Hasan froze. “They’ve arrested Samina?”
“Just yesterday.” Sanjiv’s voice trembled. “She opened the window and told me to hide outside, on the roof. When I climbed back in, she was gone.”
Hasan could picture it easily?—Samina had left the safe house before her wounds had fully healed. When the police had come for her, she wouldn’t have been able to fight or run as well as she normally could, and she would have never allowed Sanjiv to try and defend her.
“Do you know if they’ve taken anyone else?”
“I don’t know. Samina told me it’s too dangerous to go out, so I haven’t. The police are stopping everyone. There’s a curfew on our side of the city, and they set up checkpoints everywhere.” Sanjiv blinked furiously, fighting back tears. “It was already hard enough to survive.”
Hasan loosed a ragged breath, patting the boy on the shoulder awkwardly. Samina would kill him if he left her brother here alone, but he couldn’t possibly take Sanjiv with him. “You should leave Marnapur. There’s a safe house in Sanivali.”
“I won’t leave without Samina,” Sanjiv insisted fiercely.
The boy’s sense of loyalty lodged in Hasan’s chest, twisting in the wound Zeyar had left. “I’m looking for her,” he said. “Go, and I’ll find her.”I’ll find them both.
• • •
Hasan had to reconfigure his plans. With most of his daivyakt fighters missing or arrested, he didn’t have the manpower required to overwhelm the police. He couldn’t leave Marnapur empty-handed, but charging the police station on his own would be a suicide mission.
Tired and hungry, after another full night of disappointment, all he wanted was a warm meal and the comfort of his own bed. He returned to the flat. Inhaling slowly, he flipped the lights on, bracing himself for the rush of melancholy.
What hehadn’tbeen bracing himself for was the figure sitting on his couch, flipping through one of Zeyar’s old newspapers. Hasan whipped out his pistol, but the person holding the newspaper responded to the safety being clicked off by merely turning the page.
“Relax.” Harithi rolled her eyes over the top of the paper. “It’s only me.”
He lowered his gun in disbelief, putting the safety back on. “How’d you find me?”
“After you ditched me at Sanivali, you mean?”
“No one knows about this apartment. Who told you?”
“No one did.” Harithi tossed down the newspaper. “I have my ways. You’re avoiding the question. Why’d you leave me behind?”
“I didn’t need you with me,” Hasan retorted. “Did Zeyar tell you about this place?”
“He didn’t! I told you, no one told me.” Harithi straightened her back, glaring. “What’s the big deal about me knowing, anyway? I’ve been a part of this gang almost as long as you.”
“You’re not a Devar,” Hasan snapped. Harithi flinched, the expression of pain on her face so rare that it took him a moment to recognize it. He backtracked, lowering his voice. “It was a promise we made to each other, as brothers?—we’d never tell anyone else about this apartment. No friends, no lovers?—no one. I never doubted that the others followed the rule, but ever since Zeyar?—”
“I get it.” Harithi softened. “What he did tore a thread loose?—and now you can’t stop pulling, even if it means unraveling everything.”
After a long pause, he tucked his gun back into its holster. “I’m sorry.” Then he frowned again. “Why did you follow me back to Marnapur?”
“Because you obviously have a plan,” Harithi said, “and I’m going to be part of it.”
“You don’t even know what I’m planning.”
“And whose fault is that?” She pointed at him. “Get me up to speed.”
He balked. Given the way his plan had gone so far, he hated to admit that there wasn’t much left of it at all.
Meanwhile, Harithi had interpreted his silence differently. She rose from the couch, punching her finger into his chest. “The problem with you Devars,” she said, “is that you never share what you’re thinking. When things get tough, all of you run off and do your own thing, trying to be the hero that saves the others instead of working collaboratively. If Zeyar had shared what he was thinking with me?—if I had followedhimto the city?—”
Jaw clenched, she broke off, looking equal parts angry and mortified that she’d revealed so much of her thought process. Hasan didn’t attempt to soothe her. She’d take any sympathy he offered her as pity, and if there was one thing that she hated, it was pity.
“I didn’t bring you because you disagreed about attacking the precinct when I first suggested it.” Hasan ran a hand through his hair, then added, “It’s starting to look like a suicide mission, anyway.”
Briefly, he explained his plan to recruit his fighters and storm the police precinct to free Paranjay. Then he recounted how every daivyakt fighter’s house he’d been to had been raided or abandoned.
