God has yet to create a harmless man. Either he is up to no good, and just wants to keep you busy so that you don't interfere with his life, or he is so deeply in love he can't say no to you...Wait a little, see what song he sings. - The Book of Fate, Parinoush Saniee

Mehrnaz shooed Kazem into her house, shut the door and dashed for towels from the kitchen. When she returned to his side, Kazem had just collapsed into a chair, heavy breaths spilling from his mouth and hair sticky and flaked with blood both fresh and old. The tourniquet hid a fetid wound that went to his bone, where its crisp whiteness was as bright as the moonstone studded cushion he sat on. She removed the tourniquet, wrapped a dish cloth tightly around the wound, and went to fetch a bucket of water and medicinal supplies. She rushed back and forth like a wasp to a cube of sugar, and at last brought forth a suture kit. It'd been a birthday gift from her uncle, a man she hadn't seen in years, and was seldom used.

She unzipped the bag, took out the surgical gloves, needle, thread, scissors, medicinal alcohol, and forceps. As she went to clean his wounds, Kazem hissed and writhed in his shoes.

"Ah, Mehrnaz, not too harsh!" he cried. "You're going to burn me with all that alcohol!"

"Hush," she admonished. She brought the forceps near his arm, poking under the flesh for glass or rock. "Either I do this or you lose the arm. Do you want to live with a stump, Kazem? How will you explain that to your father? Your tennis coaches?"

Kazem did not answer. He cringed when she poked upon his tender flesh, but the reaction was strongest when she wiped near his ear. In the deep cut shone glass and tiny pieces of black rock. It looked like obsidian or even hardened rubber. The 'how' on those things ending up there had to be placed behind the 'how to remove them'. Kazem raised a hand to meet her wrist in protest, but Mehrnaz waved him away.

"Yes, Kazem. I need to pluck out the shards. Now stay still, and maybe you can tell me what kind of devil played this game with you."

Kazem bowed his head. He was darker than her, with a straight nose and chocolate brown eyes that melted into his darker locks. Around his chin and jaw there was stubble; or there was before the devil rained down hammers and nails on his face. On good days he had cuts and nicks from poor shaving, and bandages on his nose from being hit by a rogue tennis ball. He had gained muscle mass since joining the tennis team at the university; before, he was thinner, lanky even, and looked half-starved. It was at Mehrnaz's insistence – and force feeding – that had given him back his health and strength. She had not questioned why he was like that, but Mehrnaz only asked questions when she felt they were needed.

At this moment, though, questions burned in her head. She examined both his arms, feeling for broken bones or fractures, but thankfully there were none. The bone she had seen and then sealed up was firm when she touched it. Lacerations were all over his body, with his chest, face, and thighs showing the heaviest damage after she pulled up his trousers to view them (he again protested, cheeks deep with embarrassment at such a bold move, but Mehrnaz hadn't cared). It resembled a man who crawled out of a car wreck: bleeding, scratched, confused and unwilling to accept help.

Once the bleeding in his ears stopped, and the last of the filthy towels wrung in her bucket, she looked up at Kazem again. She pursed her lips.

From Kazem's forlorn mask, Mehrnaz knew that he wasn't willing to talk about it just yet. But if he could give her a sign or even a half-lie as to what happened, she'd be put at ease. A young man simply doesn't barge into a young, unmarried woman's house without a good reason; if Delaram was here, she'd shriek and push Kazem out the door like he was a cursed bird.

Why run to her, when there was the hospital? Why had no one seen his wounds and called for help? Who was with him?

Was there a point to even wondering, if she wouldn't get an answer?

"...We got into a fight."

"Hmm?" She zipped up her suture bag. The zipper had been louder than his voice, and she'd been so caught up in her own inner monologue she hadn't paid attention to him.

She eyed him closely. His chocolate eyes were narrowed on his feet, but at the same time it felt his focus was elsewhere. The mask he'd constructed chipped at the ends, but what came out was not the answer Mehrnaz was hoping for.

"Izad and Baraz. We were on a trip and we got into an argument. It...didn't end well."

Izad and Baraz were two of Kazem's teammates on the tennis team. They had just been admitted to a European championship, and they'd all been excited. Though Mehrnaz was aware Izad and Baraz could be tempestuous at times, they were otherwise amicable, and rarely shouted at each other.

"What made them do this? Why should they fight like a pack of street dogs?" Mehrnaz asked. She patted at his hair with a wet cloth, cleaning up the last of the hardened blood. "That is not like them. I have only ever seen them fight over a lost football match."

