"What was Amir like? Before he went all creepy and controlling anyways?" I quiz, watching Matsya carefully. I pull on my seatbelt, tired of the way it digs into my stomach and shoulder. Matsya adjusts the review mirror, suiting it towards her needs. We had just switched over seats. Only a few minutes ago, I was driving instead of Matsya.
"He was a bit like you. He liked to read books, joke around and he lived his life like it was some romantic comedy even when it was a tragedy. He was never serious - until the incident where our parents died and he became someone else completely," Matsya explains, her tone soft. "He's quiet and controlling now. He knows everyone's secrets beforehand and his anger is uncontrollable -- the only person that's ever been able to control it was me."
"Did you just compare me to Amir?! Geez, most people compare people to the moon, roses and cute stuff while you compare me to a stalker Don who's trying to kill both of us," I complain, up turning my nose at Matsya. I dramatically sigh as I look away. "I can't even look at you now."
"I know you want to," Matsya says, her eyes fluttering towards mine with a smile. I look at her from the corners of my eyes as I cross my arms dramatically. After a few seconds of silence, I sigh once again and look at her with a shrug.
"Matsya," I say, her name rolling off my tongue quickly in a serious tone as I look at her features. "Did Amir truly love you? Or is he just obsessed with you?"
Matsya looks at me, her eyebrows knitting together as she tries to think of an answer. Her eyes move to the front after a second. "I don't really know," she confesses. "I think he may have in a twisted way. I was the only person that didn't entirely hate him or want him to be gone."
I turn down the radio slightly, watching her speak. "But he doesn't know how to be human. He's constantly controlling me, restricting everything I do, purposely pushing me into roads I don't want to go into, giving me bruises on my wrists when he tugs me away from going to work. He cut off all my options until my only option is him."
"That sounds terrible!"
"It is?" Matsya asks, raising an eyebrow. "You make it sound so much worse than it is. Amir wasn't that horrible. He'd sometimes take me out or buy me my favorite pack of ice creams."
"While continuously manipulating you into believing whatever he wanted. That's abuse, we've learnt about it in health like years ago," I start to say, my voice fading as I remember Tina sitting behind me in health, throwing paper balls at me whenever I ignored her. She was always bored in health, and needed to someone to talk to.
Matsya licks her lips, her eyes drifting over my face. "Are you okay? You seem kind of sad," she comments, tapping her nails on the steering wheel. I nod, pressing my lips together before I start thinking of Matsya instead of Tina. "And I don't think mine and Amir's relationship was abusive. We knew each other for years!"
The scenery of the beautiful green trees and forestry sudden merges into grey slabs of stone. Lines of yellow follow us into a dim cave, where I can barely see Matsya and my eyes can only remain on the road. "People in abusive relationships often don't believe they're in abusive relationships 'till after the relationship," I comment.
I could see Matsya's brief outline of a shadow shrug. I focus on the darkness of the road, remembering how when I was younger I used to be afraid of spiders in my bed. "When I was a kid, I used to make my younger brother scan my entire room for spiders. I used to be afraid that spiders would eat me alive while I sleep," I chuckle.
Matsya joins in. "I used to be afraid of swimming and ponds. Amir once accidentally pushed me into the pool and in the end, he was forced to rescue me. After that, I was afraid of water and swimming," she confesses. The beginning of light begins to drift over our car, shining as Matsya's phone starts to ring.
The streets start to narrow down and I pick up the phone without checking the ID. "Matsya -- don't go on any highways or motorways. It's not safe," Daksh says, his deep voice sounding slightly raspy as if he smoked a ciggerette. I could imagine him on a chair wearing a leather jacket, a ciggerette in one hand and a phone in another. "Fucking Amir has them all locked up. He has a bunch of police on his side, he either bribed them or made you two look like criminals. There's some all over the goddamn city -- you need to get out."
A familiar pounding in my chest appears again as I drop the phone and leave my mouth agape. I look up with wide eyes as I scan our surroundings. We're stuck in a two-way street to the high-way and on it, there's an oddly familiar granny mint car and police officers.
"Nirvaan?" Matsya says, raising an eyebrow as she looks at me. "What happened?"
"We need to leave -- Matsya, Amir has bribed the police. They're looking for us on every single highway," I say, scrambling for the phone. I place the phone to my ear again, trying to regain my senses as Matsya swears under her breath. She starts to switch lanes, starting to leave the place as I catch sight of the number plate and the dices on the car's reveiw mirror.
Behind the dices sat a familiar man, wearing sunglasses with his feet propped up on the dashboard. "Nirvaan?" Daksh calls out, as I mutter an almost inaudible yes. "Amir has a faint idea of which routes you'll use. The motel you guys were in last had a gang member in it who saw you guys but didn't know Amir wanted you. Keep safe guys."
The phone hangs up, as I carry on to watch the man behind the car. "Matsya, drive faster --"
"I'm going as fast as I can," she says, her car trapped midway of turning into the other lane. She's waiting for a giveway but it's too late. Amir takes off his glasses, his eyes narrowing right on to me and my paralysed face as Matsya turns the car completely.
