Saving my friend

Marcus moved toward Ayisha like he meant to take her down too, but Ayisha did not flinch. She was not a woman trained to tolerate the performance of cruelty. She had a history Tessa barely knew, scraped by poverty, protective of the few alliances she’d made. That night whatever had lived in Ayisha’s chest snapped and hardened into a resolve like iron.

“You won’t touch her,” Ayisha said, and it was not a request.

Marcus laughed in Tessa’s face, a short, ugly ...