As soon as they reached the mosque, Rabi pulled over and didn’t bother parking properly. They both stumbled out and sprinted toward the mosque.
Rabi could have sworn there weren’t quite this many stairs leading up to the mosque’s entrance. Everyone he’d come to protect seemed miles and miles away.
They ran inside, and his panic kicked up a notch. There were dozens of people here, mostly in the middle of their prayers. A few heads turned as they came in. Then some gasps got other people’s attention, and the steady murmur of prayers turned to a ripple of uneasiness. Rabi didn’t have to ask why—he was still in the same bloody clothes he’d worn last night.
“Rabi?” Imam Kamer jogged toward them and loudly whispered, “What are you doing here?”
All eyes were on them. Everyone in the vast room was silent, attention fixed on Matthew and Rabi.
Rabi forced back his nerves and looked the imam in the eye. “We need to get everyone out of here.”
“What? Why?” But before either of them could speak, horror filled the imam’s expression. “What have you heard?”
“That a lynch mob is on its way,” Matthew said. “And I think they’re coming here.”
Imam Kamer scanned the room, probably figuring out the most efficient and least panic-inducing way to clear people out.
“Rabi?” His mother’s voice turned Rabi around as his parents and sister approached. The grief and pain in his family’s eyes broke his heart. They had to have known about Eshaan by now. They’d probably also been told some lie about how he’d attacked the Swain boys and was taken down like a wild animal.
His father, holding Mom against him like she might crumble at any moment, looked in Rabi’s eyes. “What happened last—”
Outside, diesel engines roared. Tires squealed. Car doors slammed. Men shouted, and though Rabi couldn’t make out the words, the hostility was palpable.
To his parents, he quickly said, “I’ll explain later, but first we have to—”
Someone screamed as a Molotov cocktail sailed in through the door, narrowly missing a woman and her son before shattering on the ground in a burst of flames.
“Shit,” Rabi muttered, and hurried outside with Matthew hot on his heels.
A row of trucks and Jeeps had pulled up in front of the mosque, blocking the streets from all directions. Well-armed men were getting out, and someone was just about to light another Molotov cocktail.
Matthew stepped past Rabi, blocking him with his body, and put up his hands. “Stop! Enough!”
Commotion came from behind them, and Rabi looked back as people—mostly men and many of them brandishing guns—poured out of the mosque’s doors. His heart stopped.
As soon as the Swains and their posse saw the Muslims, they raised their weapons. As soon as the Muslims saw the weapons, they raised their own. Everyone froze, fingers on triggers and eyes locked on opposite sides. No one lowered their guns, and no one moved, and no one made a sound.
Standing back to back between the heavily-armed families, Matthew shielded Rabi from the Swains and Rabi shielded Matthew from the Hashmis. Rabi’s stomach somersaulted as adrenaline mingled with panic in his veins. If someone started shooting, there was nowhere for him and Matthew to run. No matter which side started it, they were both dead.
“Matthew,” Bob Swain barked from where he stood in front of a rumbling pickup. “Get out of the way.”
For a second, Rabi hoped he would. That Matthew would run past the line of armed men and take cover behind one of the vehicles. Deep in his gut, he knew this wouldn’t end well. That there’d be blood on the ground before it was over. He just prayed none of it would be Matthew’s.
“I’m not going anywhere, Dad,” Matthew replied. “Would you think about what you’re doing?”
“Coming to do justice for the animal who murdered my son, and the animals who raised him.” Bob Swain’s voice had a faintly hysterical edge. Like he was running on pure grief and emotion.
“How about the animals who tricked Rabi so they could beat the shit out of him?” Matthew threw back. “Or do they not count?”
“We were warning him to stay away from you.” Nate Swain’s voice held a murderous undercurrent as he added, “Fucking fags.”
Matthew bristled. “So, what? You’re going to come here and murder people just because I’m gay?”
Several people’s faces twisted with disgust, including Matthew’s father’s.
“Get away from him, son,” Swain shouted. “I’ll deal with you later.”
“No. You won’t. I’m not letting you hurt Rabi for something Derek did.”
Someone cocked a weapon. “Don’t you talk that way about your brother! Now get out of the way so we can—”
“Both our families lost a son last night,” Rabi called out. “My brother Eshaan is dead, and his brother Derek is dead.”
Murmurs of shock and horror rippled through both sides.
“All because . . .” Heart thundering as he stared down too many barrels of too many guns, Rabi felt around until he found Matthew’s hand, and Matthew grabbed it and squeezed it tight. Rabi raised their joined hands. “Is this worth two men dying? Do people really have to die just because of this?”
