DON'S OBSESSION: Chasing the hunter

Six months later...

"... Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday Swara... Happy birthday to you..."
A small girl whose eyes are eating half of her round perfect face with chubby reddened with shyness cheeks blows over the six candles' flames garnishing a cake of chocolate, girls and boys around her applause enthusiastically claiming her name...
"- Shona beta... Look here... Here... Smile... "
The lady whose warm voice is lovingly calling for her to look up for a photo is hidden behind the camera... Two hands grip her shoulders  squeezing her as a man hugs her tightly from behind, she looks up to his smiling face as he takes a portion of cake and makes her eat it wishing:
"- happy birthday Shona..."
She smiles faintly to him blinking few times before looking down replying with a shaking voice:
- thank you papa...
Sliding his hands over her arms, he makes her take a part of cake and feed him back her eyes trying to avoid his insistent gaze over her, shivering, she sees him smirking like if he could hear the pounding of her heart inside her chest.
At the moment she feels her mother arriving behind her, she runs toward her plunging in her embrace and hugging her tightly...
- kya hua beta?
Cupping her cheeks, Sharmista makes her daughter look up to her enquiring about her quivering silhouette.
Swara just nods smilingly hearing her father explaining:
- you know how much she's timid when there crowd around, hai na beta?
Decors of balloons and colored garlands melts away around and the small girl finds herself alone, her beautiful dress turned to a white salwar kamiz, her pale face carrying a blank expression and her wide eyes blooded red looking down without blinking to the lifeless silhouette of her mother who lays in a bride attire on a wooden stake... Suddenly she's dragged away as she sees fire emanating from her wooden bed under her...
- no!!! Ma...ma!!!!... Why are you doing this to her... Ma!!!... Please papa... Stop them... Please... Papa... She'll be hurt... Ma... Ma... Let me... Papa... No!!! No!!! Noooooo.....
Her scream chokes in her dried throat suffocating her as Swara sits up in her bed with a jerk feeling like having a heart attack,  her face drowned in sweat and tears, she pants heavily her hand on her throat trying to untie the invisible strangling rob gripping it. She brushes her long silky black her back taking her head in her both hands and landing her elbows over her risen knees, she took a long moment trying to catch up her breath.
A look aside indicates her that it's only 4.00 in the morning... Her soaked with sweat bed repulses her and she decides to quite it.
Passing by her window toward the washroom, she stops by the breathtaking view she has over the city which never sleeps for moments, New York city's nights aren't different from its days just like her, numerous people are running around their lives purchasing cherished aims like her too, she wonders for a moment if their goals are filled with guns, criminality,  and revenge...
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In some dark underground hangar.
An attached to a chair man rises his swollen face covered with blood crying painfully:
- please... For God sake....
A sharp slap stops him from continuing:
- don't bring God in this... I can have pity of you... But how can I have pity of him, huh?
The calmness of tone his torturer uses talking to him contrasts with the words he's expressing making the hurt man cry fearfully. A stained with blood hand takes his face in its palm making him rise his eyes again when a familiar face approaches him before tightening his grip and says:
- talk for your own sake... Maybe I'll spare you...
His tightening hand digs his fingers in the man's jaw about breaking it:
- Don... I swear on my children's lives that I don't know anything...
Putting his foot between the poor man's legs, Don traps his throat suffocating him as much as his foot increased its pressure, the man's eyes roll up his life about giving up for an instant then he releases all of sudden... The plaintive scream the guy let's go from his throat fills the empty space telling his agony.
Don bends down looking straight in his eyes and asking:
- why are you doing this Jay... You know how I hate losing my temper and you're reaching your limits by now... Think about your children who...
He looks at his watch frowning and continues:
- are sleeping peacefully in your king size bed their sweet mother ignoring who slept in the last time she was away...
Jay sobs badly hearing the barely masked menace, Don smirks seeing his thoughts reflected in his captive's eyes, he adds on a confident tone:
- Jay... Jay... Jay... They're so carefree and joyful... you don't want them to witness what is going to happen in few minutes hai na?...
- Don!!! Nooo...
