Author's Note: Hellllooooo! I am so glad so many of you are enjoying the recent chapters so much. I really enjoyed reading through the reactions, analyses, and thoughtful comments so much. Moving onto the next chapter, it's quite long, see you on the other side. It's still "safe for Ramadan"!

Trigger Warning: We revisit Meerab's kidnapping chapter here, along with the plight of the women that get taken/trafficked in this chapter.

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The hum of the machines was constant now – an unrelenting lullaby of blinking lights and quiet beeps that charted time in pulses, not seconds. It echoed softly in the sterile corners of the hospital room, becoming the only rhythm she lived by. Dusk crept in slowly, seeping into the whitewashed walls, bleeding gold and grey into the edges of her world. But Meerab didn't move. She hadn't for hours.

She sat curled at the edge of his bed, her shawl wrapped tightly around her like armor, her eyes trained on the steady rise and fall of Murtasim's chest. It was the only thing anchoring her – proof that he was still here, still breathing, still fighting, even in his silence.

Her legs throbbed, her spine ached from holding the same position for too long, but she ignored it all. The ache in her body was a small price to pay for proximity. To leave this room, even for a moment, felt blasphemous. Unnatural. As though stepping away might somehow weaken the thread that tethered him to life.

They didn't understand.

None of them did.

They came in shifts, each bearing good intentions and borrowed wisdom. Armaan with his firm kindness. Hamza with his restless worry. Maryam with her soft pleading. Even Maa Begum, who looked more like a ghost of herself than the steel matriarch she had once been, had knelt beside her and whispered gently, "Khwaish called, beta... you were supposed to start this week."

Khwaish. The NGO. The job that had once felt like a doorway to purpose. A dream she had chased for years, the version of herself she had carefully built over the years. She was supposed to be working part-time, just a few hours a day, all while she worked on planning her wedding. She had forgotten it entirely. Like so many things now, it belonged to a life that felt impossibly distant.

Maryam had called to excuse her absence.

Rumi had tried coaxing her into sunlight, pointing out the roses in bloom, the birds nesting again in the courtyard trees. "Spring is here," she'd said, with hope stitched into her voice.

Meerab had smiled, nodded once, and not moved.

They kept telling her to do something. Anything. As though motion alone could salvage the stillness of grief. As though it was action she lacked – not meaning.

But she had done things.

She had left this room, truly left it, and returned with blood on her hands.

She had walked into the ancient lion's den of the panchayat and taken her husband's place, his empty chair, while the weight of generations glared down at her with disdain.

She had lied through her teeth and dared the world to challenge her, claimed a child she did not carry, just to shield the lands he bled for. To buy time. To protect what was his. Hers. Theirs.

And still, they had only sighed.

As if her battle was misplaced.

As if all her defiance was just a girl's stubbornness, not a woman's war.

As if she were a child throwing tantrums instead of a woman holding together a life unraveling at its seams.

"Do something that makes you happy," they said to her in gentle tones, like happiness was a switch she had forgotten to flip. As if joy could be manufactured without him.

So she had.

She had taken out the old notebook – the one with the frayed corner from being thumbed through far too many times, its pages crammed with wedding plans once scribbled in breathless excitement. Lists of flowers. Names of venues. Doodles of sherwanis and lehengas that had filled long afternoons with dreams. A thousand small hopes for a future she had dared to believe in.

And so, she began again.

The wedding.

Their wedding.

Not as a distraction. Not even as an act of denial. But as the only thing she could offer him now, when he could no longer speak, or blink, or curl his fingers around hers like he used to. Her words filled the air in place of his, soft and steady, spoken aloud as she wrote – like a one-sided conversation stitched in ink and whispers.

No one seemed to understand. No one liked it.

They kept telling her to push the date back.

Two months, they said, was too soon. Too unrealistic. Too foolish.

"You're being impulsive," someone had muttered.

Even Rumi – her gentle Rumi, all soft loyalty and kind eyes – had hesitated. Her voice was cautious when she said, "Maybe just wait, Meerab. Give yourself a little more time."

But Meerab couldn't. Wouldn't.

Because the date wasn't just a date. It was a deadline.

A thread. A reason.

A whispered promise she made against Murtasim's silent form every night: You have to wake up before then. You have to come back. I cannot marry you in silence.

Even Armaan and Hamza, fierce protectors as they were, had turned stern. Angry. They told her she had painted a target on her back by lying about the pregnancy.

"It's too dangerous," Hamza had snapped.

Armaan hadn't said much – just stared at her with that unreadable look that only someone who had known you forever could perfect.

Bhaktu and Arsalan hadn't known what to say. They looked at her like she had grown wings and horns at once – bewildered, torn between reverence and worry, unsure if she was breaking apart or becoming something else entirely.

But Meerab didn't care. Not really.

The only person who didn't seem annoyed by her was the nurse.

A middle-aged woman with soft eyes and a quiet step, she had watched Meerab night after night as she slept slumped in a plastic chair, head bent uncomfortably, one hand always curled around Murtasim's wrist like she could anchor him with her touch. And then, one morning, without a word, there were two beds in the room. Pushed together. Not facing each other. Not apart. But joined. As if they were two halves of something whole. Something unfinished.

Meerab had looked at the nurse, unsure what to say.

The nurse had merely smiled and placed a warm hand on her shoulder. "You needed rest," she had said, then turned and left.

From that day on, it became a quiet ritual. Every morning, just before the doctors came in, the nurse would gently roll the beds a few inches apart to make space for the world to pretend that nothing was unusual. That the woman sleeping beside the patient wasn't his wife planning their wedding alone. That grief hadn't turned her stubborn. That love hadn't turned her brave.

Meerab hovered. Always. Every time a doctor stepped into the room, every time a nurse made a note or a machine beeped differently, she was there. She never flinched, never blinked. Her ears strained for words like improvement and stabilized, her heart bracing against the silence that usually followed.

"He's healing well," one of the doctors had told her yesterday, with the kind of gentle surprise usually reserved for miracles. "The swelling has gone down. I've never seen bones heal this quickly. He's strong."

Yes, he was. But still he slept. And she waited.

Now, as the sun slanted low through the half-drawn blinds – golden and warm and entirely useless – Meerab sat cross-legged atop what was technically her bed, though she refused to think of it that way. It had become an extension of his, pushed so closely against Murtasim's that the line between where one ended and the other began no longer mattered. Her back rested against a stack of stiff hospital pillows, the edge of his mattress brushing against her thigh like a silent tether.

Across her lap lay a disheveled sprawl of bridal catalogues, thick and glossy, each one reeking faintly of artificial perfume and glossy dreams. She flipped through another page, her fingers brushing over the weight of a lehenga done in harsh gold and deep emerald green. Her nose crinkled, and she muttered, "Ugh. Too much. I'll drown in it. You won't even be able to see me under all that embroidery."

Her eyes flicked instinctively to Murtasim's face.

Stillness.

Not even the softest twitch of a brow, the faintest tremor of lashes. Nothing.

She turned back to the catalogue, but her fingers barely moved. Her voice filled the silence, low and dry. "You'd say red. I know you would. You always say I look good in red. Like you don't even need to think about it. Like it's the most obvious thing in the world."

A small breath of laughter escaped her lips – thin and weightless, dissolving too quickly into the stillness of the room.

