"You have a lighter?"
"Why are you asking me? Do I look like I smoke?"
"Oh shut it, you bloody saint, and pass me the damn lighter."
Rolling his eyes, Dhruv brought out a Lighter from his pocket and threw it at me.
"I knew you smoke." I smirked chastely.
It has been a whole day since Manik has left. There are not many changes that I have witnessed in his absence, just a little in my heart which keeps beating slower and slower with the passage of time. I wonders if my organ would cease to beat after a certain period when all of the hopes of seeing that stupid smile on his childish face will die.
We are on the Terrace and the view is beautiful. Mumbai is a twinkling galaxy if it is to be seen from a distance. Who knows what kind of sins are being caused behind it's light. Who knows where he is in the wideness of the darkness.
"Hey, pass it to me as well."
Puffing out a cloud of smoke, I passed him the half burnt Cigarette as he smoked the rest.
"I thought you quit smoking." Dhruv coughs a little before he adjusts to the smoke. I see, it's his first cigarette.
"I did. But the dog's tail never turns straight."
"In that case, I am the dog. Because I'll never turn straight."
It took a whole moment for me to comprehend his words. And out of a sudden, I burst out into a choking giggle.
"What the fuck, Dhruv. What happened to your humor?"
"It is as good as it was. Your senses suck." He hit my elbow carrying that soft playful smirk.
"Yeah, sure. Look at me, smiling in this situation. I must be such a Bitch." My arms spread wide in front of the city. For a moment, my heart was sent into jitters as the wild thought of wanting to peep downer at the lane occurred. "What the fuck are we doing?"
"We're just there, Nandini. It's about time. Abhimanyu is the best guide we have, he'll track the location soon. Just some more time."
I nodded on his consolation.
"Where is he close to?" My mind hovered. Mumbai isn't a paradise, and there is no scarcity of dungeons in it.
"In the slums. Somewhat abandoned ones. I'm not sure but its close to someplace poor."
Be someplace poor he means the two-third of the city. Sigh, I can't feel him, as if he's slipping like sand through the time. Did he eat? Did he get food? Water? What if--
"I wonder if he'll be the same once we get him back." Dhruv mutters. His eyes were stone cold and there was a penetrating reality in it, the reality I longed to avoid.
What if she did something? Anything? Ofcourse, she did! That's exactly why she wanted him.
"What if we're late?" I asked, my own tone answering me with dread, blood curdling into my veins.
"I don't know.." His voice faded into oblivion. "I don't know, Nandini."
Dhruv stared deeper into a part of the view, deeper into the slums of the city, it was a bigger part of the whole, the big hole of darkness. Manik lies there. He turned to me, and his seriousness was covered by a pretense of upliftment.
"It's okay, you know. We need some smiles between tough times. It's been rough." Tossing the used cigarette away, he brought out another one from the pack that he bought before, lightening it. "Also, at least you haven't been through bullying and shit for the entire school. So you need to act stronger than me."
"Oh, yeah?" I straightened up with a raising brow, challenge written in my eyes. "At least, your husband hasn't been harassed by a Psycho Bitch since childhood."
"At least, you have a husband."
A couple of moments' silence followed our mouths, and after that, we broke out in chuckles simultaneously at his comment.
"True." I nodded my head in complete crushing agreement, as he grins away, the type of grin where people hides the pain.
Suddenly, I heard the crack in his voice as it converts into a sob, and when I turned to him with confusing eyes, he crinkled into tears.
"Hey," throwing the used cigarette abruptly, I patted briefly on his shoulder, and in no time my eyes turn surprised from worried ones as Dhruv came crashing into my hug, gripping me as if I was some shore to a never ending sea.
There wasn't much I could do. I didn't know how to whisper poetry in his ears so that he would smile, and I didn't had the courage to touch his cheek and wipe the tears. I wasn't Manik. I was certain he would shove me away and curse me to never touch him with my sinful hands again. So all I did was stay still and held him right at place, pat at his hairs when he hiccupped and sometimes on his back so that he could lean onto me.
