A Fortress of Windows (Heaven #5)

Prologue

Heat. Numb. Heat. Numb. Heat. Numb. Numb.

Numb. Burn. A scream tore through his stomach.

He kept his mouth sealed tight. The scream cried inside him, clamouring in his throat.

He held it in. It bellowed, scraped, echoed, then extinguished inside.

Burn. He gritted his teeth, feeling life leave his body. Numb.

“There, now…” somebody cooed. “Scream if you need to.”

He growled with his mouth closed, trying to shake his head. It was held tight between gloved hands.

“Chilla!”

Another voice yelled. Samar jolted.

“Chilla, m*******d![1]”

A belt to this groin, needles piercing his flesh. He tried to hunch, gritting his teeth, hoping to cover his hips. Hands tied. Samar fought. Belt pulled off. Needles stuck.

“Hindustani keede, chilla! Bol![2]”

He sealed his mouth tighter, breathing slowly as lashes tore through his groin, needles pushing deeper, penetrating more than just flesh. Every last shred of dignity gone, honour gone, body going. Soon, he would get to go too…

“Two more minutes, ok?” A soothing voice intervened, IV drip punctuating it.

“C*****e, chilla! Yeh chillata hi nahi hai, biba.[3]”

“Iski mashuka ko pesh karo.[4]”

“Janab,” a whistle of whisper. “Aamir bhai ne kaha tha sabko alag-alag rakhn…[5]”

“Bhaad mein gaya Aamir bhai! Laao![6]”

Samar growled, keeping his teeth crushing tight. They would turn to dust. He kept gritting them, trying to hold in the pleading he knew was going to fall on deaf ears. No! Not her. Not her!

“Mashuka helicopter sahiba tashreef laa rahi hai![7]”

Samar turned his head. His eyes torn open through crusted blood, tearing off eyelashes pasted together. Sia.

Dragged on her knees, blood under them, head hanging. Was she dead?

“Look here!” The words tore out of his mouth and she jolted her eyes open. Thank god. Thank god. He hid his relief.

Through the haze of the room, the steely stench of blood and fluids, through the five men surrounding them with thorny torture devices and his own nude state, Samar looked into the eyes of the only hope he had of getting home. Getting her home.

Ok? He asked with his eyes.

She stared at him. Her lashes dropped. Only barely. Then rose back.

His eyes went to her stomach. Her flat stomach.

Her face began to crumple. He knew it. He knew how it looked before it broke into a sob.

Now he did. He had never imagined he would know it.

But he knew it now. It was the worst kind of knowing.

Squadron Leader Sia Chaturvedi did not do sob.

She did not do cry. She did not even do a grimace.

The crumbling facade of her face arrested mid-fall. He saw her throat tighten. Her eyes hardened. Samar took a deep breath. Kill the panic. Kill the pain. Kill the fear. He was of no use if he did not kill them all.

“Ab chilla, Samar Dixit doctor sahab. Ab chillayega?[8]”

He did not respond to the sound of his name. None of them did. They were not their names here, however many times their captors repeated them.

The hands holding Sia’s arms up began to pull from both sides. Sia’s eyes met his and she was gritting her teeth too. They pulled her arms farther, looking like they would tear her. Her face vibrated, but she kept staring into his eyes. Hair disheveled, mouth wobbling, nose up. Nose always up.

“Chilla, m*******d![9]”

Sia’s mouth opened in a scream but nothing came out. Her eyes remained in his. A snap and her mouth closed shut. Samar saw her arm knock out of the socket and his bellow tore out breaking every barrier.

She crumbled to the floor, her arms falling to her sides. Her left arm didn’t sit right. He fixated on its angle. It would need to be slotted back. But the pain… he eyed her face, crying inside at the pain that must be tearing through her…

Her eyes were half-hooded, her nose still up.

“aataram…” Sia’s lips murmured.

“Vande…” Samar heard a loud cry. He turned, and the unreal beauty of the valley spread out in front of him. Chains of magnificent mountains surrounded him, snow clinging hard and heavy to their peaks. The sky was a brilliant blue and the echoes of the best chants filled the air.

“Vande!” “Mataram!”

“Vande!” “Mataram!”

Samar turned his head in an arc, and the tricolour was fluttering high in the wind, the troop of soldiers running a drill beneath it. Mavericks.

“Ye lo, Daaxsaab[10],” his backpack was handed to him. Samar boosted it on his shoulder and stretched his hand for his medical kit. The driver, MT Yashwant Singh, carried it in his own hand.