“And do any more people have to die?” Matthew’s voice was strong, but there was a raw edge to it. “How bad is this going to get before you realize the Hashmis are just like us, and they’re just people who want to live their lives without being attacked?”
“And all we want is to love each other,” Rabi added. “Is hating each other and hating us really worth all the violence? Are we really so offensive that murder is justified?”
Matthew’s fingers twitched in his.
Someone moved, and Rabi turned his head, meeting Nate’s frenzied gaze as the man pointed his weapon at him. “He killed Derek. Cracked his skull on the pavement like—”
“After you and Derek ambushed him!” Matthew snarled. “You lured him out. You attacked him. You killed his brother when he tried to break things up. And now you’re going to try to blame him?” Matthew shifted so he was between his brother and Rabi. “You’re going to have to go through me if you want to get to him.”
Rabi gripped Matthew’s hand painfully tight.
“You lured my son for a beating?” Rabi’s father boomed. “And killed my other son?”
Nate laughed humorlessly, borderline hysterically. “Your son needed to know he was fucking a man from the wrong family.”
All at once, the crowd erupted into chaos, with people shouting over one another. Guns waved in the air. The most volatile were held back—barely—by others, and Rabi’s heart went a thousand miles an hour. He and Matthew were dead center, in the eye of a storm that was picking up violent strength by the second, voices rising like a howling wind. Too many guns. Too much rage. Too many years of pent-up hatred.
And then someone fired.
Before Rabi could think, let alone move, Matthew tackled him.
They tumbled onto the steps as gunfire cracked from both sides. A bullet ricocheted off something. People shouted and screamed and ran for cover, and everything seemed to explode into a panicked melee.
Under Matthew, Rabi couldn’t move. He could barely breathe, and he was holding his breath anyway, anticipating the searing pain of a bullet or the darkness that came with a well-aimed one.
And then, just like that, the whole world fell silent.
The whole world except for Matthew.
The moan that escaped his throat sent panic through Rabi. Ears ringing, he was vaguely aware of other sounds starting to rise around him—gasps and cries of horror, and of others trying to hurry toward them but being held back—but he was too laser-focused on Matthew to give them much thought. He twisted out from under him, and that was when he saw the blood. So much blood. On the steps. On their clothes. Seeping between Matthew’s fingers and sliding down the back of his hand as he clutched at his chest.
“Oh no. No, no, no.” Rabi urged him to lie back on the steps, and he pressed both hands against the wound on his chest. “Look at me, Matthew. Look at me.” No way in hell was Matthew slipping away like Eshaan had last night. No fucking way. “Come on, Matthew.”
Matthew’s eyes fluttered open. His face was contorted with pain. For a second, he looked just like Eshaan, and Rabi shakily whispered, “Stay with me.” If the light in Matthew’s eyes died like it had in Eshaan’s—
“Stay away from them!” someone snarled, and Rabi looked up to see three Swain guns pointed at a pair of men who’d started to come down the steps to help.
“We’ll get an ambulance here,” Bob Swain said coldly, “but don’t any of you people touch my son.”
Rabi glared at him. “Are you fucking kidding?” He jerked his head toward the two men. “They’re EMTs, for God’s sake.”
Swain stared back at him over his rifle. “Get away from my son, or we’ll need a second ambulance.”
Rabi distantly heard his mother crumbling into hysterics, and someone herding her back into the mosque, where her anguished screams echoed. Fear churned in his guts, but it was anger that bubbled to the surface.
“Do you really want to lose another son?” Rabi demanded through clenched teeth as he fought to keep pressure on Matthew’s wound. He glanced down at Matthew, who was obviously struggling to stay conscious. Rabi looked at the two EMTs, and they stared at him, eyes wide and hands up, and the helplessness in their expressions burned Rabi to the core.
Swallowing hard, he faced Swain again. “You can either let them help him, or you can shoot me too.” With that, he slid an arm under Matthew’s shoulders. Matthew’s cry of pain broke his heart, but he ignored it as best he could and helped Matthew to his feet. They stumbled a few steps toward the EMTs as shouting and shotguns racking echoed behind them. With every step, Rabi anticipated a bullet to his back.
But it didn’t come.
He made it, and as he eased Matthew back to the ground, the pair of EMTs hurried in close and went to their knees beside him.
“I said keep your hands off him!” Bob Swain shouted. “I will blow your camel-fucking heads off if you lay a hand on him.”
The EMTs both looked at Rabi, and there was a split second of paralyzed Oh shit, what do we do? between the three of them before the two EMTs started pulling Matthew’s shirt apart. Rabi stood, heart going insane as he faced Bob Swain and the barrel of his gun.