She tilted her head slightly, gaze never quite leaving him. "But maybe pink? Or cream? Ivory? Something softer, elegant... timeless." She trailed off again, flipping another page, only to flip it back in indecision. Her hand paused at a blush-toned ensemble trimmed with silver. "Or something different. Something no one expects."

Then her hands stilled completely, and her voice dropped to a whisper that barely made it past her lips.

"I was supposed to try on wedding outfits that day." The memory crept in like dusk under a closed door, subtle but undeniable. Her eyes remained on him, but her mind had already slipped sideways – backward – to the night before everything changed.

"You said you were going to linger," she breathed, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You'd pretend to be disinterested so Maa Begum wouldn't chase you out...but you'd linger around the corner to see all of the choices. And then, of course, later, you'd claim none of them were good enough – because obviously, I had to wear red."

She exhaled sharply through her nose, head tipping back against the wall.

"If you hadn't gone to the village..."

The sentence withered on her tongue, unfinished.

Because the rest was too much. Too sharp. Too final.

The words floated in the space between them, and the room thickened with the weight of all that hadn't been said. Her eyes, once fixed on the catalogue, lost focus. They turned soft, inward. Somewhere behind them, the flicker of memory returned – hazy and golden and unbearably alive. That final night. That last conversation. A tender thread replaying over and over again, as though if she held onto it tightly enough, she could anchor herself in it. Refuse to let go.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

"As weird as it is with the funeral having been just today..." she had exhaled, fingers lazily tugging at the buttons of his kurta, her cheek resting on the broad expanse of his chest. "I have an appointment tomorrow for my wedding outfits."

Murtasim had nodded, his hand brushing gently up and down her spine in that soothing rhythm he always used when her mind was too loud, her heart too full. "I'll make it a point to stay home and linger," he'd teased, voice warm, amused.

She'd lifted her head and smacked him lightly across the chest, half-laughing, half-scolding. "Behave, Mr. Khan. You cannot see my outfits before the wedding."

His response had been to chuckle, low and contented, his arms tightening around her, his nose brushing through her hair like it belonged there – like she belonged there. "Must I remind you," he'd murmured, "that we're already married, Mrs. Khan?"

That voice, low and lazy and so very smug.

"So that means there's no problem with me seeing things."

She had rolled her eyes and muttered, "Oh – so we're married when it's convenient for you?"

"Exactly," he'd replied, entirely unapologetic, a grin pressed into her hair.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Tears welled in her eyes now, blurring his still, silent face.

Those had been the last words he'd said to her – her Murtasim. Cheeky and warm, infuriatingly smug, always ready with a smirk that curled at the edges of seriousness. He had been so alive. So infuriatingly alive.

A sob caught in her throat, sudden and sharp, and she bit her lip to hold it down. But the ache rose anyway, thick and clawing, too much to swallow. Her fingers trembled as they reached for his, threading carefully between his long, calloused ones – warm still, but unmoving.

"I need you to wake up, Murtasim," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I can't do this by myself..."

She curled in closer, as close as the cruel sprawl of machines and tangled wires would allow. Her forehead dropped gently to his shoulder, and for a moment, she let herself believe he could feel her there – feel the way her breath shivered, the way her heart leaned into his as if to borrow its strength.

"It's our wedding," she continued, a hiccup hitching the words. "Not mine. Ours. And you promised. You said you'd be there."

She pulled away slowly, just enough to look at him again. His face was a study in stillness, so achingly familiar it made her breath catch. Her fingers traced the air beside his cheek, afraid to touch, afraid to disturb the fragile line between hope and despair.

"And you still haven't even picked your outfits," she muttered, trying for lightness and failing. "I was going to make you try on at least a dozen – matching ones. Ones that would coordinate with every single one of my outfits. You'd roll your eyes and pretend to complain but you'd do it. Because you always do."

Her voice grew softer, the corners of her lips trembling with a wistful smile.

"We haven't even picked the venue yet. Or the cake. Or the playlist – I want music, you know? I want a first dance. And I know Maa Begum will hate it, but we'll convince her. We always do."

She let out a shaky breath, blinking up at the ceiling.

"You have to come back. There's still so much to do. I've been planning everything on my own and it's exhausting and... it's lonely. So lonely."

The silence met her like a wall – unflinching, unchanging.

Meerab let out a breath that sounded more like a whimper and reached down, gathering the bridal magazines into a neat pile, her fingers careful, reverent. She placed them gently at the foot of the bed, as if leaving behind offerings to a god who had yet to decide whether to answer her prayers.

And then, slowly, quietly, she lay back in her bed – her mattress pressed beside his, the sheets still cool beneath her. She turned on her side, eyes fixed on his profile, the rise and fall of his chest the only thing that anchored her to hope.

Her hand reached across the narrow gap and found its place against his heart.

Steady. Warm.

"You're losing muscle mass too," she whispered, sniffing quietly, her thumb brushing idly against the fabric of his hospital gown. "You're going to hate that, you know? All that work in the gym... all that effort." Her lips curled faintly at the corners despite herself. "You're going to frown at yourself in the mirror, mutter something grumpy under your breath while flexing your arms and say, 'It's not that bad, right?' just to make me lie and say it isn't."

Her voice fell into a hush, and her eyes softened as she watched him, willing him to stir. To answer. To do anything but lie still like a memory she hadn't yet earned the right to grieve.

Her phone vibrated beside her. She blinked slowly, her hand hesitating before she reached for it, reluctant to break the stillness of the moment. When she saw Bhaktu's name flashing on the screen, she sat up, answering with a sharpness she hadn't used in hours.

"Did you follow him?" she asked without preamble, her voice low but urgent. Ammar Khan. The man who had arrived like a crack in the earth beneath her feet, bringing with him a flood of questions and something worse – possibility.

There was a sigh on the other end of the line, and then Bhaktu's voice – measured, cautious. "Meerab bibi... he only goes to one place without Malik or his guards."

Her frown deepened. There was something in his tone that raised the hairs at the back of her neck. "Which is...?"

Another pause. Another sigh. Then, with reluctant finality: "A brothel. On the outskirts of the village."

Meerab exhaled, the breath escaping her like something she'd been holding far too long.

"Oh," she said simply.

Of course he does.

The line was quiet for a beat before Bhaktu added, "You can't go there."

Her response was simple. "Thank you, Bhaktu."

She ended the call and placed the phone on the nightstand. For a long moment, she simply sat there, her hands in her lap, eyes fixed on Murtasim's sleeping face.

Then, she sighed again, turning toward him, and moved to sit cross-legged on her bed – her knees drawn up beneath her shawl. She reached across the small distance between them, lacing her fingers with his once more.

"Don't get angry," she said, her voice soft, steady in the quiet room. "But I have to tell you something."

She waited, just for a heartbeat, as if expecting the familiar sigh, the way his eyes would narrow in exasperation before softening as he tilted his head and asked in that infuriatingly patient tone of his, "What did you do?"

The silence that followed felt louder than any scolding he could have given her.

She squeezed his hand gently. "I told you what happened at the panchayat... but I didn't tell you that I asked Bhaktu to follow Ammar Khan. Just in case. I needed to know who he is, where he goes, what he does when Malik isn't breathing down his neck."

Her thumb moved in slow circles over his knuckles. "So...apparently...he goes to a brothel. On the edge of the village. Of course, he does."

She rolled her eyes to herself.