"Izad and I disagreed over who should go to Arnan and look at the rock art there. They wanted to steal some of the shards, but I told them to leave it be," he said. "I thought they would listen to me, but then they said, 'This stone is invaluable. We should sell some of it when we're in Europe,'" Kazem shook his head. "Those kundi bazari decided words were not enough anymore."

Mehrnaz's frown left crude lines in her face. It made her look like a stone statue that had been nicked by a stone pick. "That is...pitiful," she said after a pause. "Defacing the Arnan stone would give them a life sentence in jail. And that is before the villagers would have their way with them."

Kazem eyed the bucket Mehrnaz had set on the floor. The water was coppery and his tourniquet floated in it like a dead and bloated fish. He sighed through his nose, and kept his eyes on his shoes.

If Mehrnaz could put her thoughts on the radio, she'd broadcast her complete doubt at Kazem's story. The Arnan Rock Art was firm in the Yazd Province, and was a pilgrimage site as well as an ancient trade route. Stealing from Iran a tablet showcasing ancient human habitation was a crime few could conceive of; not only was it defacement, it was defiling the nation. To take a piece from Persia's glorious past and sell it to Europeans in the name of material wealth was an idea Mehrnaz had a time time processing. It was a decision completely alien to Kazem's friends; none of them cared for field trips unless they involved sports. In fact, when she attended classes with them, they shunned history altogether.

What was the reason for this not-so-little white lie? The bruises on Kazem's body spoke of damage beyond what humans could deliver. They were almost imprinted on his bones, and the lacerations had been almost perfect in how clean cut they were. Men fought with fists, knives, teeth and feet. They scratched, they broke noses with their knuckles, and they tore skin with stones. Kazem, however, was a mosaic of symmetrical violence. How that was even possible, Mehrnaz could not say. It reminded her of a rock tumbler, but instead of getting fine rubies the blades refined skin and white bone.

As if to cool the embers of her questions, Kazem stood up. He still looked like an Arabian horse had kicked him off its back, but his cuts were sealed shut and he at least looked presentable. He placed his hands on her shoulders.

"I will talk to you next week. I have to...I have to tell my father not to worry about me. Thank you for helping me. I didn't have time to go to a hospital and I thought of you and - " Kazem trailed off. He blinked a few times, and kept his chapped lips shut. He left her side before Mehrnaz could wait for him to finish his sentence.

"I am sorry your friends treated you so poorly," Mehrnaz called out after him. She found that her voice did not carry with his footsteps. By the time he reached the door, Mehrnaz felt mute.

He left. She dumped the filthy water and cleaned up the bloodstains from the rugs and cushions. She returned to the master bathroom, carrying the dirty towels and throwing them in the laundry chute. She resumed her afternoon routine as if Kazem never arrived; as if he didn't look like an Iraqi torn by an explosive. He never cried when she tended his wounds, and he said not a word until she asked him questions.

'Odd' was too simple a term for what had happened. Mehrnaz struggled to reason that it had happened today, that afternoon, in her house.

In her bathtub, watching the water ripple and bubbles burst under the surface, Mehrnaz wondered if Kazem's little white lie was a zadan she'd be forced to wear on her shoulders.

0

Al-Fakkah Field, Iran-Iraq Border

The one time he had explicit permission to kill a human and not be punished for it, he managed to screw it up.

They'd come across three humans, young twenty-somethings, in an area that boasted 12,000 year old rocks. He had to laugh at that; 12,000 years was nothing to be proud of. He matured from sparkling to full mech in that period, and had battled for three times that length. There were rust stains on Ironhide's armour that were at least that old. Really, he had a good snicker at human conceptions of time. In their freakishly short lives they consumed the flora and fauna of their planet and then had it rot in their guts before it even made it half of the way through. They grew intoxicated on fruit juices, lounged around on clumps of cloth in front of electronic screens, grew larger in size but not in brain matter, and waged war.

Now that? That was something he could understand; something he took plenty of pride and excitement in. It was one similarity they shared.

Another similarity was taking joy in the killing of those beneath them, and he'd finally – finally! - been given a chance to squish one of them in his servos and not have any Autobot get in his way.

And it'd been dashed. He screwed up. He let them 'slip through his fingers'. By Primus, did he ever fume.

