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She jerked back to reality when she heard the door open. She lifted her eyes and saw Arnav was leaning on the door.
He blinked his eyes, "when did you get up? How are you feeling now"? Without realizing tears started to flow from her eyes hearing his soft voice. It held no anger made hrr more guilty. He swallowed, seeing this. He cursed himself for doing this to her. He felt guilty.
He didn't know how to console her, that's when Ratna came and walked up to her. She fondled her head, "Khushi beta! How are you now"? She was amazed to see such calmness on her face. She threw herself in Ratna's arms and started crying loudly.
Ratna's eyes got teary to see her like that. Aditya and Arnav felt stifled. Ratna knew what Khushi might have been going through. "I... I am sorry, Aunty. I... I... I... Sheetal ran away from marriage and I... I had to fulfill her place. I couldn't see babuji being insulted. Please forgive me, Aunty. I...i... I... will go back once Sheetal is back". She was hiccuping continuously while saying all this.
"Shushhhh... shuhuss... beta! We know what happened. We already spoke to Shashi Ji, and who told you to leave? From now on, YOU are our bahu and my Chote's wife. You had nothing to do with Sheetal's running away. So let's not think of all this now. Okay? Rest, we would take care of it together. Alright! Now take some rest. We had to conduct the muh dikhai rasam in the evening and before that, we also had to meet dadi. Okay bachcha". Ratna said lovingly and caressed her head.
Khushi looked at Ratna astonishingly. Was this like a mother's love? For the first time, she felt that she also had a mother. She nodded her head, and they went away, asking Arnav to look after their daughter.
After they left, Khushi felt uncomfortable to face her husband. She was fidgeting in nervousness. She was about to open her mouth to say something, but stopped.
Arnav looked at her nervousness and thought to give her some time and was on his way to the bathroom. But...but...Khushi also placed her hand on the knob at the same time. Her heart skipped a beat feeling his touch. She started to wriggle in nervousness to take her hand away and he left it even though he wanted to hold it firmly. But its not the right time, he knew that.
"You go first. You should change, this dress looks very heavy"! He asked her to change.
She stared at the man in front of her. "Who was this man? His bride ran away from the mandap and he had to marry a stranger. Still not even once shown anger towards me or my family? How could someone be so good? How could Sheetal leave such a man and ran away"?
"Khushi, what happened? Why were you still standing here? Go and get fresh. You must be hungry too, right? Ifbi am not wrong then you didn't have the time to eat anything till now"! He asked her concernedly.
Khushi nodded at him, "Aa.. you also hadn't eat anything na.. will not eat anything"? She looked at him with the same concern.
Arnav felt happy seeing her concern for him. He nodded and told her they will eat together after getting fresh. She smiled and went to washroom for getting fresh.
Meanwhile his mobile ring broke his trance. Seeing the number he turned into a ruthless, merciless ASR again, "yes, Rana! Okay" and drop the call.
"Sheetal Gupta! You wanted to hurt my Pari with shredded glass, now see how your own medicine tasted like" and smiled like a merciless demon. He later called Aman to tell him about the call.
****
Abundant Building :
Sheetal came to the address that was given to her, but was afraid to see no one there. She found herself alone in a dark, dingy building. She shouted, "Hello! Is there anyone here! Hello...hell...hell...hello"!! She stammered.
Then she heard someone's shoe shuffling. "He...hello, mam! I... I am Sheetal Gupta". She held her hand forward to greet her, but got scared when she saw her cold face. She wasn't feeling good about all this and was about to say something, when from nowhere some guys came over there.
They tied her eyes and mouth and hands with some black cloth and started to drag her after taking her shoes off. Only her muffling sound came out. All of a sudden, she felt tremendous pain in her feet, as if some glass pieces were pricking her.
"Ummmm...ummm. Umppphhhh" She tried to free herself and screamed in pain. That's when she heard a woman's voice, "Kyun? Bahut dard ho raha hai? It was always painful when glass pieces pricked. They say na, karma is a bitch. You never know, when it comes back to bite you". Her voice held disgust. She dragged her from there and put her in a chair like that and went from there saying, "don't even try to run away. Got it" leaving a frightened, crying, screaming Sheetal behind him.
*****
How was it?
Hopefully, You all will like it. If not, forgive me for disappointing you.
