Reshmina stood still, staring at the place where her house had been. People from her village flowed around her like water around a rock in the river. She couldn’t even see over their heads anymore, but she could see the black-and-gray plume of smoke as it rose into the air.
Her house. The place where she and her family had been
standing just minutes ago was gone. Destroyed. Blasted into bits. The house where she had been born. The house where she had spent every day and night of her life.
Not just her house. Her home. The place she always came back to.
Her home was no more.
“Reshmina!” her mother cried. “Reshmina, move! We have to get to the caves!”
“Our house, Mor,” Reshmina said quietly. “Our home.
They blew it up.”
“They’ll blow us up too if we don’t go!” her mother told her. “We’ll find a new place to live, Reshmina. Now please come!”
PAK-PAK-PAK-PAK!
T-koom. T-koom. T-koom.
An assault rifle barked, and another fired back. The villagers screamed. The Taliban and the Americans were both in the village now, and fighting each other. Nobody was safe.
What have I done? Reshmina thought.
Her mother had been right. She had brought death to them all.
Still in a daze, she caught up to Taz and the guard.
“Is everything all right?” Taz asked from inside the burqa. “Where’s Reshmina? Is she all right?”
“I’m here,” Reshmina said. “They blew up my house with a rocket.”
“Who blew up your house? Not the Americans,” he said defensively. “Not if your dad told them I was somewhere in the village. They would never fire a missile into the village if they thought I was here.”
The Taliban, then. They had blown up her house, trying to get at the Americans. The Americans who shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Not just any Americans, Reshmina realized. One in particular. The Taliban had fired at her house on purpose because Pasoon had told them Taz was there.
Reshmina felt like she was sinking. Like her body was still standing, still moving down the steps, but her spirit was draining out of her, leaving her hollow and empty inside. That her brother had finally gone to join the Taliban shouldn’t have surprised her. All the boys did eventually. That was the path Pasoon had been headed down, long before today.
But to have pointed out his own home to them, with his own mother and grandmother and brother and sister in it, knowing the Taliban would shoot a missile at it? How could the brother she loved have been so heartless? So evil?
PAK-PAK-PAK-PAK!
Bullets hit the wall beside them, spraying them with bits of concrete and rock. They all ducked, and Reshmina scanned the rooftops. There—a Taliban fighter with an AK- 47!
The guard next to Taz whipped the rifle off his shoulder and shot back.
PAKOW. PAKOW. PAK-PAK-PAK!
Taliban bullets struck the guard, and he fell to the ground, dead. Reshmina screamed. She put her hands over her head, bracing for the bullets she knew were coming for her next, but then—
T-koom. T-koom. T-koom.
—an American soldier on a nearby rooftop fired back, and the Taliban fighter fell.
Reshmina started to call out to the American soldier, to tell him Taz was with them. But at the same moment, from the other side of the steps, came the sound of another AK-
47. PAK-PAK-PAK. The American soldier on the rooftop immediately took cover and traded bullets with his unseen attacker above the line of frightened villagers heading down the stairs.
“Come! Follow my voice! Hurry!” Reshmina yelled to Taz. Their only hope was to make it to the safety of the caves, and then wait out the fight.
K-THOOM! K-THOOM! K-THOOM!
Huge blasts rocked the village above them, and three more houses exploded in clouds of rock and splinter. Reshmina didn’t know if it was Taliban RPGs or the American helicopter. Or both.
“Don’t look! Go! Go!” an elderly man behind them cried.
People bottlenecked at the bottom of the steps, but soon the survivors were out onto the small path that led along
the river. A few people ran in the direction of Asadabad, just trying to get as far away as quickly as possible, but more of the villagers followed Reshmina and her family down toward the caves. The entrance was small, and overgrown with brush, but they were all able to squeeze through. Even Taz.
And then, at last, they were in the dark, ancient caves underneath the village.
