Page 235 of Whisper

Instead, Dan had stoked his own evil, burned his own rage until his soul collapsed, until everything he had been was lost to the purity of his hatred.

When had Dan tipped over the edge? How long had he been living without a soul? There was nothing left of the Dan he’d once known.

What was he truly capable of, without any of his morals, any ethics, and driven purely by hate?

“What is it you have planned? ‘Something bigger than nine-eleven’, you said to Abu Dujana. Something so big you wanted me to pull it off. You specifically asked for me, Al-Khorasani, to come to America to execute your attack. I’m just your convenient terrorist, is that it? Pin the crime on the Muslim?”

“Your ignoble death was supposed to drive Kris into my arms for good. The shattering of your legend, of your mystique, your final hold on his heart. God, Ihatedyou so much. Even in death, you had a stronger power over Kris’s heart and soul than I ever could dream of.”

“We were made for each other and you couldn’t come between that. You could never compete, not when our souls were paired by Allah before space and time began.”

Dan laughed. “Don’t thinkthathighly of yourself, Haddad. Before you fucked up, he was finally mine. He’d finally let you go.”

You have a key?

My personal life is none of your business.

Dawood swallowed, and it felt like a thousand knives of betrayal, a thousand days and nights of longing, of yearning for Kris with every breath in his body. “You’ve twisted him around so badly he doesn’t know up from down, left from right.”

“He was following the scriptperfectly,” Dan snapped again. “But you had to reach out. Had to make contact. Had to confess everything. Don’t tell me you weren’t all in on this, Haddad. That you didn’t want to make America suffer, make Americans bleed. Make them taste the death and the stink of terror and horror you’ve lived with every day, for ten years.”

He closed his eyes. Swayed, smelling diesel fumes and burning mudbrick homes, heard the sounds of children screaming. Heard Behroze wailing, kicking and clawing in the middle of the night. Felt the heat of an incandescent fire blazing off the rubble left behind from a drone strike, so hot they had to let the flames burn themselves out while they listened to the screams of the dying within the shimmering flames.Do not kill with fire, the Quran said.For that is of Allah, and you shall not take the power of Allah for yourselves.

Stay close to justice, for justice is nearer to righteousness.

There were moments, in the darkness, when he’d felt something close to hatred. When he’d stared at the hand Ihsan always held out for him, a silent offer to join his brothers. When he stood at the cliff edge and looked over the abyss of American foreign policy and felt the anguish of a billion Muslims cry out in rage. He’d wondered if it was possible to go too far. Where the line was. Where his rage tipped him over the edge.

Where he risked turning into what Dan had become.

The thought of Kris, the memory of their love, of everything Kris was, kept his soul from spinning off, splintering into the winds and withering to dust and ash. Kris, and his love, his commitment to justice.

Stay close to justice, for justice is nearer to righteousness.

For Dawood, that meant staying close to Kris, and to his memory.

“My path has always been to expose you. Todestroyyou.”

Dan laughed again, gesturing between them with his handgun. Dawood was still on his knees. “Working out well for you, huh? How did it feel when Kris threw you out of my house? When he didn’t believe you?”

“My path is mine to walk alone.”

“He didn’t believe you. No one is coming for you, and no one is going to help you. You’re on your own, Haddad. And you’re mine.”

“Whatever it is you’re planning, I won’t help. I won’t participate in the slaughter of Americans. Or push your twisted evil, your intolerance, your justifications for hate, in any way.”

“Yes. You will.”

Kris ducked beneath a broken window outside the decrepit warehouse at the address George had given him. Voices murmured from within, rising and falling on the still night. Above, a crescent moon carved through the clouds, casting a faint glow over the dead end of the capital.

Dawood’s deep tones carried in the moonlight. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

Dawood. Kris closed his eyes against the crash of his heart, the scream in his soul begging him to throw caution and everything else to the side, to just leap through the window and go to Dawood, be with him. Be by his side, like they were supposed to be, for all time.

He was here now. For Dawood.

He’d parked two blocks away, out of sight on a dark residential block abutting the abandoned industrial park. He’d zigzagged through back lots and alleys, Dan’s gun in his hands as he jogged low and fast. His skinny jeans, long-sleeved pullover and his trench coat flapping behind him were not the tactical uniform he would have preferred. But nothing would stop him, not now. Not ever again.

At the warehouse, he’d circled twice, taking in emptiness, the urban destitution, the way the night seemed to collapse around the neighborhood. Collapse like the warehouse was some fulcrum of evil, the pivot point of destiny.