The poor man's scream mutes in a loud moan of pain feeling the grip around his between legs killing him, Don's eyes holds his almost quitting their orbs eyes asking:
- remember what you have been soooo delighted to do with our belated Sanjay's wife?... No?... Yes?
- Don... I beg you... Have pity of my...
He couldn't continue crying his soul out in a long strangled shouting, Don has just broken the last bones of his fingers saying so close to his ear that he sounds like the incarnation of the death's angel... Or Devil himself!
- you, have pity on them jay... Arav will enter his first classes in a week... Tina has just turned four... So...  London's deal... Afghans sellers .. South African buyers... Who messed up with my money!?
He sees the weak man's lips quivering in a silent mumble and approaches his ear to them cupping his jaw in his hand gently...
A wild smile illuminates his face soon, then leaning further, he whispers against his ear on a triumphant tone :
- thank you...
His hand grabs already the plunged in his black pants  walking away. He doesn't even bother wiping the blood covering it he tapes rapidly a message.
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Swara gathering her long black hair in a ponytail, slips in her sport shoes at the entry of her flat when she hears a ping from her phone announcing that she just received a message. She frowns adjusting her tight white top before smiling widely reading the name appearing at her screen:
"Ragini"
She takes her water's bottle opening the message and her iPad from the table adjusting it her eyes still glued on the screen reading:
"hi Shona! What's up?"
For the first time since she woke up, Swara relaxes... Her "Ragini"'s effects.
" I  know it's so early in New York now but I'm sure that you're already on your way out"
She smiles again rolling her eyes saying:
- ha ha Ragini ma... You don't have to remind me how much you know me every time!
She opens her door when the next line makes her chuckle :
"Stop talking to yourself silly girl... Americans will think that all Indians are mad"
She closes her door saying:
- pagal!
Of course, her best friend has already replied:
" pagal yourself!
PS: happy birthday, sweetheart!!!"
Her wide smile vanishes instantly at the last words, the images of her nightmare invading her mind again.
Her phone in her pocket, an earphones tugged in her ear and her watch on chronometer, she passes by the elevator's doors ignoring the guy keeping them opened for her and takes the stairs down leaving the high building where she's living since two months.
Ragini is the last link to the past she buried deep inside her worst nightmares.
Same age, same awful destiny. they had been separated at the end of the human traffic affair. Both victims, Swara passing to the side of witness then collaborator had to hide her covered intentions for months then heart brokenly accepted that all the victims had to have new identities and new lives.
For their security, they had to cut all ties for what they thought forever.
But in the world of internet and endless kinds of social media plate forms, they soon patched up secretly.
Ragini is the unique image of family for her. She's her friend, confident, sister and even mother and she's all the same for her too.
Of course, not giving their new lives details is the unbreakable rule they both respect, but still, it feels good to have someone who knows you as much as you know yourself, with whom you haven't to put the mask on, for whom you're everything matters and he's the sense of your life.
She feels stupid thinking that her thoughts are more describing a life partner than a friend but who cares? Unwillingly, someone's image imposes itself, Laksh!
She doubles her speed recalling his complains about her lack of communication with him, being a friend, a boy friend or even the fiancée.
What has taken her to be involved in such a relationship? How could she let herself convinced that her shattered soul had anything to offer to anyone?
He has been the strength she needed to get out from the hell she was living in, the helping hand and the solid shoulder to handle her weakness, her fears and the dirtiness she was covered of.
He never judged, never asked more and just kept waiting... Making her feel that maybe... Maybe he was right... She's worth to live again and she owes him a chance.
Picking the speed more, she treats herself of foolness that night memory teasing her again and again! Years of deserved won respect turning to nothing else but the cruel reality... She's born to be a whore and has to live and die like a whore whatever her ID presents down her name as profession.
Isn't  The promotion she got for the successful mission the remuneration for that night?...
Suddenly she feels in need of halting her heart about escaping her throat by her mouth, keeping her hands over her knees, she bends down trying to catch her breath for a moment. When she gets up, she's shocked by the man's presence facing her:
- Laksh!?!?