Out of breath, Zahra pushed open the glass doors and came out. She was soo stupid, why on earth did she run? No, wait….why did she have to open her big mouth in the first place, but, there was no way out of it now, he was so intimidating that it was totally impossible for her to have kept quiet. She should have just said sorry or something and walked away but it never occurred to her stupid mind. ‘First impression is the last impression’, so they say. The damage was done now and she had made it worse by running off like that. She just wished the ground beneath her to crack open and gobble her up whole, in one mouthful. The matter would end up, then and there. Hunh….if wishes could come true, what wouldn’t she have given to make that happen….
“What are you doing here? Mustn’t you be inside with all the other trainees??” Ms. Andrews barked. DANG IT!! She just had to be here, out of all other places on the earth one could be at. “I….uh…. I was not feeling well, Ms. Andrews, so… I came out. Please don’t make me go back in there….please” Zahra begged her, making a desperate excuse to save herself from any further scrutiny.
“You have done something and are trying to hide it, right?” She eyed her suspiciously. God!! Nothing goes past her. “Okay I’ll let you off easy for once, but, you will stay here, and if you move as much as an inch, I’ll make you get inside” she said and went into the office, muttering something about ‘lack of manners in girls these days’, under her breath.
Whew! She was saved….for now, at least. She stood there and waited for the others to come out now. After a while, she heard Ms. Andrews shouting at somebody and ran towards the group as she saw them coming out of the CEOs office. “Now, the next task on your schedule today is to check out the Company Library. It’s on the sixth floor. Get as much information as you can about ‘Walworth & Co.’ and then at exactly 12:00 p.m., you will all gather over here so that bosses can be assigned to each group of four trainees, according to your departments” she went on saying as they jogged behind her to keep themselves in hearing range.
“Hey Jennifer, did Mr. Walworth say anything after I ran out?” Zahra quietly asked her friend, lest the old bat might hear her. She knew Jennifer from her office and she was nice to talk to. “Well…he just briefed us about the Company’s motives and its goals for the coming years. He also told us about some oath taking ceremony that will be held at the end of this month in which we’ll have to take oath that ‘we dedicate ourselves for achieving the Company’s motives’ and blah….blah...blah. This year it will be a gala event as it’s the Company’s tenth birth anniversary.
“Ah…yes, I remember now, he did say something referring to you. You know, just when you ran out, he muttered something about ‘desperate people who would do anything to catch other’s attentions’, but don’t worry okay, it won’t change our perception about you, we know what kind of a person you are, and you’re definitely not the attention seeking kind, trust me. By the way, why DID you take off just like that?” she asked confused. “Well…it’s a long story” Zahra replied and smiled.
******SOMEWHERE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD******
There is an empty, huge and dark room with almost no light, except a small candle burning in the middle of a large table having transparent glass panels. A man, probably young in age, is sitting on one of the two chairs placed on either side of the table. His face is in darkness but his long fish like hands are visible and are quite prominent in the dim light, making ghost-like shadows on the walls of the room. A man is standing outside at the door, wearing an all-black mercenary kind of suit with black sunglasses, and is apparently the bodyguard of the man sitting inside.
He opens the door. “Sir, the parcel you ordered has been brought, and this time, he has got positive news” he informs in a robotic voice. “Finally, something is up, I’m glad to know. Send him in Jake…and close the door behind you” the man says in a mysterious monotone. A short middle aged man with long hairs and a bald patch in the middle is sent inside. He has a tanned face, giving a hint of his belonging to the Indian subcontinent. He is shaking violently, apparently scared out of his wits. “I… I… I’ve got n...nothing to tell y...you” he stutters with a slightly Indian accent. The man with the hidden face grins loudly and says “Sit down and breathe a little. You have plenty of time to say what you want.”
The short man slowly pulls out the other chair and sits down. “Now, there is a drawer on your left side. Pull it open.” The short man opens the drawer and brings out a thick bundle of currency notes. “What do you see? There are total $50000 in there. You can count it if you want. They are all yours. Now, you have only got two choices. No.1, give me the information and walk away with that bundle. No.2, you are free to not open your mouth, but, you won’t see daylight again” he says ticking the options on his fingers and chuckles menacingly, while he paces up and down.
A strange malicious sparkle comes into the other man’s eyes. He licks his mouth, eyeing the bundle and says “I’ll tell you all.”