"I know I could just send someone in after him. Get a sample, rough him up a bit, make it quick. But that would draw attention, wouldn't it? I And attention is one thing I cannot afford. Not now. Not when Malik is quiet and thinks you're dead. I need him to keep thinking that. If he suspects anything – If he finds out you're alive, he'll try again. He won't fail twice...I can't lose you. Not again."

She paused, breathing in the scent of antiseptic and Murtasim's shampoo that she had begged someone bring from home, still lingering in his hair.

"I'm rambling," she muttered, sitting back upright, brushing her fingers beneath her eyes. "I know I am."

"What I'm saying is... we wrote a contract, remember? The one with all those ridiculous rules and clauses. And you told me that if I was going to do something dangerous, I had to tell you first."

She let out a watery laugh. "And yes, I know I didn't tell you before I declared to the whole damn village that I'm carrying your child, but I didn't really have a choice, okay? I needed to buy time. Honestly, this would all be so much easier if I was actually knocked up."

She groaned, rubbing at her temple, the tension still sharp behind her eyes. "Then I could've demanded a DNA test for Ammar, and when they asked for proof of pregnancy, I'd just show them, and they'd shut up. No more panchayat meetings. No more pretending. Just the truth and the blood to prove it."

She sighed again, rubbing her temple. "Rambling. Again. Sorry."

She looked at him carefully, her voice gentling. "So. The dangerous thing I'm about to do now – the thing you would freak out about – is going to the brothel. I need someone on the inside. Someone who can get close to him, collect a hair, a spit sample, something – anything. I need a DNA test. I need proof that he's lying, that he isn't who he says he is."

She squeezed his hand gently. "And yes, I could send Bhaktu. Or one of the others. But think about it, Murtasim. A man going in, asking for help in a place like that? You know what those women have survived. You know what they've endured. Why would they trust a man?" Her jaw tightened. "Especially after everything."

Her hand returned to his. "And I could just have him picked up from there, but if he disappears, Malik will look into it. He'll trace it back because I am the one with the motive and means. And when he starts pulling at that thread, he'll find you. I can't risk that. I won't. I need you to finish healing."

"I'm rambling again," Meerab murmured, her voice quiet but not uncertain, fingers tracing a slow, absentminded line along the back of Murtasim's hand. Her words spilled out like a secret confided into the hush between them. "So basically... I'll go. I'll try to find a woman who can help me. I'll take Armaan. Or Arsalan. Maybe both. I'll be careful." She looked down at their joined hands, the quiet tremble in her breath betraying the calm she was trying so hard to wear. "And I know you hate this. The scheming. The risk. The part where I put myself in danger while you're not there to help me."

Her gaze lifted slowly, eyes drinking in the stillness of his face, the gentle slope of his brows, the eyelashes that lay like shadows against his skin. He looked so calm, as though sleep was merely a pause in conversation rather than a question suspended in time.

"So if you want to stop me," she whispered, "now is a very good time to wake up, Murtasim."

She stared at him. Willing. Pleading. Begging the universe to grant her just one miracle.

But the silence remained unbroken. His chest rose and fell in even, mechanical rhythm. Machines hummed softly in the background. Nothing changed.

A soft exhale escaped her lips, and she tried to smile, though it wavered. "So...I kept up my end of the contract, okay?" she murmured. "I told you before doing something dangerous. Just like you made me promise." Her thumb traced small circles against the side of his palm. "Now it's your turn. You're supposed to show up at the last minute and save the day. You always do. I really, really need you to do that."

She waited.

And then, barely audible, she whispered, "I love you."

She leaned forward, hesitating only for a breath before brushing her lips against his cheek – soft and tentative, reverent. The warmth was gone now, replaced with a faint chill that sent a shiver up her spine. She lingered there for a moment, forehead gently pressing against his temple, as if she could anchor herself in his presence, as if her love could seep into his skin and call him home.

When she pulled back, she didn't move far.

Her eyes found his mouth, the curve of his lips – still, unmoving, unchanged. The oxygen mask had come off days ago, now replaced by simple support lines. His breathing, though aided, was no longer threatened. She could see him again – fully. And he looked like him. Her Murtasim.

And yet he didn't.

Her eyes dipped to his lips once more. That mouth that always curved upward when she said something ridiculous. That smiled into her hair when she wasn't looking. That whispered prayers into her skin when he thought she was asleep.

Her heart twisted. The thought came unbidden. The kind of thought she might have scoffed at once, dismissed as foolish or childlike – but now, it haunted her: What if I kissed him? Just once. Like it's a storybook. Like he'll wake up if I do.

The idea lingered, tender and dangerous. But almost immediately, her chest ached with the weight of reality.

It would be wrong.

He wouldn't kiss her back. Couldn't.

And that – that would break her. To press her lips to his and find nothing there. No flicker of response. No instinctive lean forward. No hand coming up to cup her cheek like he always did.

Just silence.

Just stillness.

So instead, she pulled away – just enough. And lay back down beside him, close enough to feel his breath on her cheek, but far enough not to shatter her own heart.

She stared at the ceiling above them, her hand still resting on his chest, fingers splayed like she was trying to hold onto something invisible.

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The sky was ink-dark and heavy, stretched taut over the land like a breath held too long. Stars blinked weakly behind gauzy clouds, and a sliver of moonlight sliced across the horizon like a dull blade. Even the wind seemed uncertain – brushing past the fields in hushed, uneasy sighs, rustling the trees like whispers that dared not speak aloud.

Their car rumbled off the narrow dirt path and came to a slow halt on the forgotten edge of the village – where shadows thickened and borders dissolved into ambiguity. This land belonged to no one on paper. But everyone knew. They knew what rose here from cracked foundations and crumbling cement, who ran it, who came and went, and what it meant.

Meerab stared through the dusty window. The building ahead loomed like a bruise against the night – wide and low, all cracked plaster and peeling paint, wrapped in a wash of sickly neon pink. Lights buzzed overhead, flickering in and out like tired eyes. A rusted metal sign swung overhead with no name, just a shape – half-moon, half-woman, all shadow.

Bicycles leaned haphazardly against a low brick wall. Two motorcycles sagged into the soft dirt like they'd been abandoned by men who no longer cared. A lone car idled nearby, its headlights off, the engine purring like something sentient and bored. From within, the building breathed noise: music that had long lost its melody, distorted qawwali with too much bass and none of its soul, overlaid by the guttural, slurred laughter of men and the bright, hollow responses of women trained to sound amused.

It didn't feel alive. It didn't feel sinful. It felt rotten.

The kind of rot that grew in quiet corners, that bloomed in places no one looked directly at, that wore lipstick and anklets and kohl-lined eyes. A brothel on the outskirts of a Sindh village wasn't a secret. It was just unnamed, unspoken, passed over in polite silence and pointed avoidance.

But here she was.

Murtasim Khan's wife.

The daughter of the Khan household. The woman whispered about in courts and households, now standing at the threshold of something that should have never seen her face.

Armaan exhaled loudly beside her, shifting in the driver's seat. "He's going to kill me," he muttered under his breath. "Murtasim's actually going to murder me for letting you come to a place like this."

Meerab rolled her eyes but didn't look at him. Her hand tightened over her shawl instead, pulling it higher around her neck and tucking it tightly beneath her arms. "He's not going to kill you," she said coolly, "not unless you do something idiotic like let me go in alone."

Armaan turned to look at her, concern clouding his face. "I can go in alone, you stay here." he offered. "Let me do this."