“I’ll take it.” Samar opened his fingers.

“You should look like a military surgeon stepping into 4 Vikas Mavericks.” Singh shut the door of the jeep. “Walk in ishtyle.”

Samar chuckled, stepping back to let the younger man lead the way.

“Wear your aviators also.”

Samar gaped at him.

“Wear, wear, you are the only surgeon on this base. If you don’t show authority from the starting only then nobody will listen to you, take it in writing from me.

” He pushed his own flat cap flatter on his head.

“If you need to scold me then scold me also to show them. Lagna chahiye Daaxsaab aaye hai.[11]”

“Where are the other doctors?” Samar pulled out his aviators from his breast pocket and slipped them on. The sun wasn't too harsh for this early morning but the instant switch of light made his eyes squint.

“The last Field Medical Officer took voluntary transfer to be close to his family in Madras. Since three weeks he has been gone.” Singh kept walking towards the barracks — a longhouse in the middle of the most beautiful Kashmiri plains Samar had ever had the honour of seeing.

He had visited Kashmir as a child, from school, but only the tourist destinations.

This, this was different. Rugged, but still beautiful.

“Who was the medical officer on call in the interim?” Samar inquired, looking around the base.

A platoon of this size couldn’t be surviving without a doctor for so long.

And that too an establishment as sophisticated as the Special Frontier Forces.

He glanced up at the insignia at the helm of the longhouse.

A lion stood unflinching, roaring with a winged parachute above it and two crossed swords below it. The gold of the emboss shone on the red, throwing off the morning sun.

Shaurya. Dhridhta. Karm Nishtha.

Courage. Persistence. Devotion to Duty.

His heart began to beat furiously. He didn't lack in either, and yet, the idea of being active in an elite unit, even if as an attached doctor, was harrowing. He was here to do the harrowing; didn't mean it didn't harrow him. New things always did.

“Where is this hero marching to?” A deep, commanding voice arrested his feet. Samar began to stand to attention, keeping his eyes down and away from the man who sounded like his Commanding Officer, striding down the longhouse in front of him.

“Singh.”

“Sir.”

“You made him put these on?”

Silence.

“Answer!” The voice reverberated. Samar could look at his Commanding Officer from behind his dark glasses but training taught him to keep his eyes away until addressed by his name.

“The sun is a little too bright, isn’t it?” The Commanding Officer came closer. Samar kept his eyes off.

“No, sir.” He answered.

“Then take it off, Jawan!”

Samar immediately took his aviators off and stood to attention — “Sir!”

“Thought you are the only doctor on this unit and your style will be worshipped?”

Samar’s eyes widened. He tried to take a peek at his Commanding Officer’s face but he was under the glare of the sun now. Blind spot.

“Fifteen rounds.”

“Sir?”

“Fifteen rounds pack drill with your medical supplies.’

His legs shaking, Samar dropped his backpack and reached for the medical kit bag in Singh’s hand. It was the heaviest.

“Did I ask you to drop your backpack?”

Samar put his backpack on, reached for his medical kit, gave MT Singh a look and jogged to the ground. First day, first minute, and he was down. What the hell! Where was his own brain when the driver asked him to enter in style?

Regimental Medical Officer. Running like a joke around the barracks.

Samar raised his eyes inconspicuously from the ground and found his Commanding Officer laughing, a troop of soldiers surrounding him.

He squinted, keeping pace with his mouth closed, his luggage vibrating with him as he finished the turn of the circular ground and came up close to the troop gathered around his Commanding Officer.

He ran closer and closer, and got a good look at the Commanding Officer. So young?

Shining fair skin, a mop of curly hair combed tight to the side, plump face, looking like a cartoon more than a man who commanded this base for SFF.

Somebody slapped the man’s back and Samar stopped.

Fucker. He dropped his load and broke into a run towards him.

He squealed and made a beeline for the longhouse, sprinting at double the speed.

“Who is he?!” Samar shot out to Singh, who was bent in half, howling.

“Adil Hussain!” Came the howling, laughing voice from up ahead as the cartoon ran inside the longhouse.

Samar slowed down at the gathering of the soldiers, his breath swelling after just one round.

The thin mountain air made running difficult.

He wasn’t the one who’d have to run on missions but heavy-lifting would be a part of his job.

He needed to get acclimated to doing more than just running in this geography.

Bent over, with his hands on his knees, he squinted up at the gathering of soldiers laughing at him — “You do know Adil Hussain will come to me for his treatment, no?”