Breakdown really had to consider what on this dirtball planet caused him to go full scrapheap on the simplest task he waited for orbital cycles to do. The three young humans were unarmed, stupidly curious and stupidly vulnerable, and decided it would be a great idea to come across two deadly Decepticons in the middle of their work. Sure, he got two of them – and what a disappointment that was, they simply came apart in his servos like a bucket of paint being turned over – but the third managed to get away from both of them.

It wasn't as if Breakdown hadn't tried to screw up. Just go after the squishies, make sure they didn't flap those pink things around in their mouths, and keep it as clean as possible. But no...one of them just had to duck behind a crevice he couldn't get his arm through, and right when he was about to crush the slaggin' thing altogether, he was ordered to stop.

Breakdown was a nanoclick away from swinging his hammer into the faceplates of the bot who stopped him. When he found himself flat on his backstruts, staring at the clear expanse of azure skies with his processor stalling on what exactly just happened, did he realize just what sort of mistake he had made.

Now Breakdown had to formulate a worthy apology if he was going to return to the Nemesis without his processor being wiped.

He was mildly thankful that only one other bot was monitoring his movements, because if anyone spotted his sheepish pose – inclined helm, servos behind his back, the subservience and apologies all the more visible– he would have thrown out protocol and used their faceplates as a polish for his pedes. Breakdown was, however, very thankful that his superior had other things on his mind rather than seeing what his armour would look like as a human wind chime.

The disputed Al-Fakkah field was immense, with blackened craters all over the landscape. Humans contested this area over its oil, and in the 1990's a group of them set fire to the drilling rigs, setting alight the horizon and covering swaths of sky and land in heavy, oily smoke. The remains of drilling and the bleeding earth stood as lone spires, with dark yellow-brown sands that ghosted its frames and theirs. The heat sunk into their wires, but it was not all that unpleasant. It was not the oppressive humidity found in Earth's equatorial regions, yet it still had a slight oomph that didn't dissipate when the night arrived.

Soundwave's midnight blue and violet-tinged frame was like those oil craters in the desert: inky, sleek, and dangerous when the fuse was lit. Like the deserts of Nevada, Soundwave stood out like a block of obsidian, and it was he whom the humans spotted first. His back was to them, his satellite attache open to the air, when, across his visor, he spotted their movements.

He was also the one who injured the fleshling that ran away, tearing at its skin with his tapering claws and back-handing it into the rock face. Breakdown was mildly surprised that Soundwave did not kill it outright, but he didn't bother to ask why. For one, Soundwave would never answer, and two, Soundwave did not talk about his intentions even when he did speak.

Soundwave was the wraith he'd shown himself to be, and Breakdown had to apologize for trying to hit him in the face with his hammer. He coughed, trying on humility for once, as he approached him.

"Commander Soundwave, I wish to express my deepest apologies for striking out at you. I was reckless and did not use my processor, and I failed in my duties to apprehend the humans. I will not make the same mistake again. Your judgment is forever greater than mine."

Oh, Primus. Now he sounded like Starscream. Must he accept advice from Knock Out, who knew everything there was about apologies, sincerity, and duplicity? Again, thank Primus no one else was listening in. Breakdown might as well have pulled his own spark out from the sheer humiliation.

Soundwave kept his back to him, though he swivelled his helm in his direction. Breakdown could see the profile of Soundwave's faceplate, noting how he looked like a neutered turbofox in its reflection. Then again, Soundwave being this amicable was rare; had he been a Vehicon or even a higher ranking Deception, Soundwave wouldn't have hesitated in taking a part of him for a trophy.

"See, Miko? I always break stuff. I'm not meant for handling finer things..."

Breakdown visibly winced. Soundwave had a playback of Bulkhead speaking to his pet squishie, the Japanese girl known as 'Miko'. He'd seen her cheering Bulkhead on when they fought over the fresco depicting the Energon Harvester. He would have loved that human getting in the way – and the horror on Bulkhead's face as he crushed her. He had heard that the females of this species vocalize their distress more than the males, and it was as unpleasant as it was a thrill to hear.

"I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to witness my hanging."

Uh-oh. Soundwave's full attention was on him. The silent wraith exuded no irritation or impatience, but if one paid close enough attention, small signs would show his displeasure towards those who crossed him. In this case, Soundwave started off with a Bulkhead recording, knowing it would make Breakdown cringe, and the second recording from an ex-U.S. president gave Breakdown an indication at just how badly his temper marred his judgment.

Primus. All this for taking a swing at him.