She met his gaze then, unblinking. "You think any woman in there is going to stick her neck out for a man?" Her tone wasn't unkind, but it was matter-of-fact. "Even one who looks like you?" Her eyes flicked briefly over him, unimpressed. "They know what men are. What men do. You think you'll get anything from them but lies and locked doors?"

She opened the car door slowly, the hinges creaking like an omen. The air outside was thick, cloying, a cocktail of sweat, smoke, perfume, and dust. The scent clung to her shawl the second she stepped out, turning it from soft cotton to a trap of odor and weight. Her sandals crunched against gravel as she stepped forward, and the ground felt soft in a way that made her stomach curl.

She wrapped her shawl tighter, as if the folds could shield her from the stares she hadn't yet seen but already felt. Every thread, every pleat was a declaration: She belongs to someone powerful. That was the only kind of protection that worked here. That, at least, would keep most hands at bay. But not all eyes.

"I just need one woman," she murmured to herself. "Just one who's willing to help me."

Because this wasn't about charity. Or curiosity. This was war. And Meerab had come armed with perception, desperation, and the kind of cold determination that only bloomed when everything else had already been burned down.

If she could win one woman's trust – one woman who might find it easier to believe another woman than a man with weapons and names to throw around – then maybe, just maybe, she'd get what she needed. A strand of hair. A cigarette stub. A water glass. A used napkin. Something. Anything.

Something that belonged to Ammar Khan.

Something that could prove what she already knew deep in her bones.

That he was not her father's son. And not the heir to Murtasim's land.

As they stepped inside, the air changed.

It hit her all at once – a stifling cloud of cloying perfume, stale sweat, cigarette smoke, and something saccharine underneath it all, too sweet to be natural. The scent curled its way down her throat like rot disguised in roses. It lingered, clung, refused to be ignored. Her stomach turned. It was the kind of smell that stayed with you, burrowed into your clothes, your skin, your memory.

The entryway opened into a room lit by flickering bulbs strung low along the ceiling – most of them dim, some completely dead. The walls were painted a deep, heavy burgundy, dark enough to disguise age and grime, but not the despair soaked into every surface. Tattered rugs covered the floor, their patterns worn down to shadows, dotted with cigarette burns and ash. Heavy velvet curtains hung in corners like cloaks hiding secrets. Mirrors lined the ceiling – not for decoration, Meerab suspected, but for control. A view from every angle. Nothing missed. No moment private.

The hair at the back of her neck stood on end. Her skin prickled, not from fear, but from the weight of everything that had once touched this air. She felt as though her soul itself recoiled. As if some ancient instinct was screaming that her presence here was unnatural – an insult to the parts of her still clinging to gentleness.

She gripped her shawl tighter, cocooning herself in its folds. With every step forward, her movements became more deliberate. The soft soles of her shoes barely made a sound, yet to her ears, each footfall echoed too loudly. She felt exposed. As though the walls themselves watched her. Judged her.

From behind a curtain, a woman emerged.

She looked to be in her late fifties, but time had not touched her kindly. Her face was a mask – thick kohl and smudged lipstick painted over skin that had seen too many nights. Her sharara shimmered with sequins dulled by years of dust. There was an elegance in her posture, but it was brittle. A woman who had learned to wear armor in silk and eyeshadow. Her gaze landed on Meerab, and something mean twisted across her face.

"Well, well," the woman drawled, her voice rough with smoke and contempt, "never thought I'd see the daughter of the Khan household walk through these doors." Her eyes flicked to Armaan and back, slow and lecherous. "But I suppose, with all the men dead, a girl's got to – "

The rest of her sentence was cut off by the sound of cash hitting flesh.

A wad of notes landed square against her chest with a hard slap. She blinked, startled, just as her hands rose to catch it, fingers closing over the crisp edges like a starving man clutching bread.

"That," Meerab said coldly, "is to keep your mouth shut."

The woman's eyes widened briefly, then sparkled with unmistakable greed as she clutched the notes to her chest like a sacred offering. Her tongue darted out to wet her cracked lips, and for a brief moment, Meerab felt the urge to scrub her skin raw just to erase the stain of standing here, of being seen by her.

Armaan leaned toward her, his voice low, sharp with warning. "She can't be trusted."

"I know," Meerab murmured back. Her gaze didn't leave the madam. "But she doesn't need to be. She just needs to be bought."

And in here – truth, dignity, safety – everything had a price.

Beyond them, movement stirred. More women filtered into the hallway. Draped in bright silks, jangling with glass bangles, their faces painted with expressions they didn't feel. They moved toward Armaan in practiced steps – hips tilted, shoulders squared, lashes lowered just enough to suggest invitation. They smiled like clockwork, like it hurt to forget how.

All except one.

One woman stood apart.

She didn't move with the others. She didn't perform. Her eyes weren't on Armaan – they were on Meerab. Still. Steady. She wasn't painted in loud colors. She wasn't pretending to be wanted. She simply stood.

And she looked familiar in a way that stabbed at something buried deep. A face from a dream half-remembered. A thread tugging loose from a distant memory.

Before she could even begin to ask herself why, the woman stepped forward. Calmly. Purposefully. Her voice rang out, firm but unthreatening. "They came to see me."

The madam's face twisted. "Since when do clients book appointments with you?" she snapped. Her voice was sharper now, brittle with suspicion. She moved to block their way.

Meerab didn't flinch. She reached into her bag again, pulled out another stack of cash, and flicked it onto the counter. It landed with a dull, decisive thud.

"Shut up," she said, eyes cold. "And point us to a respectable seating room. Or the closest thing to one."

This time, the woman didn't argue.

Her fingers were already moving, counting through the crisp bills as if her tongue had never dared to form a protest in the first place.

Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction, the kind of satisfaction that came not from comfort or dignity, but from survival – a transactional joy. She tucked the notes into her blouse with a sharp flick of her wrist and waved toward the hallway.

"Take them to the office," she called, not even bothering to hide her disinterest.

Meerab followed the quiet woman, her steps measured, Armaan a looming presence behind her. The hallway stretched ahead like a corridor of secrets, dim and narrow, the worn-out carpets muffling their footsteps.

As they rounded a corner, Meerab leaned in and whispered low, "Do I know you?"

The woman didn't stop walking, didn't even glance back. She simply raised a finger to her lips in warning and flicked her eyes toward a security camera nestled in the corner of the ceiling. Meerab stilled, her throat tightening. Not yet. Not here. She nodded once, her silence now as deliberate as her footsteps.

The room they were led into was... odd.

It called itself an office, but it wore its disguise poorly.

The lights were warm and low, casting a sheen over lacquered furniture that gleamed a little too much. The space was far too ornate to be functional – lush velvets in jarring reds and golds, a set of mismatched sofas arranged in a square formation, as if for an audience. And at the centre, a low, circular riser – just high enough to elevate but not enough to separate. A stage. A pedestal. A spotlight for shame.

The woman paused at the threshold and glanced at Meerab's face, as though she could see the question forming.

"This," she said softly, "is where women are sold and bought."

The words dropped like stones in the air. Meerab's breath caught as she looked again – really looked – at the room. The couches suddenly looked like thrones for monsters. The riser like an altar of sacrifice. She imagined the laughter that must echo through these walls on the worst of nights. The bidding. The humiliation. The stripping of names and stories until all that remained was a number and a price.

She hated this room.

She hated what it meant, what it reduced women to.

And she hated that she had walked into it freely.

