Deviant Desires

Chapter 2

Aarini's POV

My lashes fluttered a bit before closing again but it was enough to see, a very familiar, white coloured ceiling of the guest bedroom in Seth Mansion, stared back at me.

This did not look like hell and Seth Mansion could never be heaven. So was I stuck somewhere in between?

Pushing my back against the headboard, I sat up as a faint ache throbbed at my temple and a low groan slipped past my lips.

My eyelids felt heavy and a croaky question left me instinctively, "Am I dead?"

"No," two very familiar voices sounded at the same time, before a third voice added, "Not yet, anyway."

Before I could begin to explore my afterlife abode; the notion that I was dead and cremated, flew right out of the window as I registered the three pair of eyes looking at me.

Samta shot out of her sitting position and hugged me as if her life depended on it. Silent sobs wracked her body and she refused to leave me.

"Sa-Samta....ugh as much as I love you my abdomen really hurts."

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry" she gasped, letting go of me abruptly yet staying by me side.

I let my eyes wander around the room. Adarsh stood at the end of the bed. His face contorted in hard lines as he refused to meet my eyes.

"What happened?" I asked carefully.

You got shot, that's what happened.

But then how was I alive?

"If your friends are done with this sob show, I'd be honoured to explain the situation," a deep voice resounded from the corner of the room and my eyes flitted over to the unmistaken figure of the curly head who I remembered all too well.

My eyes narrowed in accusation at his nonchalant presence, "You shot me, nitwit."

Pushing himself away from darkness, he made his way to the center of the room before nodding his head at me. "First, it's Aditya Pratap Singh. And second, I didn't shoot you."

After a dramatic pause he added, "My guard did."

"Same thing!"

I squealed only to realise a minute too late that my abdomen was palpitating abnormally and my actions only strengthened the pain.

"No, it's not. Also, how about the fact that you aimed a gun at me. Obviously, my men wouldn't just stand-by if a crack-head would threaten my life."

His face was still perfectly unfazed. Too expressionless for someone who was apparently threatened by sweet little me.

"First, it's Aarini Dhyawana. Second, you didn't seem threatened at all."

His lips finally tipped up at the corners before he turned away. "As much as I'd love to chat with you, I don't reckon that's how you'd like to spend your last few days."

Confusion and sudden panic rattled my bones as I tried to grasp what the hell was this man talking about, "What do you mean?"

"Would you just cut it and tell her the damn truth?!" Adarsh snapped just as Samta grabbed his fore arm as if to calm him down.

Aditya, unsurprisingly, didn't seem surprised at all. Instead, he rubbed his jaw and paced down the room to create a deliberate tension before finally choosing to sit down directly beside my bed.

"See, you're not dead. But we have already established that. Though, when my guard shot you, he had actually ingested a certain amount of arsenic in your body. Not enough to kill you on spot."

The gears in my brain turned surprisingly too quickly as k concluded for him, "But enough to act as a slow poison."

A sly grin graced his lips as he clapped his hands, "Atta girl! You're not as much of a crack-head as I had assumed."

I would have come up with a witty reply at his ill times humour. But I was too busy wondering how should I feel.

For I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing except for the remorse in my heart at not being able to live with my grandparents anymore. They were my lifelines but it was better to die than see them suffer in any way.

My train of thoughts were suddenly broken of by a loud, and very dramatic gasp, "Oh my god, you are lusting after death, you self degrading wreck! I can practically see you drooling at the thought of dying!"

I blinked in disbelief as Aditya went on with his stupid ass assumptions, "Well, I love to be the one to break this daydream of yours, but you're not going to die!"

My confusion was so apparent in my question when I asked, "Wait, but you said otherwise only a few minutes ago?"

Aditya rolled his eyes exasperatedly, "Don't you know anything about lethal toxins and their counter active agents?"

"Oh, I'm sorry but I don't have experience in unaliving people!" I snapped.

Silence reigned for a two minutes straight.

Suddenly, Aditya burst out laughing like the psychotic baboon that he was, as he gasped for air. "D-did she just s-say 'unaliving' ?!"

Both the Seth siblings and I stared at him with disbelief and annoyance as he kept muttering things to himself to sober up and only to burst out laughing all over again.

"Okay, excuse that," smiling at me with sheer amusement, he continued, finally sobering up, "But here's the thing: you do have a slow acting poison in your system but you are not going to die, because you'll be given the antidote before it can begin to affect your body. It will start unfurling in about forty eight hours given the fact that you were shot with the smallest dose of arsenic and before it unfurls we will counteract it."

"Why would you save me?" The question left my mouth before I had the chance to think otherwise.

"For we are good people," Aditya shrugged.

I stared at him. As did the other two in the room.

A grin blossomed on his face, as he sheepishly admitted, "Okay, maybe not the right situation to claim the goodness of our heart but trust me, we are not that bad." He paused for a second, seemingly thinking about something before adding, "At least, I'm not."

A tired sigh left my lips and I looked around the room with disdain. Who would want to spend their last time in a room as mundane as such, that too conversing with an absolute lunatic-on-the-loose. "Please, just tell me."

This time, all emotions seemed to wipe out from Aditya's face as he looked at me with absolutely stony face, "You don't have anything to do with this mess. And contrary to what you might believe, we do have a moral code to stand by, which forbids us from involving civilians and you are completely innocent here." He glanced at Samta and Adarsh who still stood in the same position, "People who get in business with us, know what they should expect. They know the benefits they can reap along with the prices they'd have to pay if they mess up."

The unspoken threat hung heavily in the air as an over-looming doom, ready to casts its foreboding shadow onto us, canopied the space.

"You are nowhere in the equation," he concluded and glanced at his wrist watch, walking towards the exit of the bedroom, "hence, he decided to save you."

"He?" I asked.

Stopping, he looked over his shoulder, to answer me, as amusement once again wracked his tone, "Yes, him. He has the antidote. Basically, your life, at the moment, is in his hands. The one you so stunningly defined as 'infamous diabolical scoundrel with notorious miscreant of a reputation'."

Recognition lit up my face despite my lack of recognition for the person per se, "Your brother?"

"Certainly. Raghvendra Pratap Singh is going to grace you with his presence soon."

****

Note: use of arsenic in the book is totally fictitious and not true. However, it must NOT be consumed in any way. And the entire 'lethal toxin and counter active agents' trope is just used to serve the purpose of story in a FICTIONAL way.