A Step Back and to the Side
A Word: Ibid.
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Hamid is given a feather and a mission after leaving a blood soaked home. He's carried them both for years now. Tucked safely away in a pouch so that when he sees his chance he won't have to delay. He brings it out often as the years go by and looks at his charge. His penance for his role in the whole matter.
The feather is stiff and tattered now. The pure white gone gray with dirt and sweat and too much handling. It has been too long, and not long enough at all when he finally sees the face of his daughter in the crowded streets of Jerusalem. The rumors of her presence turning out to be true.
He follows her slim form. Familiar in a way that makes him ache for his wife, for the woman who had tried so hard to warn him. Whose words he'd ignored beyond her own death and all reason. Faheem paid the price for his willful ignorance, and so to, Hamid fears, did his grandson.
The feather in his pouch is heavy as he leaps across the rooftops. Tailing his target, tailing his daughter. Al Mualim's words hang heavy in his mind but Hamid stays his hand. He waits and follows because there's still a chance. Slim though it may be, there is still a chance that Malik lives.
Yamha has no child with her as she snakes her way through the streets. Eyes bright with something Hamid knows to be wary of. It's no sure sign that the boy is dead, just that he is not with her. Malik would be old enough by now to be left alone, and Hamid doubts his daughter would care enough to have waited even that long. Truthfully, her madness has shown her much more likely to kill the boy than deal with him at all.
Hamid hopes though. Hopes even though he should not, and follows her closely. Looking for her to lead him to where she is staying. The longer she stalks the streets, her eyes lingering on the weak and slow, the more certain he grows that his hopes are for nothing.
He sees Yamha pick her prey and follow the old man into an alley. Away from the eyes of others and Hamid sees the flash of metal before he's putting on speed. His reluctance nothing in the face of the promise he made at Faheem's grave, that he would not allow her to kill again.
His blade sinks into Yamha's back with a sickening wrench and the tiny gasp of pain she makes feels like a heated dagger sliding into his own flesh. Hamid holds her close as she jerks and struggles. Her lungs filling with the wet sound of blood and death as she manages to turn just enough to see him. Just enough for him to see her.
Rage flares hot in the eyes that look so much like Ghadir's that it is like burying her again as he twists the blade. Widening the wound until it feels like his hand is on fire from the heated splash of blood and Yamha goes utterly still. The rage and madness dimming in her eyes, and the wet sound of her breathing stopping abruptly as she slumps in his arms.
Dead with a final rattle, she makes no other sound. No scream or accusation.
He is alone, the old man having moved on with no notion of how close he came to death. Yamha a cooling weight in his arms, lighter than the worn feather he draws through the soaked folds of her robe before placing her on the ground. Curling her on her side and gently closing her empty eyes with a hand that refuses to stop shaking.
Hamid does not permit himself to stay by her side. Does not permit the tears to fall from his eyes, or the anguish pass his lips. He flees the alley and avoids the Bureau. Running for the highest point he can see and throwing himself into climbing it. Getting as high as he can before allowing himself to truly grieve.
For Yamha, Ghadir, Faheem, Malik. For the countless men and women that fell to Yamha's cruel delight. For himself, for the loss of his entire family and the role he played in allowing it to happen.
Hamid grieves as blood dries on his hand.
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