Don’t Show Them Your Fear
Karam's Legacy, Chapter 3: The Past Never Stays Buried
Hey there! This is Season 1, Chapter 3 of my serialized story, Karam’s Legacy.
The story continues.
Quick links: 🔗 Story Index | ⬅️ Chapter 2 | ➡️ Chapter 4
Previously on Karam’s Legacy…
Transit officer Amir Kashyap intervenes in a violent incident on a subway platform, saving a young girl. The arrest that follows spreads quickly online.
Back at the precinct, Amir is celebrated by his fellow officers. He doesn’t join them. His goal was to calm the situation, not to add another man to the system.
As attention builds, Amir is called in by Deputy Inspector Christopher Mason, a longtime mentor who once helped shape his idea of what policing could be. But old questions resurface about Amir’s father, Karam Kashyap, and the circumstances surrounding his death.
Amir learns pieces of his father’s story not through conversation, but through police reports, and for the first time, Amir begins to wonder whether the people who protected him were also keeping something from him.
And now… Chapter 3: Don’t Show Them Your Fear
The assault was over in seconds. One. Two. Three. Thud. Crack. Each blow landed with precision, the cold weight of brass knuckles meeting flesh. Drip, drip, drip. The fresh blood warmed against his skin as it splashed on his hands and face.
Rashid stood over the fallen police officer, his body relaxing with each breath. The officer’s body twitched with shallow gasps. A tinge of confusion crossed the officer’s brow. Then, Rashid knelt down and whispered into the officer’s ear, “Munir Afzal.”The officer’s eyes suddenly wide, bursting at the seams of his skull.
Two quick breaths, then his brows followed his eyes as they finally closed shut. Rashid didn’t flinch. He watched the officer’s final breath leave him, and only then did he stand back up, take one strong whiff of his work, turn and walk away through the subway tunnels, his footsteps echoing through the emptiness with each step.
The echo of his footsteps collapsed into the shrill ring of his alarm clock. Rashid threw off his blanket and began his daily routine. It was the same time his father woke up. Prayer, workout, shower. Breakfast, and finally chai.
He winged the measurements of the tea: Cardamom, ginger, cinnamon. Sugar, clove, black pepper. Nutmeg, tea leaves, and finally milk. Just the way his father made it. Some habits never needed writing down.
The warmth settled in his chest as he drank and closed his eyes. He told himself that meant something had finally been set right.
Monday morning, January 21st, 2008, was the last time Rashid would see his father.
Just a teenager at the time, he had left home for school, the weight of his bag straining his back.
Jagan Singh and his friends, Sikhs, were brown, too - but that didn’t matter.
Post-9/11, Rashid was flying under the radar in school, even though he was socially awkward. Not anymore.
The fear, the blame, the need to distance themselves. Jag’s group decided that Rashid had the wrong kind of beard, and was too religious. Worst of all, he was skinny and unathletic.
Rashid took longer routes to school just to avoid Jag’s group, but there were three of them, and only one of him. They excelled at predicting his walking patterns. Closing in on him, and surprising him just when he’d thought he’d lost them.
That morning, however, he made it to his school steps without incident, feeling a brief moment of relief. Jag and his friends could still catch him during lunch, but Rashid had a plan for that as well. He often skipped lunch entirely, heading up to the library to get a head start on his school work, his stomach always growling as a reminder of the sacrifices he made to avoid the humiliation Jag and his group put him through.
Home room and first period passed without trouble. It was towards the end of the third period that his teacher’s classroom phone rang. She picked it up and looked at Rashid. She nodded and put the phone back in its cradle. “Rashid. Can you go down to the guidance counselor’s office?”
Rashid looked up at his teacher. Was it about his college applications? Before he could ask a question, she spoke up, her tone serious and cryptic: “They didn’t give me a reason.”
Rashid nodded and began to pack his things. Normally, his classmates barely noticed him. But now, every eye followed him as he stood. The silence was heavier than the chapter on the Cold War could explain.
His teacher finally interrupted the tense silence. “Okay, so moving on, let’s turn our textbooks to page 156 and continue our discussion of the Cold War.”
With his backpack slung over one shoulder, he moved quickly toward the guidance office, exhaling hard to keep the worry down. His throat nearly froze as his mind raced through scenarios. He had already met his college application deadlines. Could there be something wrong with his application? Was there an issue with his grades? Or perhaps, he dared to hope, it was something entirely unrelated to school, something positive even.
Flap. Thud. His body tripped forward, the front of his head hitting the ground hard. Jag’s sharp laughter echoed in the hallway. “I wish Nims and KS were here to see this.”
Struggling to rise, Rashid turned to the side. Jag’s foot landed on his face. Rashid opened his mouth, but no sound came out. As he lay on the ground, he heard Jag walking away, chuckling to himself.
After several moments and deep breaths, Jag finally stood up.
He wiped his lip with the sleeve of his shirt and kept walking. Jag’s laughter still echoed, but Rashid didn’t look back. He’d learned that early: don’t give them the satisfaction.
Upon reaching the office, Rashid was surprised to see his older brother, Munir, seated across from Ms. Macy, their school counselor. Munir stood up, embracing his younger brother. “Let’s go home,” he said quietly.
Confused and concerned, Rashid asked, “Home? Why?”
“Rashid. We have to get going,” Munir urged, his voice strained.
Rashid hesitated, “Look, I can’t just leave school,” he protested.
“Father’s dead,” Munir said flatly.
Rashid blinked, then looked to Ms. Macy. She folded her hands in front of her face and pressed them to her lips. Rashid noticed the tear behind her glasses. Before she could speak, Munir seized Rashid and ushered him out the door.
A thin smear of blood clung to Rashid’s lower lip, unnoticed by Munir. He shoved Rashid into the passenger seat of his battered 2001 Toyota Camry and peeled away, tires screeching like they could outrun the truth.
The car stopped in front of their father’s shop, From Lahore Books & Gifts. Wakil Afzal named the store, intending it to be more than a business. As the name suggested, the shop carried more than prayer rugs and incense. Paperbacks like The Reluctant Fundamentalist sat beside political satire and history—A Case of Exploding Mangoes tucked among dog-eared paperbacks and slim volumes of theology. True to his nature, Wakil also stocked texts well outside his own tradition—the Holy Bible, the Talmud, and the Bhagavad Gita—volumes that stayed on the shelf far longer than the others.
Rashid knew his father had once been a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Lahore. He also knew—mostly from what went unsaid—that Wakil’s beliefs had put him at odds with those in power back in Pakistan.
The United States did not welcome Wakil so easily. That attitude appeared to get worse. Rashid had watched him struggle, watched long hours and quiet frustration turn into soft power. The store survived when it wasn’t supposed to. Then it grew. Before Rashid understood how it happened, his father had become a fixture—someone people waited for, chairs pulled up near the counter before the gate was fully raised.
To the community, Wakil was a success story.
Munir gripped the wheel, fighting to steady his breath. “Our father took his own life,” he said, voice cracking. The words landed hard, heavy in the silence between them.
A moment later, barely above a whisper, he repeated the words their father had once given him six years and a lifetime ago. “Don’t show them your fear.”
Want to keep reading Karam’s Legacy?
Continue with the next chapter here → Chapter 4
Karam’s Legacy is a serialized noir-thriller, unfolding chapter by chapter.
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