One Day in a Small-Town Desert, chapter 11, page 10

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Séara Nulıpésha kept her face as stiff and impassive as possible as she stood in the Kılímos’ hallway, hands clasped behind her back. The familiar dark-blue carpet and blue-tinged walls seemed a different world with four policemen and two medics crammed in, especially with three of those piled on top of Mr. Kılímo.

She wouldn’t think on her own anymore. She was only going to follow orders. It was the only way to keep her job. Whether she wanted the job or not was a different question. The two-year wait for the equestrian squad was sounding longer and longer every minute.

Lieutenant Nıgédazo yanked the foreigner named Bhanar out of the spare bedroom, revealing him to be a lean young man with rumpled black hair. In that first brief instant, when Bhanar caught his balance and glanced toward the scrum of men on Mr. Kılímo, Séara recognized him as that Bhanar, the pseudo-emperor, the one whose pictures were always in the tabloids, usually wearing a motorbike jumpsuit.

Tonight, he wore a black singlet and baggy denim trousers, but he wore them as if they were an evening suit, holding his body with grace and dignity greatly lacking in the hallway at that moment, as if being arrested did not concern him in the least.

The lieutenant shoved him down the hall, telling Séara, “Put him in your local jail.”

Séara nodded sharply, holding out her hands to catch Bhanar as he stumbled. The precaution proved unnecessary, as the confident man once again quickly regained his balance. He brought his eyes up to Séara’s and smiled.

“Hello. My name is Bhanar.”

As much as Séara wanted to reply, to converse with this interesting foreigner who was only two years younger than her, she had to follow orders. She had to follow protocol.

“Come with me,” she said curtly, reaching around Bhanar to place a firm hand on his muscular forearm.

“As you wish,” he replied serenely.

They began walking down the hall, leaving the others to settle their differences and subdue poor Mr. Kılímo. Séara glanced over her shoulder at a particularly brutal grunt, but she had already turned the corner of the hallway and thus saw nothing.

She did not break stride.

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