“Your sons came after me because they didn’t want me with Matthew.” He tried to force the fear out of his voice, but didn’t quite succeed. “Now your son is dead, my brother is dead, and your other son . . .” He gestured at Matthew. “Go ahead and shoot me if you want to, but isn’t enough, enough?”
“Get off your fucking high horse!” Nate Swain waved his gun at Rabi. “This is because of you! If you had just stayed away from Matthew, none of this would have happened.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Rabi’s voice wavered. “But is what Matthew and I are doing so terrible that people need to die over it?”
Silence. Everyone was still and quiet except the EMTs murmuring over Matthew, and Matthew’s plaintive—and rapidly weakening—moans.
Then, one of the Swains—a young blond man—leaned down and laid his rifle at his feet. He stepped over it, walked past Matthew’s brother with his hands upraised, and headed toward Matthew and Rabi.
When he reached them, he faced his family again, standing between Rabi and his own family. More silence. More stillness.
Then another Swain lowered his weapon and crossed the space to where his relative had taken a stand. “This isn’t right,” he told the Swains. “Jesus, Nate—you shot your own fucking brother. Is it really worth it?”
A third man put his gun down too. “This has gone way too far. I’m not losing another cousin to all this hate.”
Silence. Stillness.
“They’re right.” A woman’s voice turned Rabi’s head. One of his own cousins—Fahmidah—squeezed past her father and brother. Head high, she came down the steps toward Matthew and Rabi. She stepped around Rabi to join the two men, and stopped. She stared down Matthew’s brother as fearlessness radiated off her.
There was another moment of utter stillness before Rabi’s youngest sister, Bas, came down the steps, bright blue hijab fluttering in the breeze, and she didn’t just join the others—she locked arms with one of the men. A moment later, the other man offered his elbow to Fahmidah, and she took it. One by one, people broke away from both sides and came to stand between the Swains and their wounded son and his lover.
Matthew’s brother lowered his weapon slightly, looking utterly confused. He glanced at his father, who’d also brought his gun down a few degrees. Then back.
One by one, the younger members of both factions broke rank and came to stand with Rabi by the men who were trying to save Matthew.
Those who remained stared in confusion. Rabi was afraid to look toward his own family, but he had a feeling they were doing the same.
“Are we done?” Rabi demanded.
Bob Swain swallowed. Then he relaxed his stance and lowered his weapon completely. The others followed suit.
Rabi exhaled. The situation was still tense, but he’d take this over looking down a dozen barrels.
“We have to get him out of here right now,” Ali, one of the EMTs, said to Rabi. “He’s gonna bleed out if we don’t.”
“I’ve got a truck,” a Swain said. “Will that work?”
“Yes—where is it?”
Immediately, they were in action—the Swain sprinted down the steps, keys jingling in his hand, while the EMTs grabbed several bystanders to help them get Matthew off the ground. Rabi joined them, carefully holding Matthew’s shoulder on the uninjured side and lifting him with the others. As the group picked their way down the steps, moving slowly so they wouldn’t drop Matthew or jar him too much, a diesel engine approached.
The tailgate clanged open. Moving quickly but carefully, the group loaded Matthew into the bed of the pickup. The pair of EMTs jumped in beside him, and the tailgate had barely banged shut before the tires squealed and the truck took off.
As the vehicle sped away, Rabi’s knees began to shake. Without adrenaline to hold him upright, cold fear bowled him over, and he sat down on the bottom step to try to collect himself. There was activity around him—people arguing, mostly—but all he could think about was Matthew’s blood on his hands.
“Rabi?” His father touched his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Rabi didn’t trust himself to speak without vomiting, so he just nodded.
His dad crouched beside him like Imam Kamer had in the mosque last night. Was that really last night? Had his entire world really imploded within the last day?
“Is it true?” his father asked. “This man? He was your . . .”
“Is my boyfriend,” Rabi croaked. He met his father’s gaze, and somehow managed to whisper, “And Eshaan was trying to save me. From them.”
His father’s lips tightened, and he gave a sharp nod as he squeezed Rabi’s shoulder. Whether he was accepting the words as the truth, or simply acknowledging that he understood them, Rabi couldn’t quite tell.
Sirens started screaming in the distance, and they were closing in fast from all directions. Rabi shut his eyes and exhaled. It would get messy. He’d probably wind up in jail, at least until things were sorted out. Maybe he’d even go to prison for killing Derek Swain. He didn’t know. He wasn’t even sure he cared right now.
In fact, in that moment, there was only one thing he cared about, and it was one thing he had absolutely no control over.
Please be okay, Matthew. Please be okay . . .