by MV Kasi
He stood in front of a large apartment complex. Since it was a weekday and almost close to eleven in the morning, most of the children were at school. Apart from a few people strolling casually on the lawn, the complex was mostly deserted.
He went towards the stairs. His target was on the sixteenth floor, but he decided not to take the lift, where security cameras would be installed.
It took him less than fifteen minutes to get to the sixteenth floor. Despite his recent injury, and thanks to his regular workouts and strict exercise regime, he was barely out of breath when he stood in front of a familiar door.
He rang the bell twice and followed it with a knock before standing away from the peephole.
Even though most of the working crowd would be at their offices by now, Gaurav knew his dear friend was still home.
The door was opened by a sleepy-looking man. “Who is—” Before the man could register, Gaurav pushed the man inside the apartment and locked the door.
“Gaurav?” the man asked in a guarded tone. His sleepy eyes now appeared alert.
“Hi, Rohan. Long time, no see, my friend. I was disappointed that you didn’t visit when I was otherwise incapacitated.”
“I was busy with an undercover assignment. W-when did you return?” Rohan asked. “And why didn’t you call before coming here?”
Gaurav smiled. And the smile made Rohan take a step back.
Gaurav’s eyes moved away from Rohan to take in the decor of the familiar apartment. Several pictures of the man receiving awards for his work adorned the walls. His dear friend was an investigative journalist who took up many daring assignments. Rohan was only five years older than Gaurav, and was touted as being a daredevil and a brutally honest journalist.
Gaurav’s eyes returned to the visibly frightened man. “Call before coming?” he asked in a chilling tone. “I don’t think friends need to call before visiting. Right? If you recall, you never bothered calling me on that day.”
Rohan’s breath began to speed up. “Gaurav… whatever you heard is not true.”
Gaurav smiled once again. “What do you think I heard, my friend?” he asked before taking out a gun from under the leather jacket and holding it with one hand.
“P-please. It was a mistake.” Rohan began crying.
“Mistake?” Gaurav asked him calmly. “You deactivated the cameras and told them the exact time to visit when nobody else was home. Quite a mistake, my friend.”
“Please… please… I didn’t mean it. I was just following orders. I also made sure that no one touched her.”
Gaurav felt the rage inside him to explode. “How very noble of you,” he said. “You know what? Since you have been such a good friend to me, I’ll give you a choice. Give me the names, and I’ll let you have a mercy death. If not, then it would have to be a revenge kill. And you’ve been my friend long enough to know what a bastard I can be when wronged.”
Gaurav extended his gloved hand with a bottle of pills. “Take two pills. Do it right now, or I will shoot you in your face.”
Gaurav expected a struggle or some fight. He was even prepared to chase and shoot the other man, but Rohan swallowed two pills before falling on his knees on the floor. “I was tempted,” Rohan cried. “They offered me a lot of money and many other perks. Once things began to move rapidly, I had second thoughts. But I was helpless to stop it.”
Gaurav refused to listen to anything. “Names.”
In between continuous sobbing, Rohan gave him the names and the details of what transpired on that day. After Rohan finished, he began pleading. “I’m sorry. Please, Gaurav, don’t kill me.”
“What about the SD card?” Gaurav asked calmly.
“I-I destroyed it.”
Gaurav didn’t say anything. He dragged Rohan to a room and found a pen and paper. “Write,” he ordered.
“W-write what? A confession? I’m ready to do anything. I’ll go surrender myself. But please, don’t kill me.”
“Write what you made Shruti write. Instead of studies, use the word job.”
Rohan tried to struggle away from his hold. “No! Please.”
“Start writing before I change my mind about a revenge kill.”
With shaking hands, Rohan began writing. After he finished, Gaurav took the paper and scanned the contents. Satisfied, he dragged the other man to the center of the room.
“Tell me how I can make this right,” Rohan pleaded, his voice was beginning to slur. “I’ll give you all the money they offered along with whatever I have.”
Gaurav caught his neck in a chokehold. “You think money will compensate for what you did?” he hissed. He wrapped the noose around the other man’s neck and dragged him towards the ceiling fan.
The other man struggled, but not hard, since the pills were taking effect.
Five minutes later, Rohan was hanging from the ceiling, struggling for a very long time.
Gaurav had deliberately made the drop short, which resulted in a slow, painful strangulation.
CHAPTER 6
Nina stared outside the window.
More than two days had passed since she woke up in captivity.
She had barely slept since then for the fear of being attacked or killed. So far, no attempt was made. After her initial confrontation with the two men, she was left mostly alone. Only the older man came into the room to provide her with water and some snacks. He placed the tray on a small stool which was the only furniture in the room apart from the bed and a chair.
The old man had a kind voice. But how good could he be if he was abetting a crime to keep her captive while also slowly starving her? She kept asking him about why she was taken, but he continued to keep quiet.
Nina sat up straight when she heard the lock of the door turn. The old man brought in a bottle of water along with a small apple.