"He saw us," I mumble, trying to make sense of it. "Matsya, Amir said us -- he made eye contact with me."
Matysa's mouth stiffens into a line as she presses on the gas, her eyes scanning the review mirror. From the way her hand tighten onto the wheel, I'm guessing what she saw was not idealistic. "He's a few cars behind us and there's several black cars behind him. I think he's onto us."
My hands are getting sweaty so I wipe them onto my jeans. There's an idle bottle of water laying on the floor so I grab, unscrewing the bottle as I drink some cold water. It does nothing to ease my dry throat. If anything, it makes my throat ache with more fear and make my stomach more prone to puking.
Matsya pushes the car faster, honking when the car before us starts to slow down. A light is ahead of us, ticking from green to an awful yellow. Instead of slowing down, Matsya pushes the car through the yellow light. There's still concern in her face although we're both sure we've lost them. That is, until I look behind us and they've gassed through the red light.
"They're still behind us," I curse, my eyes darting around them. Whatever cars that had seperated us are gone now, most likely going off to a different direction. Matsya carries on driving at a speed I can't even fathom, to the point where it feels like we're flying rather than driving. If I wasn't so afraid of Amir, I would've been afraid of flying out of this window. "How does his granny car even move so fast?!"
"It's called switching the engines, renovating the car and cash," Matsya explains, her eyes scanning the road before she recklessly drives into an empty road. A car narrowly misses us, and I could hear a loud 'fuck' as I grab my seatbelt for dear life. Matsya's knuckles are a shade of white, contrasting with her usual brown skin.
I look back, my hand on the waterbottle as I get a foolish idea in my head. I open the window, taking my head out of the window along with the water bottle. I throw it at Amir's window, watching his mouth curse out a 'shit'. Matsya smirks, so I grab a half empty pack of chips and throw it in his direction too. There's a banana on the floor and it reminds me of the times I used to throw banana peels at Tina's cars in Mario Kart. A faint glimmer of a smile overtakes me, and I peel the banana to eat half and then throw it at Amir's car.
At the same time, a stern faced Amir uses his windshield wipers. The banana remains smear all over his window, causing him swerve the car to the side of the road. It takes him a few seconds to get it back into the middle, making his cronies closer to him than he is to us.
"Thanks Mario Kart," I whisper, smiling as I wave to Amir. There's nothing to loose anyways. Matsya laughs, pressing her lips together as she tries to contain a smile. The car moves caste but we're still not disillusioned that we could survive this car chase.
On the side of our a car, a black car starts to speed up besides us. There's no more bananas left in the car so all I do is wipe my sweaty palms again and bite my lip. If everything else fails, I'll just vomit all over their windsheilds. Judging by the way my stomach flips at the speed of the car and my fear, it seems likely.
Suddenly, a few speedbumps appear on this deserted road. There's a few houses around here, but they seem awfully dodgy and seem more like marijuana greenhouses. Matsya spots the lumps on the road too late, barely stopping the car as it passes over the lump. The car jumps, giving me the biggest heart attack today before landing. Matsya stops the car before it flies over the next speedbump.
A quick look in the mirror shows that Amir was more intellegent than us. His car is braked behind ours, and one of his croonies' jeep drives ahead of us. They park right before us, blocking any mode of escape. Amir smirks as he walks out of his car, sliping on his shades again as he walks onto Matsya's side of the car.
Matsya curses, and for the first time I've seen her, I see tears forming in her eyes. She's truly lost all hope, and because of that, all the hopes of a better future drains out of me. Suddenly, a spark lights up her eyes as she quickly opens the glove compartment to reveal the gun she promised to get rid off. "I'm so sorry," she apologizes, throwing the gun under her seat. "But this thing could save our life."
My eyes narrow on her, a stab of pain aching in my heart. It quickly disappears when Matsya looks out of the window where an angry yet unaware Amir lurks. Amir opens the car door, grabbing a fistful of Matsya's hair. He drags her out of the car, yanking her roots. She yells in pain, her legs hitting the side of the concrete. Amir stares at Matsya, even while she can barely see above his knees and refuses to tilt her head up.
My heart flips over in fear and I'm already unclipping my seatbelt to get closer to her. But before I can move, Matsya makes eye contact with me and shakes her head. Amir barely glances at me or acknowledges our exchange.
I could practically feel is anger radiating off his body. I've never seen someone look so angry and if I was Matsya, I would be already in tears. Amir glares at her with utter hatred and disgust, swinging her hair to get another yelp from the expressionless Matsya. As soon as she yells, her face falls back into masking her fear.
"How long did you think you could hide from me you little bitch?" he quizzes. "That car chase was fun while it lasted, but now we're going to have even more fun, aren't we?"
□
sounds fun
anyways how was the chapter? I hope y'all enjoyed it! i'm going to try updating more often, and hopefully within the next four updates, this book will be marked as completed!!
also the genre of this book would probably be 'guy who should be in a Rom-com is forced into a tragedy' LMAO
vote?
- maya