But then, the woman began moving with quiet precision, her steps practiced, almost too smooth. She reached into the corners, lifted small potted plants, brushed her fingers against the edges of decorative frames. And one by one, she pulled out the secrets – small black recording devices, pinhole cameras hidden in hinges, under tables, behind curtains.

Armaan followed suit, surprisingly deft at the task, and together they placed each hidden eye and ear onto one of the couches, forming a grim little pile that shimmered with the promise of blackmail and betrayal.

"That should be all of them," the woman said, finally stepping back. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. "But speak softly. Even the walls have ears here."

Meerab nodded, her throat dry, her chest tight.

She leaned forward slightly, her voice barely more than breath. "Do I know you?"

The woman paused. Her gaze lingered on Meerab before she gave a small, sad shake of her head. "You know my sister. Sana."

The name struck her like a sharp, splintering inhale.

Sana.

The sound of it cleaved through time. A flash. A scream. A slamming car door.

It came rushing back in pieces – fragments of that late afternoon, splintering into the chill of that long, cruel night. It felt like a lifetime ago now, another version of herself. She had been following a cry – high-pitched, muffled, frantic. A scream from the back of a car that had shattered the still air and pulled her forward without thought.

Sana's scream.

She hadn't even hesitated.

And for that, they had taken her too.

They had been shoved into the same van, had managed to escape, and had been caught again. For hours, they had been kept in a locked building – bare walls, no windows, no light – while the men on the other side of the door tried to decide if what she'd said was true. Whether she really was Meerab. Whether Murtasim Khan would come for her. Whether he would be stupid enough to try.

And Sana – Sana had clung to her like a lifeline. A child, broken and terrified, wrapping herself around Meerab like she was the last branch on a tree in a flood - finding reassurance in her words that Murtasim would come for them.

And he had.

That memory – Murtasim's voice booming, the thud of footsteps, the sound of doors splintering open – had etched itself so deeply into her bones that even now, sometimes, in the half-light of sleep, she could still hear it.

And now... this.

A twist of fate so sharp it almost felt cruel.

Here she was, seated in the belly of a place where women were bought after being taken and broken, staring at the sister of the very girl she'd once tried to save from this exact thing.

Now, she was begging, in her own quiet way, for help.

Help for the same man who had once come for them.

Murtasim.

Once, she had promised a trembling girl that he would come.

And now, without quite realizing when the shift had happened, she had become that girl – frightened, waiting, whispering reassurances into the dark as if they could tether him to this world. Waiting for him to return, to reclaim what was his.

And until then, she had to hold it all in place – his name, his legacy, his land – until he came back to her.

Meerab blinked, stunned. The truth was slowly taking shape, but it felt like walking through a dream. "You're...?"

"Farah, Sana's sister," the woman said, voice quiet, but steady. "Thank you for saving her."

Meerab's lips parted, but no sound emerged. She didn't know what to say. The gratitude in Farah's voice was too large, too complicated.

"What are you doing here?" Meerab managed to ask, her voice rough.

Farah shrugged. It wasn't bitter. It wasn't resigned. It was just... true.

"I was taken before Sana was. But I wasn't as lucky as she was. I was sold locally. There was no raid. No escape. No Murtasim Khan." Her smile was thin, carved from something hollow. "By the time they found me... my family didn't want anything to do with me. This – " she gestured loosely to the space around them, the velvet-soaked shame of it all, " – is all I know now."

Tears burned behind Meerab's eyes. She blinked them away, forcing herself to stay composed, but her chest ached.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, ashamed of how useless the words sounded.

But Farah only shook her head again. "You saved my sister," she said simply. "That's enough."

Meerab stared, heart thudding. "How do you know?"

Farah offered a ghost of a smile. "All sorts of men come here," she said. "They talk a lot. Some of what they've done. Most mourn what they've lost. That week... when the girls who were promised to this brothel went missing, when they were raided... it was chaos. Panic. They blamed everyone. Each other. You. Your husband. And they took it out on many women here...needing to feel powerful again."

She trailed off, her hand unconsciously resting on her stomach.

The gesture was fleeting, but it lanced through Meerab like a blade.

It was the touch of someone remembering pain.

Not just physical. But deeper.

Something that had been taken and could never be returned.

Meerab wanted to cry. To scream. To burn the place down. But she did none of those things. Instead, she sat a little straighter.

"Have you seen Sana since?" Meerab asked softly, her voice a breath of curiosity and hope.

Farah's face stilled. A long second passed before she shook her head, her expression unreadable. "No. I just know that your husband's men... they took her to a doctor and then to a friend's house. The story given to my family was that she was with her friend, working on an assignment. Not taken. Not missing. If my father had known she'd been taken..." Her voice wavered. "He wouldn't have let her back into the house either."

Meerab's heart twisted painfully at the admission. It was one thing to know that the world was unjust – it was another to witness its cruelty laid bare in the eyes of a woman.

She suddenly remembered the words Murtasim had spoken after returning home that day, after liberating hundreds of women, of the battles that lay ahead for them, the uncertainty of their families' acceptance.

At the time, Meerab had nodded, but she hadn't understood. Not like this. Not until she looked into Farah's eyes and saw it – that heavy grief not for what had happened, but for what never came after.

Farah's voice interrupted her thoughts. "You haven't told me your name."​

"Meerab," she replied, her tone gentle yet firm. "And this is my cousin, Armaan."​

Farah acknowledged Armaan with a brief nod, her gaze never fully meeting his.​

"Why are you here?" Farah's question was direct, laced with curiosity and caution.​

Grateful – relieved, even – to have found someone she instinctively trusted, Meerab took a breath, steadying herself before speaking.

"I need help."

Farah's eyes narrowed, not with suspicion, but with interest.

"I heard your husband... disappeared," she said. "They say he was killed."

Meerab nodded, her throat tightening. "They're trying to take everything he owns... by presenting a relative who I am sure is no relative of mine."​

She paused, fighting back the swell of emotions threatening to overtake her. Reaching into her bag, she retrieved a photograph Bhaktu had taken and handed it to Farah. "I need his DNA."​

Farah stared at the photo for a long moment, her brows furrowing. The confusion in her eyes was plain.

Meerab leaned forward slightly. "Our bodies," she explained, "they're all different. Like fingerprints. And there are things inside us – cells, genetic markers – that can tell you who someone is related to. You and Sana, for example, share a lot of the same DNA. If someone tested you both, they could confirm you're sisters. But if they tested you against me, it wouldn't be very similar, showing that we're not related."

Farah nodded slowly, absorbing the information.​

"DNA can be found in various sources," Meerab elaborated. "Hair with intact roots, saliva, skin cells, semen, blood..." She let the list trail off, the implications clear.

Understanding dawned on Farah's face. "He comes here often, so you thought..."​

Meerab nodded, hope flickering in her eyes.​

Farah nodded, her mouth tightening. "He's visited me before," she admitted. "But he's not consistent. He doesn't return to the same girl twice in a row. It's always... new." Her voice didn't falter, but there was something in her eyes – flat and practiced – that made Meerab's stomach twist.

Farah paused, glanced at the door, and then added, "I'll try. He's usually drunk. He... passes out. After."

She trailed off, but the implication lingered like smoke.

Meerab's stomach twisted in protest, the taste of bile rising briefly to her throat. She swallowed it down with difficulty, and after a beat, whispered, "Thank you. I don't know how I can ever repay you for this."

