Almost Surely Dead

by Amina Akhtar

All New Yorkers have one giant, collective fear of being thrown on the subway tracks. That, and falling through a subway grate. But these two moments were when other New Yorkers would step in to help you. Every other time you were on your own.

“I had no choice,” my attacker said quietly, with that sad, strange smile on his face.

But she had some beliefs in the supernatural that some people have suggested explain things, or at least her behavior.

I should have known better. Never make eye contact with anyone on the train. It was basic New York Woman 101.

There was smoke, I wanted to tell her. But I was certain I’d imagined that.

Death shouldn’t unnerve me this much; I was used to people dying around me. But this time it was different, and I couldn’t shake how it made me feel: like I hadn’t escaped, I’d only postponed things.

Because once your family thinks you’re the source of all things wrong, you can never convince them otherwise.

AMANDA ROBERTS: Do you think Dunia is alive still? DETECTIVE ALVAREZ: No, I don’t. DANIELLE MCGUIRE: Maybe she would be alive if she’d been able to get that restraining order.

It was as if guilt from generations had been piled onto me, so that her disappointment in me was the only thing that sustained me. Gave me life. I was born to be a failure.

How do you grieve someone who hated you? I wasn’t sure how to, but I was trying.

No one ever tells you how to get through grief, how to not let it take over your life. Because it does. Every part of your life is hit. And sometimes, just when you think you’re turning a corner, months after your loved one died, you get hit by something new all over again. It doesn’t stop. You just have to learn how to live with it, until the pain of them not being in your life anymore becomes a dull ache.

“What happened?” “That car just tried to hit you!” He pointed to a speeding car, too far for me to even see who was in it.

“Sometimes, witnesses report seeing walking black smoke when they see a jinn.” That stuck in my head. Skylar’s journal had a smoke-looking thing.

“I thought you were either doing an OnlyFans or really into security.”

I stared at him while I said it. I’d see it in his face, that moment when he’d begin to be scared of me. Fear me. I had to tell him. This secret I’d sworn to myself I’d never share again. That I’d take to the grave so no one would ever look at me the way my family had. But here I was spilling my guts. “When I was little, my mother had me exorcised.”

Adnan—Nadia told me—was Jamal’s brother, but he’d died when he was born.

DANIELLE MCGUIRE: I love that. So much that we’ve partnered with our favorite Taser maker, Shock Stopper. Use the promo code Dunia20 for a discount!

DETECTIVE ALVAREZ: David Anderson is the one who paid Skylar Jones to murder Dunia.

“Awww, thank you.” She was standing with a table behind her. “I’m sorry too.” “You have nothing to apologize for?” “Oh, but I do.” I heard a crack, saw lights in my head, and felt things move that shouldn’t. And then I fell to the ground. Liz had hit me with a metal pipe. “I’m sorry I have to kill you.”

I heard Liz scream, and I turned my head. She was being wrapped in something that looked like smoke. I blinked. Walking smoke. It was here. He was here. “Not real,” I muttered. “I’m real,” the smoke said back. I was losing blood. This couldn’t be happening. “You need to run.”