"I'm sorry, Nandini. I'm sorry I'm being so mean." Dhruv's voice was brutally broken, as if he was a slave forever tied to the shackles of judgements. I could refer to so many emotions in that voice. Agitation. Rage. Pain.
"Why does it have to be me?! I can't keep bearing this burden forever. What am I even fighting for?" There was wetness stinging to the fabric of my chest. A wetness that could blossom life of flowers if it soaked into their roots. The wetness that he could have flooded under the veil of secrecy. But rather, it was on my shoulder.
What do I answer him? That its Okay? Keep suffering until people's mind changes? I can't console him when I am one of those people as well who have bred the pain into him.
"I'm sorry," I murmured. What else could I say? I am one of those reasons. He curses his sexuality Because of me.
"It's not you. Don't worry." He suddenly detaches, the flush of swollen red spreading all over his face, the darkest hue at the center of his cheeks. The brownish-black glossy eyes getting wiped when they brimmed every second. How could I never protect that innocent face? He was my little brother. It was all on me.
"Are you guys done?" That was Cabir, running to the terrace out of the blue. He was panting heavily carrying his phone in the air and I could the caller ID on. Who did he wanted us to talk to?
"Cabir, what is--"
"Manik! It's Manik!"
Our eyes widened.
Dhruv covered the distance, running to him abruptly. "Put the call on speaker! Right now!" and so he did.
"Manik? Buddy?"
There was a disturbance on the line for a moment, and then it cleared up, with his soft voice filling in our ears.
"Dh-Dhruv?" Manik spoke.
I frowned. Annihilation travelled through my veins as I heard the shake in his voice, as if he is exhausted to death.
"Hey, buddy." Dhruv murmured, inaudible and little bit too shocked to react.
"How are you, Manik? It's Cabir. We're here, buddy. We're right here. Please talk to us."
"Oh-oh, Cabir. How--How are you, and-and Mukti?"
"Manik, just tell us where you are." Cabir snapped, his tone trembling.
I should have been disappointed that he asked of everyone but not once did he say my name. However, all that worried me was the rasp in his voice, the grogginess, as if his body was bathing into drugs.
Manik didn't tell where he is, instead, he laughed. A sluggish laugh.
"We aren't being funny, Manik." Dhruv shouted. His temper was about to lose control.
Manik didn't replied.
I wasn't about to interrupt, but words somehow caught my tongue and I reflexively snapped.
"You are drugged."
Manik's laugh came to a halt, and for a while, there was complete silence. He didn't say anything, but I could feel it so strongly in my mind that he was silently crying. Suddenly, I could hear a quiet hiccup, a shudder from the other end and that is all it took for me to realize his silent wail.
My heart started to bleed.
"Manik, gorgeous..." I whispered, my voice incredibly small and weak, and he let out another shudder hearing that name. "Please talk to me, gorgeous." I pleaded quietly.
Manik didn't replied, but I could sense everything. I could sense him rubbing onto his eyes. I could sense the drug in his veins. I could sense the loud beatings of his heart.
"Buddy, please."
"We're coming to get you."
"No!" he screamed, as if snapped out of a thought. "Don't..."
"Trust me..." I whispered, my voice darkening dangerously, "Just one name. Any hint. Tell me, gorgeous and it's over. It'll be her end."
"Stay away..." He muttered, and I could feel him tremble, "Please, dont--"
"That's enough for today, Gorgeous." There was a second voice a woman in the background, with his words fading out.
And the call got cut.
It took me seconds to grasp that our connection was lost. His presence wasn't around us anymore and the essence in my soul was once again left empty. Abruptly, her voice played in my head like a mock and it affected me to such a core that I bit my tongue and it tasted blood. There were beasts lingering around my eyes and I was ready to let gobble them and enthrall their power. The very thought of painting my hands red with that woman intrigued me.
Gorgeous.
That's what she called him.
"Soha Khurrana. She's a tragedy. At the age of 14, she squashed a beer bottle on her father's skull and ran away from their home after killing him. Years later, she was married to Karan Oberoi. He was the founder of our school. He was found dead in his room exact five years after, his body was found freezed to death inside the Refrigerator. Later, she conducted adultery with William Fitzerald, who was also the father of her two sons, Varun and Allen. That's her history."