Soundwave pointed a single digit behind him, gesturing at the winds whipping against dunes and the sticky oil in the heat.

"My patience is limited...do not interfere with situations beyond your control."

Huh. He hadn't heard that voice in a while...

CLANG

Soundwave's tentacles had already retracted by the time Breakdown's processor registered the dent in his helm. He rubbed over it tentatively, grumbling to himself that he really did deserve this. The TIC and Communications Expert was back surveying the horizon, scanning for signals, intercepting messages, and forming whatever plans swirled around in his processor.

Breakdown already wished he was back on the Nemesis or even helping Knock Out terrorize street racers in Nevada and elsewhere. Just...anywhere but this uncomfortable position. Primus, can Soundwave tell him what he wanted, already?

As if on cue to his impatient litany, Soundwave broadcasted another recording. "I have found what I'm looking for."

Breakdown recognized the sound byte; it was from a popular song by the human band called 'U2', though Soundwave had edited the lyrics.

The next broadcast piqued Breakdown's interest, and it was also an indication that Soundwave was sending him on a new mission.

"Oh, here she comes...watch out boy, she'll chew you up..."

On Soundwave's faceplate he broadcast a set of co-ordinates, coupled with a picture of the lone human that had escaped from them. Breakdown watched surveillance footage of the wounded fleshling knocking on the door of a posh apartment turned three-story home, and another human ushering it in.

Breakdown focused on the other human who opened the door. He couldn't see much of its features; he couldn't even tell if it was male or female. All he saw was a yellowish blob stick its head out and a fist fly to its mouth.

"Wow, humans have some pretty freaky features on this planet," he mused in his head. He pointed a digit at the screen.

"You want the one, or both?"

"Wherever you are, I'll be waiting...it will not be long until you are mine."

Breakdown took that as an affirmative. He'd aim for the male fleshling, and the other one would be collateral damage if it came to it.

Soundwave nodded his assent for Breakdown to depart. He transformed, speeding off through the dry heat and crystal sands.

He made a mental note to have Knock Out pop out the dent in his head when he was done.

0

Tehran Metro

It was not yet mid-morning and her clothing was soaked with sweat. Spring had almost unnaturally given way to summer early in the year, leaving a heavy, smoky haze over the city. When the cool air came from the mountains, it provided a relief that was just as quickly swept away by the dryness from the desert. It was one extreme to the other like many places in the province. In the city it was heavier, with air conditioners humming and thumping with the struggle to keep buildings cool, and down in the subways, people lingered near the stairs to get the whoosh of air from the passing metro.

Mehrnaz had done this a few times when the heat became unbearable, but mostly she stood there to watch the trains go by and have a moment to herself. After classes and speaking to fellow classmates, she preferred the whine of machines to casual conversation that she felt was wasted. That was not to say she was a solitary animal or disliked the friendship of others. She was picky with friends as she was with her gold and silks, and loved to attend parties and celebrations whenever they popped up.

The one complaint she had – among many – was that she did not like excessive attention. She knew she was almost twenty and unmarried, and suitors would not wait on her forever. Delaram may have insisted on picking a good husband for her so that she could live as freely as she could in this Republic, but Mehrnaz was not an idiot. Every year wasted on education, parties, and aging meant she'd be shunned by the community as a whole. She knew desperation was brimming under the surface of her mother's resolve.

That day, she promised her mother she would discuss a few proposals from boys close to her age. They'd have a formal party, exchange pleasantries, and maybe earn a spot on her tavalod list.

Mehrnaz dreaded it. The one thing that even brightened her day at the prospect was that her Uncle Mehrdad would be there. She hadn't seen him in years, and she craved his presence and his calming influence. She turned to him for advice, not her father; even though Irman was always willing to cater to his daughter's every needs, she felt he wanted to spoil her, and was hardly honest with her. Her uncle filled that void, though he left a deep void of his own with his constant absences.

She tried not to think about it. It'd lessen the pain.

Her maghne'e was wound tightly around her head, an Oxford blue that matched her trousers and loose manteau that fell past her bottom, as was custom. Cinched at her waist was a heavy belt, studded with lapis lazuli. Mehrnaz had protested to her mother that morning that such a belt was asking for not-so-precious stones to be thrown at her head. Delaram had stuck her tongue out in her motherly way: jutting out of the corner of her mouth, right over her lipstick. Delaram consented to Mehrnaz having the belt tucked beneath her clothing, so that it was modest and did not attract too much notice. She paired it with dark violet slippers, her bare feet covered under her clothes.