Farah shook her head slowly, her dark hair brushing her cheek. "I owe you," she said, simply. "For helping my sister."

The sincerity in her voice was sharp and startling. It pierced through Meerab's defences with a gentleness that hurt more than cruelty ever could.

And for the first time, Meerab looked at Farah – really looked at her.

Farah couldn't have been older than her. Perhaps younger. Somewhere between her and Sana, caught in a space that had stripped her of youth and burdened her with a grief older than time. Her face was carefully painted, her eyes outlined, but it was all a mask, thin as gauze. Beneath it was a girl who had once been someone else. A sister. A daughter. A friend.

But now... now she was just tired. There was a kind of sorrow in her expression that no woman should have to carry. It was exhaustion etched into bone, the kind that comes from too many nights spent surviving in silence.

And then Meerab heard her own voice ask – quiet, strange, a little desperate, as though the words had come from a part of her untouched by strategy or pride – "Can you buy people back here?"

Farah blinked, startled.

The question had surprised even Meerab. But it came from somewhere deep inside – some place raw and desperate and furious.

After a moment, Farah nodded. "Yes," she said softly. "For the right price."

Meerab drew in a breath, steadying herself. "Do this for me," she said softly. "But no one can know. The Maliks – "

"I know," Farah interrupted, glancing toward the door again. "His men come here sometimes. They talk. Not much, but enough. I know they're behind it... your husband's – "

She hesitated, unsure of how far to go.

"Disappearance," Meerab supplied, the word sharp and sure, even if her heart faltered beneath it. Not death. Never death.

Farah nodded.

From her purse, Meerab retrieved a small slip of paper, scribbling a number down in her clean, slanted handwriting. She folded it once, then held it out. "This is my number. Call me when you have it, please."

Farah took it and tucked it into the strap of her bra, her hands steady.

Their eyes met again. Nothing more was said.

There was no need.

As they stepped back into the murky corridor, the scent of perfume and cigarette smoke clung to Meerab's shawl like sin – heavy, artificial, stubborn. The hallway stretched ahead in uneasy quiet, the dim light overhead flickering once before going still again.

At the threshold, the madam of the brothel stood waiting, arms folded, her expression caught somewhere between curiosity and contempt. But her eyes darted – restless, calculating. Like she was already crafting versions of the story she might sell if the right buyer came along.

Meerab paused. She let the silence draw out long enough for discomfort to bloom.

Then, slowly, she turned to face her.

The woman's gaze narrowed, lips parting as if to ask something – to test something – but Meerab's voice cut through before a single word could fall.

"I'm a lawyer," she said, softly.

Too softly.

The kind of softness that sliced clean through bone.

"If even a whisper leaves this building about me being here..." Meerab took a single step forward, her eyes sharp as glass. "You'll find this place shut down, sealed, and swarming with legal orders so fast you won't even have time to paint your face before the police arrive."

The madam blinked. Her tongue flicked nervously across her lower lip.

"You might remember what happened months ago, those raids...you know I was the reason behind them. I won't even need to bring the media this time," Meerab continued, her tone smooth, measured, precise. "I have the connections. I have the evidence. I have the women willing to speak – if it means no one else ends up in your red-curtained hellhole."

She tilted her head, studying the woman like she was considering something.

"I'll shut you down so thoroughly, your name will vanish like smoke in the wind."

The madam opened her mouth to object – something about politics, about protection – but Armaan stepped in beside Meerab, his frame casting a long shadow over both women.

"And we have the means," he said quietly, his voice low and deliberate, "to make sure that happens before you can even blink, imagine the power we have on our side if someone like you has power on theirs."

The woman's throat bobbed as she swallowed.

Of course she was afraid. And she should be.

Because Meerab wasn't just a woman anymore – not here, not tonight.

She was a whisper of power carried on quiet fury. A daughter of a family that ruled lands nearby, whose husband's word had been law in the village that the brothel stood on the border of.

And unlike most of the women who walked these halls, Meerab was someone people listened to when she spoke.

If she wanted to burn this place down, she wouldn't need fire.

Just a few signatures.

A few names.

And the memory of this building would collapse beneath the weight of silence and legal rot.

"If a peep gets out," Meerab said finally, "I'll make sure this brothel becomes a ruin no one remembers."

The madam said nothing.

She only nodded, once, quick and small.

And Meerab turned, her spine straight, her chin high, and walked out into the waiting dark.

---------------------------

Armaan sighed, his voice low as they walked side by side toward the car. "It's a small world."

Meerab nodded, the weight of the night coiling around her limbs like vines of unease. "Too small sometimes." Her breath clouded slightly in the cool air, their steps crunching softly on the dirt road that led away from the brothel.

She had to get back to the hospital and tell Murtasim everything that had happened.

Who would've thought that she would run into Sana's sister in a place like that? A girl she had fought to save on instinct alone, in a moment where every decision could have cost her her own life. And now, that girl's sister stood between her and the unraveling of Zubair's web of lies.

It felt like fate. No – more like threads being drawn together. A reminder that nothing in this world happened in isolation. Everything was tied.

Armaan looked over at her, his tone gentler. "I guess there is a God watching over you, Meerab."

She glanced up at the night sky, veiled in stars and silence. "I just wish he'd wake up Murtasim."

Armaan didn't say anything to that. There was nothing to say. They had all wished the same.

They reached the car. Armaan reached for the handle, holding the door open for her –

And then the night turned.

A voice slithered from the dark, thick with mockery and something fouler beneath it.

"Well, well, well... fancy seeing you here, sister dearest."

The world tilted.

She turned, slow as stone.

And there he was.

Ammar Khan. He stepped out from the shadows like something summoned – his black kurta catching the sallow glow of a lone streetlamp, the fabric slick as oil. His posture was loose, too loose – his limbs moving like they were slightly unstrung, like the high was clinging to his bones. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed in red, glinting with a hunger that had nothing to do with power and everything to do with domination. He looked at her like a man looks at meat. Like a predator who had scented blood.

And she felt it.

Her skin crawled.

"You don't have to sell yourself," Ammar drawled, his gaze dragging down the line of her body with deliberate slowness. "I'm happy to support my sister. You could even keep your room in that haveli... if you're nice to me. We can figure out exactly how nice that needs to be."

His words dripped with rot. The implication slithered between syllables, wrapping around her throat like a vice.

Meerab didn't move. Didn't blink. Her hands curled into fists beneath the folds of her shawl, nails biting into her palms. The only betrayal was the subtle tremble of her breath. But she didn't give him the satisfaction of fear – not where he could see it.

Armaan stepped in front of her, sharp and sudden, blocking her with his body.

The tension cut like a blade.

"She's not alone," he said flatly, voice like steel dragged against stone.

Ammar smiled. A sick, slow stretch of lips that showed too many teeth.

"Oh, I see that," he said. "Your cousin's quite protective, sister. Does your husband know?" His gaze slid between them, thick with suggestion.

His words were venom – carefully chosen to bruise, to shame.

Meerab forced herself to breathe. Her pulse was wild, but her voice came out cold, precise. "You wouldn't understand what family means even if it punched you in the face."

Ammar gave her a slow smile. "Then maybe you should teach me how to be a good brother."

"We both know you're not one," she said, her voice even, sharp as broken glass.

There was a pause. And then, almost too softly, he said, "I'm glad."

And he looked at her then – really looked.

It wasn't hatred. It wasn't cruelty.

It was worse.

It was hunger.

