She stripped the clothes off Aziza, tried to find something to fan her with, settled for blowing on her until she became light-headed.
Soon, Aziza stopped crawling around. She slipped in and out of sleep.
Several times that day, Laila banged her fists against the walls, used up her energy screaming for help, hoping that a neighbor would hear.
But no one came, and her shrieking only frightened Aziza, who began to cry again, a weak, croaking sound.
Laila slid to the ground. She thought guiltily of Mariam, beaten and bloodied, locked in this heat in the toolshed.
Laila fell asleep at some point, her body baking in the heat. She had a dream that she and Aziza had run into Tariq.
He was across a crowded street from them, beneath the awning of a tailor's shop.
He was sitting on his haunches and sampling from a crate of figs.
“That's your father,” Laila said. “That man there, you see him? He's your real baba.”
She called his name, but the street noise drowned her voice, and Tariq didn't hear.
She woke up to the whistling of rockets streaking overhead.
Somewhere, the sky she couldn't see erupted with blasts and the long, frantic hammering of machine gun fire.
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