PERENNIAL LAVENDER

Roads are both benisons and anathemas, leading us to far-fetched, less sought-out, and unanticipated destinations Fate has etched for us in this one lifetime.

They are charted across the earth with an unspoken vow: to carry lives forward, to let them collide in haste or drift apart in aching solitude. No matter how lost we feel upon them, they take us exactly where we are meant to arrive.

Ebony Road

On one such February morning, a quiet stretch of road draped in an eerie green shade with a brownish-grey glow, was decreed to entwine two souls.

Irfa rode through it unaware.

Her dupatta rested loosely around her neck, drawn over the nape and allowed to fall forward, both ends settling in front in an effortless drape, worn like a muffler, not for warmth, but for comfort.

She wore dupatta in many styles that feels easy for her…

The crisp morning air slipped beneath her helmet, cool and playful, while loose strands of her hair cascaded down her spine like a waterfall.

The road stretched ahead, empty and bare. Beneath her helmet, Irfa smiled with proportionate happiness.

Irfa teasured moments like these: alone with the road, the wind, and her thoughts. Roads had always felt honest to her. They never pretended. Every turn revealed something raw, something unfiltered. Perhaps that was why she trusted them more than people.

She felt most alive in motion.

What she did not know was that this ribbon of silence was not empty at all. It was waiting. And the waiting made the morning feel unnaturally still—almost as though the world itself were eager to witness the morning unravel.

She was halfway across the lonely stretch when something small flickered at the edge of her vision.

A blur. Low to the ground.

She braked hard.

A trembling, injured cat—ginger with soft white patches—lay curled in the middle of the road, its small body drawn inward in pain.

Her heart lurched with unsteady beats. She guided the scooter to the roadside, set it on its stand, removed her helmet, placed it on the seat, and rushed to lift the fragile creature into her lap as though it were made of glass. “Hey… hey. I’m here,” she whispered.

Up close, the cat’s beauty startled her. Its fur, though damp and dust-streaked, carried an unusual softness. Its eyes, large, luminous, blinked slowly at her, as if measuring the safety of her hands.

Something inside her softened instantly. “Easy… easy,” she murmured, brushing stray strands of fur from its face.

The cat flinched at first, then stilled beneath her protective touch. Its breathing was shallow. Uneven.

As she examined the injury near its hind leg, her palm slid gently along its abdomen to steady it.

She paused. There was a subtle firmness there—rounded, delicate. She shifted the cat toward the pale morning light filtering through the trees. Her brows drew together. The nipples were faintly swollen. Pinker than they should have been.

A quiet understanding settled over her.

“Oh…” she breathed.

“You’re carrying babies,” she announced excitedly.

The cat blinked up at her, unaware or perhaps simply unable to comprehend the weight of what it held within.

Irfa swallowed hard.

For a moment, her thoughts raced—vet, shelter, somewhere safe. But the road was empty. The world indifferent. All she had were her hands.

Carefully, she tore a strip from her dupatta and wrapped the injured leg, slow and deliberate. Each flinch from the cat tugged at something deep inside her.

“You chose the worst place to be brave,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against its mud-stained face with adoration and affection.

When she finally set the cat back onto the asphalt, she lingered a second longer than she meant to. “There you go. You’ll be fine… go on, sweetheart.”

The cat didn’t budge and her paws were glued to the middle of the road. Irfa paced to her scooter, steadied it, forcing herself to look ahead. She did not turn back.

But the cat, with fragile determination, dare to lift her front paw. It limped toward her again—small, trembling, stubborn in its hope. Then it stopped, barely touched by the fractured sunlight filtering through the trees, as if wishing to be held in her arms. The cat stood there as if certain that safety existed only in her arms.

Irfa’s fingers tightened around the handles. She shouldn’t. She couldn’t.

Her eyes lifted despite herself. The cat’s gaze met hers—wide, helpless, trusting.

Her breath caught. “Aww… my cutie,” she whispered, already losing the battle within her.

Spreading her arms, she leaned forward instinctively, about to step into the road and gather the cat sitting right in the middle into her arms again.

And then—

A low, heavy thunder of engines rent through the silence. The sound did not approach. It invaded. It roared down the road, violent and merciless, shattering the fleeting stillness in a single breath.

A black lavishly modified SUV tore down the road at brutal speed, followed by identical SUVs in perfect formation.

The air shifted.

A savage gust slammed into her, as if the speed itself had taken form. Her dupatta snapped violently, her hair whipped back, and the force, like a thousand piercing needles, swept over her skin, sending unexpected shivers through her.