We all sat numb staring at particularly nothing. I understand their dilemma. They couldn't decide what kind of cruelty they could cuss on her so that it would accurately express their hatred.
Here, I was feeling nothing. I didn't quite knew if it was a kind of power or lack of it.
"That's..." Cabir broke the silence but couldn't comprehend what to comment.
"How cruel could she get? Why to take other's life just like that?" Mukti completed his sentence.
"It's enjoyment for her." Cabir snickered gritting his teeth.
All of their attention was focused on Allen now. Ofcourse he was one of the main persons of this fucked up family. Poor him.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?" His Blue eyes darkened.
"I don't know where else am I supposed to look at."
"Shut up, Cabir. Hey Allen, are you okay?" Abhimanyu asked, somewhat trying to show sympathy.
What a boring formality.
"I am good. It's okay. I don't care about her, or my father. All I want is to meet my brother once." Allen looked down as his eyes turned sad.
"Dhruv," I turned to him, my eyes turning soft as I spread a smile for him, "Go to our mansion and take Appa for a regular check-up, yeah? The doctor prescribed it once in a week. Today's the day, right?"
"Oh shit!" He tapped on his forehead lightly, clutching his eyes in irritation, "how did I forgot?"
"There's still time, you know?"
"I'll be leaving."
And saying so, he hurried from the room. As he left, Cabir stared at me skeptically.
"The check-up is on Saturdays. Today is Friday." He scorned.
I smiled. A smile that increased the creases on his forehead just like everyone's.
"What is going on that mind, Nandini?" Abhimanyu asked in curiousity.
"He is young," I pointed at Dhruv's leaving figure outside, "I didn't wanted to involve my little brother in the discussion."
"What discussion?" Mukti followed.
Without making them wait much, I pulled out some assignments on the table in front of them. They checked intently.
"Abhimanyu, you can make a good detective. However, you need to sharpen your skills because I have been playing this game since ages. Here is the complete history of crimes of their family tree. I have been ordering my operators to find the exact truth about her from the beginning."
"You mean your illegal operators?" Cabir reminded me.
I smirked, proudly stating, "My illegal operators."
Aren't they a blessing?
"Here's the truth," I stood up, taking out my phone and forwarding the PDF of the information to all of them."From her birth to her adolescence to her adultery, her whole life till now."
After checking for a while, Abhimanyu became serious and his frowned turned critically severe as if he had just woken from an alternative reality. "No," he whispered, "Is this serious?" He looked at me with bewilderment.
"What?" Mukti hastened, "what the hell is it?"
"Soha Khurrana," I began to feed them the much needed truth, " the heinous woman was born in a poor family near the slums of Andheri. Her father, just like you stated Abhimanyu, was killed by her, why? Let me tell you the reason."
I threw an old senile newspaper at the table which carried a crime reported in it.
"Nikhil Khurrana, her beloved father," I voiced the word in a poisonous tone, pointing at the captured man on the newspaper photo, "He was associated with occults. To bring him back to sanity, his parents had him married with a woman, who came out as a prostitute. That woman already had an unwanted child with her and she married him just so she wouldn't have to take care of the child. Guess who the child was?"
"Soha Khurrana?" Abhimanyu guessed.
"Bingo!"
"So she wasn't his real child."
"Nope. She was just an unwanted product of the prostitute. Guess what happened to the prostitute? One day, she just disappeared. Many people said that the crazy man killed her and chopped her body into so many pieces by his occulting activities that she wouldn't be found again by anyone. The problem arrived when Soha was left alone with him. All by herself."
The air tensed within them and I could see a drop of sweat sweeping down Cabir's and Mukti's forehead.
"Nandini," Abhimanyu asked in a trance with a weaker voice, "What about her?"
"She was tortured," I stated randomly, "He used to keep her locked for months inside a room. Many people said he used to create his own drugs that he used on her as experiments. He would bring home toys, some heinous toys just to carve her skin red, and he would find pleasure in her pain. The locality in which she lived, people says they still remember how the young girl used to scream for nights like a maddening creature inside their house. One day, she lost her sanity. Broke the bottle of one of his own drugs and squashed it on him. Once he was dead, she carved his skin with as many strokes as hers and ran away laughing."
