was just a nightmare.”
“No,” Zamir shook his head. “It was not a bad dream; it was a good one.”
Ra’if understood. His brother had been dreaming of their mother. Dreaming of a time when she was alive and with them. “She is still here,” he lifted a hand to Zamir’s heart, and then his forehead. “Everything she was is still within us.”
“Just go away,” Zamir sobbed, thinking he didn’t want his mother in his heart or mind. He wanted her! To feel her arms wrapped around his little body, to hear her words whispering in his ear.
“No. You can cry and you can scream, but I’m going to stay here because I’m your brother, and that’s what brothers do. I’m not leaving you, Zami.”
Chapter 3
Her phone rang at one forty seven exactly. She squinted at it and then pushed up onto her elbows.
She would have put a million dollars on who the caller was.
Zamir.