“Mrs. Bhupati,” he greeted, not meeting her eyes.
“I need to shower,” she told him. Her clothes smelled faintly of vomit.
The room she was kept in had no closets. There was just a window and an attached bathroom. And the bathroom was tiny with only a toilet and a sink. She had tried to clean up as much as possible in that little sink, but the smell of stale vomit didn’t leave her, and grime on her skin only seemed to grow.
The older man looked at her with guilt. “Until—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Until our boss gets back, we have clear instructions not to allow you out of this room.”
“Who is your boss? Please tell me why I was kidnapped?” she repeated. But like always, he remained quiet.
“Please, ma’am, just cooperate with us. Don’t ask too many questions. I’m not—”
The door banged against the wall, cutting off whatever the old man was about to say. The other man whom she had barely seen since the last week strode in angrily.
“Is she giving you any trouble? Demanding more food?”
“No. She was just—”
“I requested for a bath,” Nina said quietly.
The younger man’s nostrils flared as he came closer to her. “You don’t get to make any demands here,” he hissed as an answer to her request.
“It’s not a demand. It’s a basic need. I feel filthy, and my clothes smell of vomit.”
“I don’t care if you smell of shit. You’ll remain in that state until I decide whether or not to allow you a shower.”
Nina knew the man wasn’t going to budge, but despite that, she forged on. She needed to forge on.
“I need to be clean. I can’t stay this way.”
“You will fucking stay how I tell you to!” he roared, wrapping his hand around her throat and pressing hard.
She struggled to get away, and her nails dug into his skin, drawing blood, but his grip did not loosen.
He kept squeezing until Nina began to see dark spots in her vision.
“Vikram! What do you think you are doing! Let her go!” The older man’s panic-laden voice shouted out the words while he tried to pry the man’s h
ands away from her throat.
However, the man kept at it.
Soon, Nina began to see a red haze, and darkness was threatening to take over completely.
“It’s better this way,” the man said. “Her death will accomplish much more than what her being alive would do.”
The older man tried to pry the hands away from her throat. “No. Stop!”
The pressure only got tighter.
“Let her go,” a deep, calm unfamiliar voice of a man instructed from somewhere.
This time, the hands around her throat began to loosen.
Nina began to cough while she tried to suck in air. She collapsed on her knees to the ground as weakness took over her limbs due to lack of oxygen. The dark spots in front of her eyes took a while to clear up.
Through her blurred vision, she saw the tall, broad shape of a man.
“Come with me,” the man instructed before turning and walking away from the doorway.
The younger man followed behind him, but the older man stayed with a worried look in his eyes.
“Are you okay, madam?” he asked.
Nina managed to nod. She coughed some more and took in deep breaths before asking him the one question that ran through her mind during the period of her captivity. “Will I be killed?” she asked in a raspy tone.
“No,” he said gently. “You won’t be killed. They won’t gain anything by it.”
“They are holding me for ransom then?”
Something flickered in the old man’s eyes. He simply nodded his answer.
Relief hit her so hard that she almost collapsed. “Thank you,” she said.
The old man nodded again and went out of the room. Nina could hear the sound of the lock after the door was shut.
Maybe it was relief, or maybe it was the past week’s lack of sleep catching up with her, but her eyes drooped, and she allowed the darkness to take over.
CHAPTER 7
Gaurav was seated in a chair around the small circular table in the dining room. “What happened?” he asked as he watched Vikram pacing around in anger.
“I was teaching her how to behave while she’s held captive.”
“She could have died as the result of your lesson. That’s not what we planned.”
“Your plan is riskier. You can’t keep her alive at the end of it all. She will tell—”
“Vikram, stop. We’ve gone through this repeatedly.”
“I know! But I just can’t let you risk your life by sparing her life. You are like my brother. How can you just forgive—”
Pain and rage erupted within him at Vikram’s words. “I haven’t forgiven, and neither have I forgotten.” Gaurav had less than a year to cope and plan this. His pain and anger was still raw.
Vikram looked agitated. “Then for their sake and even for my sake, consider an alternate end to her captivity.”
Gaurav took a deep breath, trying to curb the temptation of doing what Vikram suggested. “Just follow the plan, Vikram. Killing her now might be easy and satisfying, but it’s not worth risking my plan.”
Vikram looked torn, but he nodded.
Gaurav looked at him calmly. “I visited a friend six days ago.”
Vikram nodded. “Did he confess?”
“Yes.”
Vikram shook his head in disbelief. “Even though everything pointed to him, I still gave him the benefit of doubt. Shruti treated him like her own brother!”
“I know.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“No. I stayed around to cover my tracks. After you go back today, don’t stay in touch with me. But if you find anything about the chip, only then get in touch with me.”
Vikram nodded.
“Use my apartment,” Gaurav instructed. “But remember not to call me unless you absolutely need to.”
They discussed the next course of action.
GAURAV STARED AT the disappearing car as Vikram drove away from the cabin.