It was like a tale of darkness, a tale scarier than any horror. Something about humans always made me wonder on what extremes could we go to unleash such madness.
"God knows what she did for years but somehow, she adopted her way of living just like her father did. She got into this business of child trafficking, pedophilia, drug dealings and red rooms. The red rooms are the worst though."
None of them spoke a word for a brief moment, so I continued,
"You want to know a little about Nikhil Khurrana, the crazy man? His past is no light. Those crazy parents of him sell him through human trafficking for money where he was tortured like a dumb animal. Years later, they got him back because the traffickers didn't need him anymore. The man's eye was taken out for sale and he was raped as well. You see the procedure? Understand the cycle?"
Mukti's eyes were already shut close with disgust as Cabir uttered a low 'no'.
"His parents might be in the darkness as well. They might have been abused, and so might their parents. She is the same, a product of them. Just like Varun, that drug addict. This is their family, their fucked up generation. It's a never ending cycle, and none of them ever tried to break it."
Abhimanyu exhaled a deep breath, and at the end he was shaking lightly. "The great Khurrana." He chuckled sadly.
Once again, we were all looking at Allen. He didn't wanted to say anything. He was too loss at words.
"Allen, I think--"
Cabir was about to say something when suddenly, Dhruv came out running to the room with Appa himself.
"Appa, what is it?" I asked confused.
Dhruv was panting hard, as if he wanted to inform something desperately. "Rishi's.. he's..." He huffed loudly.
"Easy. Easy. Drink some water."
"No time for that." Appa seemed hurried as well.
"What is it, Rishi?" Abhimanyu asked, followed by everyone.
"I know where they had kept Manik."
Shock flew threw me like a bolt and I stood frozen at my place. There were miraculous jolts forming around my body and after a long time, my heart could feel it's beat back in the rhythm.
"What?" Allen whispered, his voice almost a screech.
Everyone was baffled.
"Yes.." Dhruv murmured between his pants. "The location.. it's 3 hours...away..right at the...at the andh--"
"At the old Andheri state. Where abandoned properties are sold. I sold a piece of land to Allen's father back then and it is the only thing that he had reserved on his wife's name. He wanted to make a home there for them. It will take atleast 3 or something hours to reach if we leave now."
"Thank you, Appa." I was overwhelmed. The gush of revival in me was so strong as if I was reborn again.
"I'm sorry I took so much time to remember." He smiled sadly.
"No worries, sir. You did a great job. Get in the car, everybody. I'm calling my team over the location. We're leaving right now." Abhimanyu ordered, wearing his jacket and his batch in a hurry as everyone followed with a new found spirit.
I waited, took out my phone and dialled a number.
"Call in our team. Make sure she gets the best treatment."
I ended the call in a jiffy, and as soon as I was ready to leave, Cabir stopped me.
"What?"
"What are you going to do, once you find her?" He asks silently.
I made a thoughtful look, before casually stating,
"I'll destroy her in ways her evil mind can't even imagine."
He turns worried as the coldness in my voice gave him chills, and he was petrified of the smirk which was planted like an ornament on my lips.
"Nandini..." He whispered, somehow trying to make me understand, " Even she was a victim and--"
"She messed with the wrong person, Cabir. I don't give a damn. I may have started to care for people but I haven't forgotten the rules of hunting. I'm no close to innocent and you damn well know that."
"I don't...I just..." Cabir couldn't finds words. He was trapped between the wrong and more wrong. He can't ask me to show mercy, because I shouldn't. But, at the same time he couldn't help but think if I could turn inhumane and hurt the lady beyond brutality.
"She's a monster." Cabir whispers. "Don't stain your hands to punish someone like her."
I didn't replied for long, until I turned to him with undenying guilt drowning in my eyes and a helpless smile. As if, I couldn't change my own personality. I looked caged, as if there were demonic figures lingering above me, laughing at my sins, Reminding me of my impurities.
"It takes a monster to destroy one. And if any of you have any kind of sympathy, than pray to God to have mercy on her, Because I won't."