Page 169 of The End of the World As We Know It

Nasir reached out with a tremulous hand to touch Palwasha’s green dupatta. She had washed it thoroughly after repair and it matched her eyes now. “Was this your mother’s?”

She nodded. “Ao, lala.”

“Palwashay-Gul.” He gripped her hand, his chest rising and falling. “My little rose sister. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. But you listen to your lala one last time: When the colonel’s men come in, theywill want to take me out first. And Murtaza. He’s our last shooter left alive. Hiding in the minaret. When they’re busy with us, you slip out the back. Leave everyone behind. I will try to make sure the bastard doesn’t catch us alive. But you—”

Palwasha cut him off. “No, Lala.” She gazed at him with such gravity Nasir’s heart wanted to break. “I will not abandon my family.”

Nasir couldn’t stop shaking. He tried to smile at her, but the left side of his face kept wanting to fall in on itself. “Then we will both stay here until this is done.”

Palwasha lowered herself down next to him. Together they looked out into the courtyard prematurely darkened by rain clouds, at the pillars crowding together like spectators at a blood match, and Nasir thought of the three-day mela that used to come to Balakot and Muzaffarabad every year, the rickety Ferris wheel, horse rides, food stalls, balloons, and BB guns set up in the maidan by the soft green water of the Kunhar River.My God, he thought.I will never smell the scents of a fair again, never hear children squeal with laughter again.

Overwhelmed with tears, he looked at Palwasha.

Her jade eyes gleamed in the dimness like a cat’s and he could hardly hear her when she said very softly, “They’re here, Lala.”

Sounds right outside the courtyard.

Shadows slipped into the mosque.

With great effort, Nasir lifted his gun and pointed it at the approaching men led by the colonel, who was limping slightly. His khakis had turned maroon at the left thigh, where a bullet must have grazed him. He didn’t seem particularly in pain.

The colonel slowed when he saw Nasir’s gun and grinned.

“I promised you all death if you didn’t listen,” he called out. Two of his men broke off and made for the steps leading up to the eastern minaret. “So, here I am and here it is. I wish I could offer mercy, but the word of an officer is his honor.”

Palwasha was tense against Nasir’s body, yet she didn’t raise her revolver. Nasir gripped his own handgun with both hands, hopingto steady it, but his vision was dimming. Too much blood loss. Too much—

From their right came a deep growl.

Nasir glanced into the mounting dark, trying to pierce it. There at the doorway of Khizar’s room, for the briefest of moments, Nasir glimpsed a large figure, wrapped in black, tall enough that its head was touching the doorframe.

Nasir shook his head—and it was only Hero after all, snarling, as he emerged from the room, canines shining, his hackles up.

“Who goes there!” the colonel’s sharp voice rang out. “Oh, a fucking dog, for God’s sake. Shoot him, won’t you, Jameel?”

The soldier raised his rifle and carefully aimed it at Hero.

Nasir’s body was drenched in sweat. His head swam. Something fell from his hands and he looked down in surprise. It was his gun, lying thousands of miles away between his feet.

This is it, he thought.This is what it feels like to die.

Someone took ahold of his face and kissed him on the forehead.

“Nasir Lala, look.” Palwashay-Gul turned his head gently until they were both looking at the gloaming between the mosque’s pillars. “Our friends are here.”

“Who?” he wheezed, not understanding.

She lowered her lips to his ears and whispered, “Burqan.”

And Nasir saw.

Dozens of dark figures emerging from behind the pillars, silent, majestic, tall as pines, jostling and churning together, like tree branches in a lashing high storm, coming apart, coalescing, then rushing at the armed men.

“Burqan,” Palwasha said again, her eyes wide with wonder.

The last thing Nasir saw, before a great darkness descended on him, was Hero, the spotted mongrel of the mullah, foaming at a mouth too large for a dog or even a wolf, making sounds no canine had ever made, slipping between the legs of the armed men, who screamed and screamed as their limbs were shorn off and their headsrolled like smooth river stones fresh from the bottom of the Kunhar, and Nasir thought absurdly,But you’re not allowed inside the mosque. Bad dog. What will Khizar say?

Then the grainy-white darkness was upon him and he thought no more.