Chapter 34
Amaal opened his passenger door and slipped in just before he had turned the wheel.
“What are you doing? You could have gotten hurt!” He yelled. She just shut the door and pulled on her seatbelt.
“Drive.”
“Amaal…”
“Drive.”
“My temper is high right now, don’t push me.”
“Drive, I said.”
“Get the fuck out of…”
“Drive the fuck on!” She cut him.
Seething, he shifted the gear and raced it out of there.
Samar drove without destination. He drove and drove, out of the city and towards Shankracharya Reserve Forest, willing his mind to blank out enough to calm down.
It didn’t. It wouldn’t. He was left. He was thrown out.
This was it. The end. Where to go? What next?
KDP President? He laughed. What a joke! A winning party’s CM ran the party, irrespective of who sat on the President’s chair.
Atharva had not only taken his one big dream away from him but reduced him to a puppet.
A public puppet who would be disgraced with every day that he ‘ran’ KDP.
“Park here.”
“What?”
“Park here.” Amaal pointed to the secluded turning of the reserve forest. The hill rose over them, hiding the sun. The sunlight was still brilliant, splitting and hitting him in the face.
“Why?”
“PARK!”
He parked the car, pulled the handbrake and tore out of the car, stalking towards the rugged hill, so done with everything. The wind slammed into him, and his mouth ripped open on its own accord.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
The wind slammed harder into his face, and his mouth shredded apart.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
A small hand touched his back.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
It rubbed circles, as if he was vomiting.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” His throat gave up.
The hand patted.
“Aaaaaaaaah…” His voice broke. Samar dropped his face into his palms and closed the world from his eyes. “She is avenged, I am avenged, we all are avenged… why doesn’t this stop?! Why did this happen?”
The hand did not leave his back.
“Why doesn’t this fucking stop?!!!” He turned around to her. “What am I supposed to do for it to stop? What more am I supposed to do? What do I do?”
She slammed his body into hers, and her arms were around him. Samar locked his arms around her. Her head pressed into his chest. He breathed. Panted. Whimpered.
“We were captured together, Sia, me and three other Mavericks. They killed two of them one by one and kept us all separate and used Sia to make us talk. I slept naked on a slab of ice until it melted every single day for god knows how many hours. I did not know if it was day or night but Sia was brought once a day while they whipped me, to make me talk, they would torture Sia without leaving marks on her body, sometimes pull her arms to the point of dislocating it, sometimes they made her sit there and watch as they disgraced me and I couldn’t even scream, she wouldn’t scream either, we just kept looking at each other, I don’t even remember most of what went on through my head when I was looking at her…
” Tears fell from his eyes and into her hair.
“I passed out from fever and had an opening to escape when they transferred me to the medical room. I got away but Sia couldn’t.
She wouldn’t let me stay back for her and I ran, god knows why I ran!
I was shot by one of our own snipers in cross firing while crossing over, I had no idea of my own name when I reached back, no water, no food, no sense of the world, just that I had to keep running until I saw my flag and tell them that Sia was alive and I told them and I told Atharva and I told Commander Ul Haq and I gave them proof and I gave them papers and I gave them Aamir Haider’s name and evidence and Aamir Haider stopped them from going after Sia and she died like that, she died, she died like that… ”
A hand wove into the hair at the back of his head, pulling his head down tighter over hers.
“I did it, I avenged all of us, I leaked those tapes, I destroyed Aamir Haider and it still doesn’t stop, Aamir Haider has haunted me from his grave and now even if I bring him back and kill him all over again this doesn’t stop because my own party, my own people, Atharva turned against me, how can this ever be ok?
I am discharged all over again from duty and how can it be ok?
How can this be ok? How is this fair? How is this FAIR?
!!!” He pulled out, yelling in front of her.
“How can this be fair?!! All I did was for…” his voice cracked, his eyes breaking off from hers.
His throat was so tight that it would spring out.
“Samar.”
Her voice was like a balm. And he realised that he had never spoken so much so quickly all at once in his entire life. He had spoken so much that all he held in his memory was his own voice. Hers was novel. His head turned until their eyes met.
“Say it again.” Remind me who I was in your voice.
“Samar.”
His throat began to loosen.
“Samar.”
His eyelids flickered.