She'd seldom understood her mother's eccentricities. The woman, swarthy in skin tone yet with the classic groomed Persian eyebrows and fine-tuned lips, wanted her to be stylish in every which way. Delaram would braid her hair under her headscarf, or leave it loose under an extra long cloth that was a pain to untangle when it was windy. When that happened, Delaram would appear with her homemade conditions and trusty comb, and Mehrnaz's head would be a welcoming party for bees for the rest of the day.

That morning, Delaram clucked her tongue, calling her routine 'lazy'. "You must always look presentable and modest," her mother said. "No one will take you seriously if you do not."

Delaram then insisted on correcting every mistake – a loose string, chafing slippers, a shirt that was too tight – and then also insist that she look as dazzling as an African parrot. This was in response to Irman's influence: cuffs that were loose and showed too much wrist, a watch that was on backwards, etc.

Despite Delaram's annoyance, it was all playful banter. She was seldom a brooding, serious woman who dictated things to her child. Mehrnaz assumed this was because she was the only living child, and Delaram hadn't gotten a chance to dazzle and awe any other children.

"There we are," Delaram said when she had finished. "As fine as any bit of Indian gold."

"I think I would be gaudy if I went that route," Mehrnaz had said.

"Nonsense! You'll have so much gold on you for your tavalod you'll sink right through the floor!" Her mother had winked. "Now, where's that God-forsaken lunchbox? I told you I'd buy you a new one!"

Mehrnaz still had the lunchbox. Delaram would have to call in the U.S. Marines if she wanted to pry it from her daughter's grasp.

At the Tehran Metro, the cool air from the subway trains brushed loose strands of hair away from her face. She breathed in and enjoyed the air. She wrapped her arms tighter around her chest, watching from beneath her parted eyelids her book bag, filled with textbooks and notebooks for her to fill with homework once classes were over.

She tapped a foot to the tick tick tick of wheels on tracks. A few minutes and her train would arrive.

Then, a tap tap tap on her shoulder. She turned at the touch, eyebrows partially raised at the intrusion.

A dark-eyed, dark skinned boy smiled at her. He stepped back a few paces to give her room.

"I was wondering when you'd show up. I kept looking around at the other subways. I hardly ever catch you here," he said.

She bowed her head in acknowledgment. "Kazem," she said.

It had been several weeks since the incident at her home. She made a house call to Kazem a few days afterwards, speaking to his mother Noushin. Noushin had told her that her boy went to the hospital not long after he returned, and that the doctor thanked whoever had tended to him first. Had Kazem's wounds not been closed, infection would set in and he surely would have lost the arm that showed bone. The doctor even appraised the sutures; he was confident the scars would pose no issue towards Kazem's physical appearance. So long as he could continue playing tennis, his parents would stay happy.

Even when she spotted him in the hallways at Sharif University, he refused to talk about what had happened to him. He stuck to his story that it was a fight gone wrong, but Izad and Baraz's parents were not convinced whatsoever. She knew the police would get involved, and since Izad's father was a lawyer (expatriate; he'd studied overseas) Kazem would answer to a judge one day. If that reality didn't occur to him, then he was idiotic. But Mehrnaz suspected that he didn't care. Why he didn't was again a question that simmered in her head along with the sights of his scars.

"Has the day been good to you?" he asked her. His hands were tucked into a loose pair of Western-style jeans, with a FIFA soccer shirt covering his torso and the worst of the scarring.

Were it not for the subterranean air cooling her off, Mehrnaz thought her irritation would set fire to her skin. The question itself was innocent, relating to her only, but Mehrnaz thought it a cheap cover for Kazem's gerrymandering. She felt he was jinxing her, and she did not like that in the slightest bit.

"As good as it can be," she replied, cool and even, like the heat rippling through her skin did not exist. "I have chemistry exams to prepare for. It is an advanced course, and I cannot fail them."

"I am sure you will do fine." He beamed at her. "You have never missed a day, and are always at the top of your class." He laughed. "How do you ever make time for social events?"

"I don't. My mother does," she said, albeit a bit more cross than she would have liked.

Kazem noticed the change in tone, and sighed. "Mehrnaz, I know I should have been honest with you about what happened to me. But I..." His tempo dropped. "You would think my head is twisting off with lies."

Mehrnaz chuckled, and the sound was as strange to him as it was to her. "Silly boy." She shook her head. "You're such a silly boy, Kazem."

