It took Tahera a dozen attempts before she was able to thread the needle. I watched her bring the needle to my foot and exhale through tight lips. She blinked rapidly and readjusted the candle. I sobbed stupidly. It was just flesh, after all.

I jerked when the needle pricked my skin. Tahera held on to my ankle with one hand. Shair must not have gone far because he appeared then and quickly assessed the situation. When he knelt beside me, Tahera offered the needle to him, but he rejected it with a quick shake of his head. Instead, his hand wrapped around my ankle like a vise and held my foot to the floor.

I kicked with my free foot and managed to hit the square of his jaw. Tahera gasped. He cursed under his breath, his hands turning into fists. I braced myself for a retaliatory blow.

“If you’re going to sew, then do it,” I said to Tahera, sticking my foot out toward her. I would not show fear. “But I don’t want his hands anywhere near me.”

Tahera held the quivering needle against my skin for so long I thought she might put it down and leave my foot open. Then she inhaled sharply, and I felt the sting as it pierced my skin. I bit my lip and counted twelve passes of the needle, the tip dulling with each plunge. White bursts of light flashed behind my closed lids.

When it was over, Tahera tore a pillowcase into strips and used them to bandage my foot. She pulled a blanket over me and retreated into their bedroom, looking exhausted and desperate to get away.

Shair sat in a chair, guarding over me. Determined not to fall asleep in his presence, I sat upright and stared at the compartments of the wall unit opposite me. I pinched my palm or my arm when I felt my eyelids growing heavy. When I heard Shair’s breathing grow long and deep, I slid a glass ashtray off the end table next to me and felt its weight in my hand before I tucked it under my thigh. Was it heavy enough to knock him out?

Time would tell.

Eventually, exhaustion won and I fell asleep as well. When I opened my eyes, Tahera was once again kneeling at my side. Three children stood behind her. There was a boy who looked around Rostam’s age and a girl who appeared a few years younger than me. I recognized her dress, a purple frock with a satin sash. I would have worn it for another year if my mother hadn’t insisted that it had become inappropriately short. I wanted to rip it off this girl’s body. The youngest was a toddler the same height as Faheem. I sat up sharply, keeping the blanket pulled to my chin.