Home > Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3)(2)

Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3)(2)
Author: Sonali Dev

Onstage, Rico had the crowd eating out of his hand. A chant of, “Yash is us,” started up and boomed across the arena like drumbeats. Excitement thrummed in the air like an electric force.

Abdul’s shoulders took up the rhythm of the chant even as he scanned the crowd with laser focus. Rico called out Yash’s name with all the aplomb of a sportscaster announcing a reigning champion before a big fight, and the cheering turned deafening.

“You’re a rock star, boss,” Abdul said, his fist bumping against Yash’s as they ran out onto the stage.

“I Love you, Yash Raje!” someone screamed from the crowd as though Yash really were a rock star.

It was the first sound to hit him as he faced the crowd, anticipation rising from it and rolling over him like a wave.

The second sound blew out his eardrums just as fire exploded in his arm.

Two more shots followed the first and Abdul’s body slammed against Yash’s, pushing him out of the way. Yash fell back, his legs flying out from under him as he watched Abdul slam his head on the podium and crumple to the floor across Yash’s legs. Everything inside Yash braced for more shots. When none came, he felt his heart start beating again, but when he tried to move . . . nothing.

Why have I never googled what happens after you get shot? That should not have been Yash’s first thought after the deafening blasts rang through the stadium. But it was.

Scattering footfalls thumped across the ground beneath the stage. An endless ringing, like a suspended beep, was trapped deep inside his ear. Outside, everything was too bright, washed in white light. He felt like he was in a movie. How did filmmakers know how this felt? How many of them had experienced being shot?

His hands twitched for his phone in that internal tug that had become part of the human condition, the need for an immediate answer uncontrollable. The memory of crisp encyclopedia pages slid against his fingertips. As a child, he had found answers in his father’s library. The beloved knowledge-filled tomes had swallowed his questions, fueled them, and now they crammed landfills because of a machine that fit in his hand.

The weight across Yash’s legs twitched, pulling him from the tightly packed thoughts in his brain. This time when he tried to move, his body responded and he pushed himself up on his elbows. Abdul was lying across Yash’s legs, face down.

Abdul? The word left his lips but didn’t reach his ears past the suspended beep. Abdul! Was his bodyguard not responding because he didn’t hear him, or because he couldn’t hear him?

Should I move? God, sometimes questions were the bane of his existence. To stop and think before acting, it was supposed to be his gift. Controlling your emotions was the only way to control anything else. It might be the first thing Yash remembered his father ever saying to him. A lesson so early and strong that it had become twisted into the helixes of Yash’s DNA.

Animals operate on instinct. Humans temper their actions with intellect. A leader reins his emotions better than everyone else. A leader thinks.

His father’s voice crackled in his head. Yash had always known that when death came it would take the form of his father’s lecturing.

A man was lying on top of him, and reining his emotions was doing Yash zero good. “Abdul!” This time the sound had to have left his throat, because Yash heard it at a distance.

Abdul didn’t move.

Why am I not feeling anything?

He could feel Abdul’s weight across him. He could smell the dust and blood. But inside, where there should be terror and panic, nothing—just thoughts crashing against thoughts.

As gently as he could, Yash leaned forward and pressed a hand into Abdul’s shoulder. His body was utterly still. Blood pooled under them, springing from a gash on the side of Abdul’s neck, just above his vest. Damn it.

Bending forward, Yash reached for the wound but his hand hovered over it. Pressure seemed the most logical way to stop the blood, but what if touching it made something worse.

“Abdul,” Yash shouted into his friend’s body. The wetness under him made a squelching sound. Abdul was losing too much blood.

Pulling off his jacket, Yash bunched it up and pressed it into the wound as lightly as he could. Almost instantly red soaked through the pale gray linen.

Déjà vu soaked through Yash’s brain. It had been a full twenty-three years since his accident. He’d been all of fifteen when a driver had jumped a stop sign and hit Yash. He felt his belly bounce as he was thrown off his bicycle into the air. The sight of blood always made the collision come alive inside him, so he avoided it. Now every cell in his being felt like it was soaked in the memory.

Beneath his hands Abdul convulsed once. A sign of life. Yash increased the pressure just a little bit. Abdul had brought him a box of burfi this morning to celebrate his daughter’s birth. Naaz, they had called her. It meant pride. A beautiful, beautiful name. A name Yash had tucked away in the vault where he kept things that belonged just to him. Just in case a day came when he might have children. Oh God, Abdul’s wife hadn’t even gone home from the hospital.

“Come on, wake up.” Yash wanted to shake him, do something, but he was too afraid to take his hands off the gash in Abdul’s neck.

“Sir, are you all right?” A man ran up the stage and suddenly Yash was aware of the chaos around him. Screams and scrambling footsteps.

The man tried to pull Yash’s hands off Abdul, but Yash couldn’t let the spring of blood start up again. “You have to let go. We have to get him off you and get you looked at. The paramedics are almost here.” The man was another guard from the security company. Yash couldn’t remember his name.

“Don’t touch him.” Finally, Yash’s voice reached his own ears, loud and forceful. He should have felt relief. He needed to feel something. “Where’s the ambulance? Do you know what the golden hour is? If we don’t get him to a hospital right now, his chances of survival will fall by seventy percent. Do you realize what seventy percent is? Where’s Rico? Rico!” He looked past the guard who was crowding him.

A crush of bodies moved in a wave toward the back of the stadium, leaving overturned chairs in their wake. Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand young people with their lives ahead of them. At the mercy of a shooter. Because of him.

Where was Rico? Had he made it off the stage when the shots went off? Yash’s hands trembled on Abdul’s wound. What if Rico was bleeding somewhere too? Rico wasn’t just a friend, wasn’t just Yash’s media wiz. He was dating Yash’s sister. Technically Ashna was his cousin but Yash only ever thought of her as his sister. Rico was family. Ashna was happy. It had been years since Yash had seen her happy. Just this morning Yash had teased Rico about his intentions toward his sister.

I intend to let Ash use my body for her shagging pleasure for the rest of my life, mate.

Had Ashna been at the rally? Why couldn’t he remember who else was here?

He turned to the guard. “I need you to find Rico Silva for me. Right now.”

“I’m here, mate.” Rico’s face came up behind the guard whose name Yash couldn’t remember.

Yash never forgot names. Ever.

He was also never this cold. Rico was alive and Yash could feel absolutely nothing. I should be feeling something. Something!

“Abdul needs to be in an ambulance,” Yash said as Rico squatted next to him.

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