Chapter 30 #2
The lone lamppost flickered. Samar stared up at it.
The bright light made his vision go dark.
And then suddenly, it went out. The space drowned into darkness.
His vision went even blacker, spots of bright blue still floating in memory of the light.
Samar braced himself on the ground and crawled to the nearest support.
A wall. He sat up against it, wiggled himself to breathe better and began to feel the throbs and aches.
He hunted, pulling out the lighter and his pack of cigarettes.
His fingers were bloody. His lips were aching. He held a cigarette between his fingers and pressed it between his lips. He clicked the lighter. Momentarily, there was light. His cigarette was lit. And then everything went dark again.
The butt glowed soft orange in the dark, blurry to his eyes. He patted around for his specs, then gave up. He didn’t even know if they had survived the fight.
Samar smoked, smelling tobacco and blood burn into air.
Shutters of a window rattled. He stopped.
The shutters squeaked, and groaned open. Above him.
He held the smoke in his mouth.
He felt her. On her windowsill.
He kept holding the smoke in his mouth, pushing the cigarette into the ground.
She stood there a second, her breath audible.
He kept holding his.
Smoke and Amaal could never breathe the same air.
It was punishing.
He sat there.
And then, he heard the shutters pull shut.
Samar rolled his eyes to confirm it.
And then, he released the smoke.
His mobile vibrated.
FARIS (Airtel)
Adil has woken up
————————————————————
“Sir, you do not have clearance.” The guard barred his way.
“Move,” Samar ground out.
The man folded his arms in front of him. The ICU was silent. Samar whizzed his eyes to the glass window, blinds half open. Adil’s was the first bed in line. His eyes were closed. Samar couldn’t see his machines from here.
“I am his doctor.”
The guard shook his head, then suddenly stood to attention. Samar glanced over his shoulder and Atharva was marching down the alley. Cleaned up. Clean-shaven. His scar torn open and purple. He didn’t give him a second glance as he whizzed past them and opened the ICU door.
“Step aside.” Samar bit out to the guard. “I am not going in.”
The guard did not move, but he turned to give him enough space at the glass window. Samar stepped up, his eyes falling on Adil, awake. He was laughing at Atharva. Samar breathed a sigh of relief. If he was awake and laughing, everything was ok inside him. Hopefully.
You found it?
Samar read Adil’s lips.
The next few words were jumbled as a nurse came in to give him water. And then Atharva moved, covering what little he could see of Adil’s face. They talked. Samar could not catch anything. For long minutes, he couldn’t make out anything.
He began to move towards the door when Adil moved. His eyes rolled back. Was he pretending? Samar wouldn’t put it past him if he were fully conscious. But right now…
Samar pushed at the door but the guard beat him to it.
“Ask them!” Samar bit out. “Ask for permission and let me in!”
“Sir?” The guard pushed the door ajar.
“Yes?”
“Samar sahab wants to come in.”
Atharva didn’t respond.
“Atharva,” Samar called in from the slit of the half-open door. “What happened to Adil? Let me see… please.” Where was his nurse?
He couldn’t see much but the door was pushed open for him. Samar steamrolled inside, taking in the monitors all at once. Pulse, BP, heart rate under control. Adil was groggy. He still took Adil’s wrist, needing reassurance as Adil’s eyes stared glassily up at him.
“Where is your nurse?” He eyed his chart. “They have reduced your morphine, and also started you on liquids. Do you feel nauseous?”
Adil did not answer.
“Adil?” Samar pulled his under eyes. “Adil…” he called out. “Are you ok.”
“Ye…” he slurred. “Sleepy.”
Samar stared at him. He had been through a tough few days, no thanks to him. Samar hated it. He hated what he had done, what he was reduced to doing.
“You have been through a major surgery. It’s expected.”
“Why are you here?”
Samar swallowed. “Adil…” he touched his shoulder. It was warm. “I don’t know what Atharva has told you, but it wasn’t my intention to…”
His eyes opened wide — “They told me you resuscitated me.”
“Yes.”
The room fell into an awkward silence.
“I want you both to know that I am with you.” Samar broke it. “Whatever you have found out about Haider, I want to help. I had to do this because my passion took the better of my patience. I am sorry, Adil, I never meant for this to happen. My men… they lost control… I wasn’t aware that…”
“Why the hell are you squirming like a teenage girl?”
Samar blinked, taken aback.
“Let’s be men and get this done with,” Adil asserted, even in that weak position. “You went rogue. You took me down because there were eight of your men against one of me. Don’t be a coward. Next time you fight me alone and I will show you who lies in a hospital bed.”