He knew Vikram was concerned about him. Setting the captive free after everything, did mean signing his death warrant. But at this point, Gaurav didn’t care about the risks involved, and neither did he care whether or not he would come out of it alive. Only one thought dominated his life for the past twelve months.
Revenge.
His eyes automatically fell on the floor, below which was the room his captive was kept.
“Sir?” a man’s voice broke through his thoughts.
“How are you doing, Khan?”
The older man nodded gravely in response.
Gaurav indicated to a chair, but the older man remained standing.
“Khan, I would like to remind you that I wasn’t too keen on you being involved with Vikram and me in this plan. You know you can leave whenever you want.”
“No, sir. I have no doubts or regrets. I would like to help you in any way I can.”
Gaurav nodded at the older man who had been with him for more than six years.
“Did she demand anything in these two days?”
“No, sir. She never bothered us in any way. In fact… Vikram, sir… he more or less starved her from the first day. But still, she never complained. Just today, she has requested a bath.”
“I see.”
“I think Vikram, sir, might have hurt her badly just now. Can you… check on her?”
Gaurav frowned. “I’ll do it later,” he said even though he wasn’t ready to face… the captive. In fact, he didn’t want to think of her as a person. The only reason he didn’t want Vikram to kill her was because she had more value and bargaining power if she were alive.
“Thank you, sir.” The old man nodded and left the cabin through the backdoor of the kitchen. Khan was staying in the small detached cabin outside of the medium-sized two-floored forest cabin.
Gaurav didn’t immediately head down the stairs. He stared out of the window for a while. But he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer.
He had to face her eventually.
The captive.
Taking a deep breath, Gaurav got up from the chair and walked down the stairs. He paused right outside the room. Apart from the sounds of birds and insects coming from the outside, it was entirely quiet. He wondered whether he should brace himself for an attack.
Nina Bhupati had surprised the hell out of him.
Until then, he had only thought of her as a pampered and spoilt wife of a rich man who would scream or faint during an attack. And when he had planned to kidnap her, the only thing he took extreme care of was to ensure there was no one to help her. But the fact that she fought back, shocked him. She had even fooled him by pretending to lose consciousness the first time he put the drug-laced cloth over her face.
She was definitely not harmless.
Slowly, he opened the door and stepped in. It was bright inside due to the sunlight streaming in from a large window. Immediately, his eyes fell on the prone figure on the bed.
There was no movement whatsoever. The woman was either sleeping or pretending to be asleep. With a frown marring his forehead, Gaurav moved closer. He stopped short suddenly. His eyes were glued to the angry red bruises on her throat.
His heart began beating rapidly, and sweat broke out on his skin.
The bruises brought in ugly memories.
“Save her!”
“But sir… there’s no pulse.”
“I said SAVE HER!”
The doctor looked at him for a few moments. “Bring the defibrillator,” he softly ordered the staff.
Electric paddles were hurriedly brought in.
“Charging… clear.”
A bolt of electricity passed through the prone body, but there was no change in heartbeat on the monitors.
“Again,” the doctor ordered.
“Charging… clear.”
Each time, Shruti’s body jerked due to the electric shock, but her face remained still.
A few more tries later, they stopped trying.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gaurav.”
> Shruti was long gone by the time he found her and had gotten help. The post-mortem report had said she died of self-strangulation.
Gaurav had been the one who found her hanging by her neck from the ceiling. Closing his eyes, he breathed through his mouth like his doctor had ordered him to.
He took several deep breaths to calm him down. It didn’t work.
His eyes opened and fell on the woman lying on the bed. Instead of pity, rage began to swirl within him. He wanted to stop the soft rise and fall of the chest on the woman. A strong urge to finish what Vikram had started grew in him.
He wanted to hurt her.
CHAPTER 8
There was dirt and filth everywhere despite trying to clean the place as much as possible. Not even a little bit of space was left for her to be able to sit and rest her starving, weak body. Considering she was only ten and not very big, it should have been an easy task.
Inside the abandoned hut, there was only one rickety cot where her younger sister’s body lay. She had been dead for the past twelve hours. The cause was hunger. The school had been closed for the holidays, shutting their only source of nourishment.
Despite Nina and Devi sacrificing their share of food, they were not able to gather enough for Uma. Their younger sister’s seven-year-old body could not tolerate extreme starvation and had given up.
Nina sat listlessly on the floor, next to the cot. She was tired, hungry, and filthy. She tried to rest her body against the cot and close her eyes.
As soon as she did, she felt the crawling. The maggots from her sister’s dead body mistook her own starving, filthy, and emancipated body to be dead as well.
Nina began screaming as they completely covered her flesh and tore into it.
Nina woke up with a jolt. She began to frantically brush her hands all over her body. It took several moments for the feeling of something crawling all over on her skin to subside.
She lay still on the bed, keeping her eyes focused on the window from where the sunlight was streaming into the small yet clean room.
