Zaleekhah arrives at her Uncle Malek’s home in the ele­gant area of Chelsea, feel­ing an over­whelm­ing sense of estrange­ment despite the famil­iar­i­ty of the sur­round­ings. As she steps into the house, the sight of the well-main­tained gar­den stirs nos­tal­gia with­in her, yet also serves as a reminder of the emo­tion­al dis­tance she feels from her fam­i­ly. She pass­es the door­man, Kareem, hand­ing him a book titled Nin­eveh and Its Remains, a sim­ple ges­ture that sets the tone for her vis­it. As she moves up the stairs, the closed door to her child­hood bed­room stands in stark con­trast to her cur­rent state of detach­ment. The house, once a sym­bol of famil­ial close­ness, now feels like a place she no longer belongs.

Inside Uncle Malek’s study, Zaleekhah is con­front­ed with a space brim­ming with lux­u­ry and warmth, but her emo­tion­al dis­con­nect lingers. She paus­es by the win­dow and watch­es as her Uncle and Aunt, along with their grand­daugh­ter Lily, inter­act with a ten­der­ness that she longs for but feels exclud­ed from. The moment stirs a whirl­wind of con­flict­ing emo­tions, ampli­fy­ing the dis­tance she feels from her rel­a­tives. Zaleekhah’s atten­tion then shifts to a book she intends to leave on the cof­fee table, but as she opens an old draw­er, her eyes fall upon a pho­to­graph that sends a jolt of alarm through her. The pic­ture of a young girl, accom­pa­nied by unset­tling details about her con­di­tion, ignites a sense of urgency, com­pelling Zaleekhah to take the pho­to­graph and leave the study abrupt­ly. The act of remov­ing the image under­scores her grow­ing anx­i­ety, as she grap­ples with the impli­ca­tions of what she has dis­cov­ered.

Down­stairs, Kareem observes her swift depar­ture, not­ing that Uncle Malek has been informed of her arrival and will be join­ing her short­ly. Despite his reas­sur­ances, Zaleekhah insists on leav­ing, her desire to escape the house fueled by the ten­sion build­ing inside her. Soon after, Uncle Malek arrives, his search for a girl at a tat­too shop indi­cat­ing the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Zaleekhah con­fronts him, and he reveals that Lily is crit­i­cal­ly ill, and her con­di­tion has left them des­per­ate for an organ donor. His words hit hard, as the weight of the sit­u­a­tion becomes appar­ent: time is run­ning out, and the need for a match has reached a crit­i­cal point. Uncle Malek’s anx­i­ety is pal­pa­ble, mak­ing it clear that this is no ordi­nary fam­i­ly mat­ter but one that involves the del­i­cate bal­ance of life and death.

Uncle Malek then shares that he has iden­ti­fied a poten­tial donor among a group of Yazi­di girls who are in dire cir­cum­stances. He paints a pic­ture of a group that has been over­looked by soci­ety, sug­gest­ing that this arrange­ment could res­cue the girl from a life of suf­fer­ing and pro­vide a solu­tion to Lily’s dire health cri­sis. How­ev­er, Zaleekhah’s sense of unease deep­ens as she real­izes the dark­er truth behind her uncle’s plan. The propo­si­tion is not one of res­cue but of exploitation—organ har­vest­ing masked as a pater­nal­is­tic solu­tion. She recoils at the thought of her uncle jus­ti­fy­ing such a moral­ly ques­tion­able deci­sion, and her shock is com­pound­ed by the real­iza­tion that his ratio­nale is built on the exploita­tion of vul­ner­a­ble girls. This moment of reck­on­ing forces Zaleekhah to con­front not only her uncle’s choic­es but also the eth­i­cal dilem­ma at the heart of their fam­i­ly dynam­ics.

The con­ver­sa­tion esca­lates as Zaleekhah strug­gles with the ethics of Uncle Malek’s plan, ques­tion­ing the val­ue of human life and the worth of a per­son when weighed against the des­per­a­tion of a loved one. Uncle Malek attempts to ratio­nal­ize his actions, but Zaleekhah remains stead­fast in her con­dem­na­tion, unable to accept the moral com­pro­mis­es he is will­ing to make. The argu­ment expos­es deep cracks in their famil­ial bond, as Zaleekhah is forced to reck­on with the dark­ness that now shad­ows her uncle’s inten­tions. She is con­front­ed with a painful truth: her family’s val­ues and her uncle’s choic­es no longer align with the prin­ci­ples she holds dear. The chap­ter ends with Zaleekhah torn between her love for her fam­i­ly and her duty to stand against an immoral propo­si­tion that could haunt her for years to come.