He looked at her like she was something to be possessed. Something to be defiled.

It made her stomach turn.

"Look at her like that again," Armaan said, stepping even closer, "and you'll find yourself dead at the bottom of a ditch."

Ammar laughed. A slow, curling sound that slithered into the quiet night like a curse. "Touchy, touchy," he slurred, stumbling slightly on his feet as Armaan shoved him back, a light push – but enough to make him stagger.

The sway of his body wasn't theatrical – it was real. The alcohol, or whatever poison had crawled through his veins tonight, made him loose, soft-limbed. But his grin didn't falter. If anything, it spread wider.

"Careful," he slurred, righting himself. "Wouldn't want anyone to see her with two men outside a place like this..."

The implication dripped like venom.

Meerab didn't flinch.

She inhaled, slow and steady. Her blood roared, but her voice was calm when it came. Cool. Composed. Coated in silk but laced with steel.

"You should walk away," she said softly, each syllable sharp and deliberate. "Before you say something you won't live to regret."

Ammar grinned again, swaying on his heels. "Regret?" he echoed mockingly. "That's a funny word... coming from someone stepping out of a brothel like it's her ancestral home. What would the panchayat think, hmm, sister?"

His eyes glittered with cruel delight, watching for the crack in her armor. Waiting for the flinch.

But Meerab gave him nothing.

She looked at him the way one might look at a roach scuttling across polished marble.

"They'll just think it's you slurring nonsense," she replied smoothly, her voice velvet laced with iron. "You seem so desperate to be seen as a Khan... but even the dust beneath our thresholds has more honour than you, who'd believe you over us?"

Ammar chuckled, the sound thick, like bile catching in his throat. "You think a sharp tongue and a lawyer's degree make you invincible?" he asked, moving in, she could smell the stench of liquor and something else woven into the threads of his black kurta. "You're playing a very dangerous game, sister."

"I'm not playing," Meerab said, her voice quiet and even. "You are. Pretending to be someone you're not."

He hissed something under his breath, but she didn't stop.

"You think no one's watching. That no one will catch you in the act. But I see you, Ammar. I see exactly what you are."

"You think you're so clever," Ammar hissed. "But you're just like your husband. He had that same glint in his eye. All fire and promises. And look where it got him." His smile twisted. "You didn't hear him scream."

The world dropped out beneath her.

The blood froze in her veins. Her hands went cold. Her lungs refused to work for a breath, two –

He had been there.

The silence in her mind fractured like glass.

She didn't flinch.

She didn't breathe.

She only looked at the man in front of her.

The man she was going to kill with her own two hands when the time was right.

And smiled.

A small, terrifying smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"You shouldn't have said that," she said, each word deliberate, like the slice of a scalpel. "Because now..." Her voice dropped, low and unshaking. "You'll wish you'd never drawn breath."

She was going to make him suffer.

Ammar's grin faltered, just briefly – but he recovered. "I'd like to see you try, sister. You're spirited. I like that. Just like him. All brave until the end. But people like you – people who believe in justice? You fall the hardest."

She studied him, gaze cool, voice like silk over a blade.

Her lips curled faintly. "And men like you – who hide behind shadows and lies – die the quietest."

For a moment, he said nothing.

And then he laughed, stumbling back with the jagged grin of a man who didn't know he'd already signed his death sentence.

"You'll be the one to scream next time," he said, voice low, intimate, as if promising her something dark. "That's a promise."

Armaan stepped forward again, clearly done entertaining her, but Meerab raised a hand to stop him from another moment. Her eyes never left Ammar's face.

"Go on then," she murmured, tilting her head. "Run along before I remember where my gun is."

He barked a laugh, stumbled as Armaan shoved him aside, and disappeared into the night, leaving behind only the scent of rot and ruin.

Meerab stood still, the wind tugging at her shawl, her heart hammering in a cage of bone. Her hands were cold.

But her eyes?

Her eyes burned with fury and a vow.

He would regret it.

She would make sure of it.

Armaan let out a slow exhale as Ammar's figure staggered down the narrow path, his shadow stretching long and monstrous in the moonlight before melting into the low-slung dark that curled around the brothel's porch.

The air had stilled. Even the crickets seemed to hold their breath.

"I think he was too drugged up to put two and two together," Armaan muttered finally, his voice low, cautious, as if naming the devil might summon him again.

But Meerab didn't answer. Not right away.

She stood still, her gaze fixed on the direction Ammar had gone.

"No," she said at last, her voice almost inaudible, but laced with certainty. "That... that was too smooth. Too ordinary. Like this is routine for him. Being high. Showing up here. Lurking in the dark. He didn't seem surprised to see us. Not really."

She drew in a slow breath, her arms crossing over her chest, knuckles white where they pressed into the soft fabric. Her jaw clenched.

"He wasn't completely out of it, Armaan," she continued. "He was watching, waiting, I don't know for how long."

Armaan turned to look at her, his brow furrowed with concern.

But she wasn't looking at him.

"Maybe he won't figure out the specifics," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "But he saw us here. Me, in a place I should never be. He's not stupid. He might not know exactly why we were here... but he knows I'm not just grieving anymore. He knows I'm doing something.

She shook her head slowly, the weight of it all settling across her shoulders like a second skin.

"He's suspicious. Maybe not certain. But he will be." Armaan muttered.

There was a long silence between them, broken only by the distant hum of a motorcycle engine and the low rustle of dry leaves swept across the road.

"If he starts thinking about it too much," she said, her voice growing quieter, "if he realizes I'm asking questions... if he connects this to the DNA..." Her throat tightened.

Armaan exhaled hard, rubbing a hand over his face. "Then he will tell Malik."

Meerab nodded once, solemnly. The stars above felt too far away, too indifferent.

"He will...Farah needs to move fast."

The words sat between them like something half-buried – dense with meaning and consequence.

A beat passed.

"Am I putting her in danger?" Meerab's voice trembled around the edges, guilt bleeding through in the pause that followed. The kind of guilt that was slow and bitter, because she had been relieved to find someone to help... and only now was realizing what that help might cost.

"She could get hurt," she whispered again, more to herself this time.

Armaan turned to look at her, his features drawn in tired sympathy. "Probably not more danger than she's in every day," he said gently, not to diminish her fear, but to ground it. "You saw that place. She's already surviving in a war zone."

Meerab said nothing. Her breath caught, her chest tight with something that felt like both dread and helplessness.

What would Murtasim have done?

The question pressed against her ribs. Not rhetorically, not wistfully – but with real, aching urgency. What would he say, if he were awake? If she crawled into that too-clean hospital bed like she did every night, curling into the space beside him, whispering everything she had done – what she'd asked of Farah, what Ammar might now suspect?

Would he respond tonight?

Would he finally stir, blink, open his eyes, look at her the way only he could?

Or would she talk into the silence again?

She closed her eyes briefly, her jaw clenched against the pressure behind her eyes. She wanted to go back. Not to rest. Not to sleep. But to tell him. To lay beside him in that strange bed that now belonged to them both, and say softly into the space between his heartbeat and hers: I'm trying. Tell me what to do.

But the only answer would be the steady, stubborn rise and fall of his chest. And tonight, like every night, she would try to take comfort in that. Try to believe it was enough.

------------------------------

The courtyard was quiet in that peculiar way only hospital courtyards could be. A place meant for fresh air and escape that somehow still reeked faintly of antiseptic and despair. The fountain in the center dribbled lazily, its sound too small to be comforting. The sky above had begun its slow descent into dusk, shadows stretching long across the stone benches that lined the cobbled path.