Kazem frowned. He wasn't sure if the blonde beauty was deliberate in her mocking of him. It was not as if he could open his skull and pour out the contents like tea from a samovar!

By God, I just cannot speak my mind, woman! You have to understand me. I don't want your skin torn up like mine!

Mehrnaz looked at him, and did – by her admission – a horrible ballet twirl, and held her arms out. Her mouth was worked in a half-smirk, half grin. It made her look absolutely devious. "As the Westerners say, 'Your word is as good as mine.' I'm not going to say anything more. Keep your secrets, Kazem. I simply hope you won't be jinxed because of them."

When her subway train arrived, Mehrnaz stepped on. Kazem followed her, even though he knew his car wasn't to arrive for another ten minutes. He stood next to her near the back of the scarcely populated car, but did not stand too close as to give the impression he was harassing her.

He was half a head taller than her, and Mehrnaz was tall for a woman; she stood at 5'9, he at 6'1. He slouched rather than stood straight, and looked like a sagging beanstalk whenever he leaned in close. She could smell the mint he chewed every morning on his breath.

"Mehrnaz, please don't do this to me. My mother already had her share of overreaction. I don't think I can stand five more minutes of it."

"That is simply too bad, golabi. And your mother had the right to treat you like a cursed songbird. What nasty little twittering you have!"

Kazem sighed through his nose. He closed his eyes for a moment. "You are always so dramatic. I would think you'd make a Russian ballet to mock me."

"Do you not think for a moment why your presence irritates me so?" she hissed. "You and I are friends, Kazem. We're unmarried and yet we speak freely. I trusted you with my secrets when Farrah was not there. So why can't you hold your end of the bargain? Am I that much of a simpering woman to not be trusted?"

A part of her wanted this exchange not to happen. Kazem was correct: it was over-dramatic, maybe senseless. But Mehrnaz couldn't forget a promise made to her. If someone says they will speak to you next week after they run to your home bleeding and torn like a butchered ram, and they do not, what is to be made of that?

If she was not irritated, she feared she would have started crying. So she kept up the fiery barrier, and provoked Kazem some more.

"What do you think will happen once a judge tries you for double-homicide, Kazem? That you are the only one to survive a fight between your best friends? What will Noushin think? Or will she be just another wronged woman, with another son that came out the wrong end of her solakh kun?"

Kazem's head snapped to the side as if Mehrnaz had slapped him, even though her hands will still placed on her book bag. She could see his body cringing; the muscles rippling inward, the awkward placement of his shoes. Had he been any other boy, any other man, such talk would have Mehrnaz's head snapping the other way. But she said it not to truly hurt him. She said it because she felt she'd been scorned by his dishonesty.

He didn't reply, and Mehrnaz said nothing else. She toyed with the rings on her fingers, re-adjusted her headscarf and rubbed an itchy heel with a slippered foot. When the metro arrived near the exchange towards the

university, Kazem followed her off and up the stairs, and matched her stride.

"I think of Izad and Baraz everyday," he said lowly. "I think about what happened between them and myself, how it ended the way it did...the scars are on my soul and conscience as they are on my body. There is no forgiveness here."

"Enough with this, Kazem!" she snapped. It was not loud enough to earn the stares of passing Tehranis. "You say you are guilty and the wounds are heavy on your shoulders. But you cannot spare me a minute to tell me the truth! You know they will question me as well, Kazem. Do you think I want to be an accessory to your crimes?"

"No! Please, just listen, Mehrnaz. I know I said I would speak to you last week. I know I did. But I could not approach you. My mother and father would not allow it, and neither would yours. Besides, if I spoke the truth, you would laugh at me and you would truly dance on my wounds!"

The blonde, beguiled girl didn't know whether to cry and stain her cheeks, or let her scorn redden her them like Delaram's lipstick. Her eyebrows were knitted so tight they looked like a spool of ribbon across her forehead, her hands tightened around her book bag as if she could turn to it for help.

She stared at Kazem, lips and feet still, focused on no one but him.

Then, she wasn't there. She was launched at least thirty feet across the pavement, with no sound but an engine thundering over Kazem's ears.

Notes:

- Zadan - jinx

- tavalod - birthday (IIRC)

- kundi bazari - street kids (insult)

- golabi - fool

- solakh kun - asshole

- Soundwave is referencing a quote from George W. Bush, Hall and Oates' 'Maneater', and Informatik's 'A Matter of Time.'