“Before his wife died, they had a child. It was a girl. I don’t know of what age she might be now, neither do I know her present location, but I do know this that she left India some time ago. That’s all I can tell you because that’s all I know.” “Find me her location and I’ll double the money” the man with the hidden face says. “You may go now.”
“Ah! So there’s a girl in the picture. That makes it all the more interesting.” He calls his bodyguard. “Jake, tell them to get ready. The game is beginning to speed up.”
Trapeze, Clydesville
Two weeks had passed since Zahra had come here but her mother and Avi hadn’t ceased from bombarding her with all kinds of questions, day in and day out. Former asked about questions related to her health, the kind of food she was eating or if she had taken any nutritious drinks or not, to those asked by the latter, related to her office, like how drop dead gorgeous Walworth Jr. looked. GOSH!
She hadn’t even been able to squeeze in the time for any kind of sightseeing or shopping. So, when she just couldn’t stay away from it all, she coaxed Laura into making a plan of a ‘girls’ day out’ with her. Laura was a fashion designer and worked for ‘Bling’, a world-known name in fashion. Since she had come here, she hadn’t been able to take a break, even for breathing, due to the mountains of work load and now, Zahra was bugging her, making her irritated.
“Laura, please, get up now. You said we’ll go and roam around the city for a while. Now keep your promise” Zahra said, dragging her out of the bed. “Go away Zahra, I haven’t slept for two nights straight and I have a show coming up. You don’t know how difficult it is to get the kind of inspiration for designing dresses. You have to rack your brains out. Do leave me alone, and go find something to do with yourself.” “But I have got nothing to do” she lied. “Please Laura, just this once. I won’t trouble you ever again. Please.” “Humph, okay, but this time only. I’m coming. Go get ready, and stop pretending to be teary eyed when you are bubbling with happiness from the inside.”
As a matter of fact, it was truly a great ‘girls’ day out’, as they called it. They, practically, went length and breadth of the whole city. Firstly, they went to the “Walworth Tower’ and the ‘Hawthorn Mansion’ and many other places worth seeing, then shopped to their heart’s content (at least, to their budget’s content, they did;-P), and finally, grabbed some lunch at a small restaurant around the corner, chatting away the whole time like two long lost friends.
The next day, Zahra hastily reached her office, remembering at the last minute that there was a meeting scheduled to be attended by her group, with her supervisor taking control of it and overlooked by the one and only, David Walworth.
She wondered what he would say to her today. Never had a day passed in her life, since coming here, when he hadn’t commented on her. Either it was the way she dressed or the way she talked or did anything that a normal person does, he always had a snide comment ready, and that too the kind which would pierce a hole in the heart of anyone it was directed at. In this case, it was her. Unlucky girl. She had such a strong aversion to him now that she couldn’t stand being in his presence for long, listening to his obnoxious comments, but, unfortunately, she had no choice.
Getting out of the lift, she ran through the corridor and just as she turned the corner, a huge Chinese vase, which had been sitting there since ten years ago, she had been told, got hit by her handbag and started spinning upon its base. She quickly steadied it, her heartbeat almost coming to a stop.
Seeing that the meeting had started, through the glass doors ahead of her, she began to run.
But, it really wasn’t her lucky day today, because when she ran once again, desperate to get to the meeting, the flap of her coat hit the vase, and it came crashing down onto the floor and splintered into a thousand pieces. DAMN!!!
She felt like the time had frozen, numbing her brain and limbs with it. On trying, she found out that she couldn’t move. She was soo going to be kicked out of here now THAT she was absolutely sure of.
All eyes in the room ahead turned towards the source of the noise and she could imagine them gaping, their mouths turned into the shape of an ‘O’. The only gaze she wanted to avoid at all costs, was definitely going to be on her the whole time now, and for the second time in her life, she wished for the ground beneath her to crack open and gulp her down, whole in one morsel.
Ya Allah! Why was life being so hard on her???
---------Author's Note---------
well... that took a while, but i'm really happyyy that it has been posted now. i am very sorry for the late update. i have introduced another aspect to the story in this chapter n i hope u guys like it :) don't take me wrong though, i've never been to that kind of a place ;) i just created a scenario based on those movies in which villains do sumthing like that....
there might be a few filler chapters afterwards but the story will speed up insha'allah
so enjoy :)