Samar could see this was not it. Adil didn’t hold grudges but he wouldn’t let it go so easily. Nobody could. Nobody should.
He still managed a smile, checking his heart rate. It was up.
“I am sorry… so, so sorry…”
“What happened to your nose?”
Samar rubbed at the bandaged bridge of his nose, the only place he had managed to tape down before coming here because it bloody wouldn't stop bleeding. The rest would just burn and fix itself.
“Are you two good now?” Adil glanced between him and Atharva.
Samar looked at their Captain. Just as worn as him, looking marginally ok now that he had fought it out and Adil was awake, and maybe because his Iram was safe… maybe this was passing. They had seen too much, been through too much together for this to hold. Or at least, so Samar hoped.
“I hope we are,” he tipped his chin. “Atharva?”
He was silent.
Adil sighed. “Let it go, Atharva. We have to work together.”
“He is leaving,” Atharva intoned. Samar stilled. He could not leave. Where would he go? He had nowhere to go! If he left here, he would be a wandering ghost. He would rather spend a lifetime as a prisoner in that outhouse than roam aimlessly through the world.
“You are?” Adil asked.
“No,” Samar shook his head. No! Don’t throw me out! “Atharva, listen to me, this is not how we part ways. All these years of hard work doesn’t just go away like this. Remember, I was your backbone through war.” See me, look at me, remember those days, remember our life, remember what we were!
“And you stabbed me in peacetime.” Atharva clipped. “Not once but twice.”
Silence again.
“Atharva,” Adil croaked. “Only the dead have seen the end of war. There is no peace here. I would rather have a man I have fought with backing us than against us. Put all emotion aside. We have to move on from this. It’s election time, our party is swinging up. There is no other way.”
“Can you forgive this man?” Atharva asked. “Because he was about to have you killed.”
“I was not!” Samar struck, then took a deep breath. “Atharva, I was not. All I ever wanted was to be a part of this… You were keeping something so important from me. You knew what this meant to me.”
“Can you?” Atharva asked Adil again, as if he had not spoken at all.
“He also brought me back to life.”
Samar gaped at Adil. Was he pretending, or was he so groggy that he was talking like that?
But his attention was swallowed by Atharva’s silence.
Samar had read those silences perfectly well.
Now he hated them. Because he could still read them, and they were culminating in nothing but bitterness.
Samar knew he had started it, but this was not how it ended.
He did not want to end it! How could he be outraged at these people, his friends, and still need them like he needed his next breath?
“Do not make me regret this.” Atharva’s sharp eyes met his. He startled. Samar extended his hand, knowing Atharva was not in. Atharva was not even close to in. But he would grab with both hands what he could get at this point.
Atharva took his hand, gave a firm pump he gave strangers, and left it just as quickly.
“Good boys.” Adil’s voice made him look down.
“So, how do we go about this now?” Samar asked, hoping a common goal would get them back on track. “If we want to make the highest impact of Haider’s betrayal then it will have to be before polling starts.”
“We could have done that, but your asshole men destroyed my equipment,” Adil fired back. “I don’t even know how much that old transmitting device will work now.”
“Didn’t you take any backup?”
“Yeah sure, god forbid your goons will come find me!”
“You always take back up, Adil!”
“Do you know how ancient that radio was?”
“Still…”
“Oh, shut up. Both of you,” Atharva cut them off. “Samar, back off. We need Adil to recover first. Return whatever things you’ve stolen from his garage. Once Adil is able enough, he will try again. Go now, I will finish some formalities here. Let him rest.”
With that, Atharva turned and walked to the nurse’s station. Samar stared at Adil. His first friend in SFF. His first… ragging in SFF.
“You will not hear this from me again,” Samar croaked. “But if given a choice, I would switch that place with you.”
“This?” Adil patted his pillow. “I knew you always wanted a cushy life.”
Samar snorted, looking down, then back at his monitors.
“The plan was never to take you,” he confessed, eyes on the monitor. His heart rate was coming down. “The plan was not even to raid it. But… It’s Aamir Haider. If we even have a one percent chance of incriminating him, I will not leave it. I cannot leave it.”
“For Chaturvedi.” Adil’s voice brought him back. Samar met his eyes. Then nodded.
“Your ORS gave you away.”
Samar chuckled.
“You could have asked me.”
“I did, again and again, in every way possible.”
“You should have taken the hint when I didn’t respond.”
Samar grit his teeth.
“Go now.” Adil closed his eyes. “If Captain Kaul comes back and sees you still here, you are in for a double pack drill.”
Samar touched his shoulder, patted. He reassured himself that this was Adil — alive, talking, here. Samar took one last look at his face and walked out.