Before Irfa could move... before she could scream...

The lead vehicle swept over the cat. A sickening thud...

The small body disappeared beneath steel and rubber. Blood streaked the asphalt. The fragile form flattened instantly across the cold road. Even the strip of her dupatta that she had used to tie the cat’s leg was stuck to the asphalt with its blood, with only a few tiny, torn edges fluttering in the air.

And then... silence.

The SUV screeched to a halt ahead, causing other SUVS to screech in perfect alignment. Inside, Momin’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, glanced the girl through the rear-view mirror, frozen in shock.

“Qasim… did we hit a child?”

His voice was sharp, controlled, but not careless.

Qasim frowned in confusion, muttering to himself, “Bhai was too fast for me to see that.”

Momin went still for a beat. “…as if she was calling someone.” He stepped out, dismissing it. And when he did, he dominated the empty road.

Tall. Imposing. Dressed in pristine white, a dark shahtoosh shawl draped effortlessly over his shoulders. His face was carved in severe lines—handsome, cold, unyielding.

His guards exited in perfect synchronization behind him.

Irfa stayed frozen. Between them lay the crushed cat. She felt as if she had witnessed a murder. Moments ago, she had held that fragile body in her hands. Now it was nothing but ruin.

Momin exhaled when he saw it. “Thank God. It’s just a cat.” A pause. Irritation flickered. “That stupid cat messed up my tire.”

Irfa heard every word dipped in nonchalance, cadenced with haughtiness. A single one left her lips before she could stop it.

“Wahshi (Savage brute).”

He froze.

He turned slowly. “What?”

Now he truly saw her.

Slender and slightly above average in height. Tear-filled eyes… but… those riveting eyes. Standing her ground.

She looked at the dead cat. Then at him.

“Wahshi.”

The second time was steadier. Something in his expression shifted.

“How dare you…” he roared like thunder. Then, enunciating every word like a command, he added, “You have no idea who you’re talking to.”

“I know.” Her voice trembled, but did not break. “You’re a savage.” Her eyes bored into his.

That did it.

Irritation throbbed through every vein in his body. He stepped closer, authority radiating from him like heat. “Animals die on roads every day. Use your brain.”

“Life is still life,” she shot back, unwavering.

For a split second, their eyes locked, each gaze piercing the other, as their lenses shifted in their eyes. Hers with pain. His with anger.

And...

A tear slipped down her cheek. Her chest rose and fell with controlled defiance.

His jaw tightened and his eyes shifted into a glare. Anger rose in him the way it always did, hot, immediate, demanding release.

He signaled Qasim. “Money.”

Qasim handed him a thick fold of notes without a word. Momin stepped forward, dark, formidable, and deadly precise.

Then—he flicked his wrist.

The notes slapped against her face, jolting through her like an electric shock. A few fluttered across her cheek and landed at her feet.

“Buy yourself a new cat,” he said, voice sharp and cold. “And watch your mouth.” He pointed at her mouth, rotating his index finger in a small circle, the other fingers curled inward while his perfectly arched thumb remained extended.

Mortification engulfed her. Tears glimmered on her cheeks, but her courage didn’t break. Irfa didn’t move. She didn’t bend. She didn’t touch the scattered bills. She wheeled her scooter closer, adjusting her helmet with trembling hands.

Her eyes stayed on him, tear-brimmed, steady, accusatory.

“That cat wasn’t mine,” she said quietly. “So pick up your money—worthless money… and clean your tire.”

For the first time, something like surprise crossed his face. Momin’s carefully built armor of authority and fear he envoked, felt brittle under someone else’s gaze.

Silence hung thick between them.

Then she leaned forward slightly, her voice soft but cutting: “Murderer of a mother.”

For a heartbeat, even Momin froze. A jolt javelined through him. The words impaled deeper than “Wahshi” ever could. They brushed against an old wound, long-buried. A void he had tried to fill with control, pride, and rage. Every fiber of his control strained against the sting.

He stepped closer, fists clenching. The air seemed to thicken with the heat of his restrained fury. His eyes darkened. Before he could respond, she mounted her scooter and rode away. The notes lay scattered on the road, ignored.

The echo of her words lingered, hammering at something inside him he didn’t know how to control.

Savage. Merciless. Unseen.

For a man who could command fear without raising his voice...

Being judged by a stranger felt strangely dangerous and deeply degrading.

And what gnawed him most was that, for the first time ever, the man who had learned to command and destroy with a glance found himself disarmed by an unexpected truth: someone had dared to call him names, dared to judge him—not as Momin the authority, Momin the feared, but Momin the human.