“Daaxsaab.” Her haunted face flickered with a semblance of a smile. His eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why?”
He inhaled, his body vibrating.
“Samar.”
He opened his eyes, and her hands were on his face, holding his cheeks, pulling his head close so that their eyes could hold onto each other. Samar saw the hope and the faith in her eyes. It was for the wrong man.
“It will become alright.” Her thumbs caressed his cheeks. “It will become better.”
He shook his head, trying to pull back. She held on — “You went through all that and still stood on your feet, you will go through this too. This is nothing. It’s a pebble in your path.
No offers are made to Janta yet, no announcements are made.
I will make sure that they are stalled until you are inside the cabinet, trust me, I will make it happen… ”
“No.” He grabbed her wrists and pulled them down, stepping back.
“We will speak to Begumjaan and Zorji,” she went on. “If anybody can get through to Atharva, it is them.”
He shook his head, looking everywhere but at her. Amaal went silent.
“What is wrong with Atharva?!” She lost her cool. “Whatever might have happened between you two, he wouldn’t do this… Samar, he cannot do this. You are a founder of KDP. You won Udhampur with a thumping majority. He will have to relent. If you don’t want to speak to Zorji then I will speak to him…”
“No!”
Her mouth snapped shut. Samar gaped at her. She gaped at him.
Amaal shook her head — “This cannot be like this. No… If you don’t want to involve Zorji then I will talk to Iram.
Her father is involved, but she has been very brave through it all.
She sat through Atharva’s press conference, she took difficult questions, she stood by him. She will make him see reason…”
“She is the reason.”
“How is she the reason?” Amaal asked, looking at him with so much trust that he was forced to break it. Knowing she would not wish to see his face again, he confessed what had sunk to the base of the pot of his sins.
“I gave Iram to Sufiyaan Sheikh.”
“What do you mean gave?”
He looked down. “The way to reach her when Atharva was running to save her that night.”
Wind whooshed across his ears. Amaal did not say anything.
Samar bolstered enough courage to look up, and found that her face had lost its fighting spark. Their eyes met, and he noticed the exact moment that her face completely turned away from him, even as her eyes continued to stare into his.
“You… could you? Did you really?”
He stared back at her, silent.
“Speak!” She yelled. “Did you really? She… they tried to… oh my god! You knew they would…” Amaal’s feet staggered back from him.
“Why?! How… Why?! If you didn’t like her, you…
gave her?” Disgust stretched across her mouth.
He could take that. Anger surged. He could take that too.
And then, she swayed away from him in fear.
Samar took a step forward because that should never have happened. She had nothing to fear him.
She took quick steps back and he took more.
“Stop, stop, stop,” she held her palms out. He kept going.
“Stop!”
He didn’t relent.
“Please.”
Samar’s feet arrested.
Why did that please sound like it was her pepper spray?
“Amaal… I didn’t expect…”
She was shaking her head, staggering back from him, taking more steps back. Back, back, back, back, back.
“Stop!” He yelled before she spilt from the shoulder of the road onto the main road. As if jolted, she glanced around herself. She turned and began walking back towards the city.
“Amaal!” He stalked after her. She broke into a run.
“Amaal!” He kicked up speed and she ran faster.
“Don’t run! Amaal!” He caught her without breaking a sweat. She pushed away — “Leave me!”
“I am…” he fought her off the main road and pushed until she was on the shoulder, shielded by him on the outside. “You can’t leave like that… we are in the middle of a forest.”
She did not even look at his face as she wiggled out of his hold and broke into another brisk walk, this time on the shoulder of the road.
“Amaal!” He ran around her and barred her way. She still did not look at him, her eyes far away into the distance.
“You don’t want to hear why?”
Her throat tightened, the skin there turning white.
“Amaal.”
“No why can justify it.”
She again began to step around him, but he stepped with her. Her eyes finally rose to his. And Samar recoiled.
Every emotion that had begun popping inside him ever since she had started popping that dimple at him stuffed back into his chest. Samar stood straight — firm, unyielding, giving her the man she had already made him to be.
“How…” Her face crumpled. “How did I get to know you…?”
“There is so much of me you don’t know,” he found himself saying. “And I wish you never have the misfortune of knowing.”
Samar pressed his car key into her hand, turned and started walking down the deserted road.