Meerab sat on one of them, her shawl drawn loosely over her shoulders, elbows resting on her knees. Next to her, Arsalan exhaled – again.

She turned her head, her voice coming out quietly rather than with the impatience that would have been there before...everything. "Fine, I'll ask. What's wrong, Arsalan?"

He startled slightly, glancing at her as if he'd forgotten she was beside him. "No, nothing."

She lifted a brow. "You've sighed five times in the past five minutes. When you're at the rate of a sigh per minute, something is up."

Arsalan looked down, his hands clasped between his knees, the nails on his thumb worn from habitually picking at them. "It's not important," he muttered.

Meerab sighed this time, her breath long and weary. She understood. Nothing felt important when Murtasim lay suspended between life and something less than it. Nothing competed with the ticking clock she could hear inside her head, louder with each passing hour he remained unmoving.

"Life still goes on," she murmured.

"Yours won't," Arsalan said softly, almost instantly.

The words hit her like a quiet slap.

She nodded slowly, her voice barely above a whisper. "Probably not."

He didn't speak right away. The silence stretched, the kind of silence between two people who had seen each other at their worst and still sat side by side.

"You're scary these days, you know," he said at last, his voice lacking judgment. It was observation, not accusation.

"Hmmm," she hummed, a question in her throat but no real curiosity behind it.

"You've always walked on the right side of the law..." he said slowly. "And now..."

"Now I go around killing people or plotting their demise?" she finished for him, not unkindly.

"I mean... yeah."

She let out a dry chuckle. "It's been two weeks since my father passed away. Almost two weeks since Murtasim..." she paused, the words 'almost died' were still off-limits in her vocabulary. "...got hurt. And nothing has changed, has it?"

She stared straight ahead, her voice growing firmer.

"There is motive. Everyone knows Zubair Malik had something to do with it. But nothing has really happened. And for a moment, I thought maybe I'd just walk into the police station and accuse him outright. Let the law do what it was made to do. But what then? We both know he'd be out in hours. If he is arrested at all." She shrugged, the movement slow and exhausted. "Then what?"

"You went to law school for all those years," Arsalan reminded her gently.

Meerab looked at him. "Perhaps if our society followed law and order more often, I'd play by the rules."

She paused, letting her words hang like smoke in the cooling air before she spoke again. "But here? In this country? In our villages? The law is a suggestion, not a safeguard. It's twisted by hands that hold power, that hold land, that hold silence over the heads of the vulnerable like a sword. You know how justice works in this world. You benefit from it too. By surname. By bloodline. By favour. Not by evidence."

She turned her face toward the fading sun, shadows creeping up the walls around them.

"People take people for their word here. That's the law that matters. Murtasim's word held power. People believed him. They'll believe Zubair's too, if he spins his web tightly enough. And he is."

The stories had spread like brushfire in the village – carried on the backs of whispers, woven into the warp and weft of daily talk. They had begun slowly, cautiously, then grew bolder as they found fertile ground in the minds of people who had always found it easier to believe scandal over silence.

Anwar Khan had a second wife.

That was the narrative now.

And to the villagers, it made sense. After all, his first wife – Meerab's mother – had died giving birth to her. Of course he would've grieved, and of course, a man like him would need companionship. Of course it would have happened in secret. And of course, that would explain his coldness towards Meerab. His absence. His anger. His disdain.

Because she hadn't been his only child.

There had been others.

So said the whispers that slithered under doors and slipped into every gathering.

And the worst part was, it fit too well. Like a coat long prepared, now worn with ease.

Arsalan sighed beside her. "Just like them having to take your word when you say you're pregnant."

Meerab blinked, pulled from her thoughts. She turned to him slowly and nodded, once. "Exactly."

That was the whole trick, wasn't it? Believability. Perception. Truth was secondary to what people were willing to accept.

Arsalan leaned back, his arms stretched out on the bench behind them, looking up at the branches overhead. "Pregnant women gain weight though, not lose. You should eat more."

She gave him a tired smile, one that barely brushed her lips. "I never feel like eating."

How could she?

When every bite felt like betrayal. When she sat by Murtasim's side and saw nothing but stillness. She could still remember, with haunting clarity, how he'd coaxed her into finishing a plate of daal-chawal, just before all of this – spoon-feeding her, telling her she ate like a bird. His fingers had brushed against hers. His smile had been maddeningly gentle, caring.

It had felt like home. And now nothing else did.

Arsalan glanced at her again. "Murtasim is going to wake up and be surprised by how skinny you are."

That drew a real smile from her – small, wistful, but genuine. She lived for these moments. When people framed things with when, not if. As if the future was still solid. Still promised.

"He's getting skinnier too," she muttered absently, her eyes softening at the thought.

Arsalan chuckled. "You're going to do everything together, huh?"

Meerab nodded. "I hope so."

There was a long pause, filled only by the breeze that stirred the leaves at their feet.

Then Arsalan said, almost too quietly, "Isn't that too much though? Being so in love with someone that you can't function without them? That you won't live without them?"

Meerab didn't answer right away.

Her hands rested quietly in her lap, fingers curled inward like she was holding something fragile there. She breathed in deeply, her voice low and slow when it came.

"Maybe it's not healthy. Maybe we're too dependent," she admitted. "But it doesn't feel like obsession, or desperation. It feels like..."

She trailed off, eyes lifting to the sky, searching for the right words among the clouds.

"It feels like our souls are tied," she whispered, "not with rope or chain, but something gentler. Like a thread spun from the first time we looked at each other and didn't look away. And that thread – it stretches, it weathers storms, it bears weight, it becomes stronger with time. But if it snaps..."

Her voice caught, just for a second.

"If it snaps, I think we both disappear."

Arsalan looked at her then – really looked – and there was something unreadable in his expression. Something like awe. And fear.

Arsalan sighed again, long and low, his gaze trained somewhere beyond the courtyard wall, as though the answer to everything might be hiding in the shadows cast by the branches above.

"I don't know if I want that kind of love," he murmured.

Meerab turned to him slowly, her expression shifting – softening with something like understanding. A beat passed before her lips curved into the faintest smile, not mocking, but knowing.

"You're sighing because of Ajiya."

His head snapped toward her in surprise, and then he laughed – a short, startled sound that broke through the hush like a stone skipping across water.

"You're getting slower," he teased. "Usually, you pick things up as they happen."

Meerab shrugged, the fabric of her shawl pulling tighter around her shoulders. "My attention's not all there these days," she said simply.

Arsalan nodded, and the silence that stretched between them now wasn't uncomfortable. It was full of the weight of things left unsaid, of long days and longer nights spent waiting in sterile corridors.

"So," she prompted, nudging his knee gently with hers, "what's bothering you?"

He hesitated, then exhaled through his nose. "She kept staring at me."

Meerab blinked. "Did you ask why?"

He shook his head. "I was giving her the silent treatment."

That earned him a long-suffering look.

Meerab tilted her head and sighed, half exasperated, half amused. "Of course you were."

She thought back to what now felt like another lifetime – the night of that dinner in Karachi to announce her impending marriage. The last night she had truly been happy. Back then, she had been light. Everything was perfect. She had gotten ready at the apartment Murtasim had bought for them, and then gone to see friends, smiling, and laughing with about the man she was going to marry. All while sitting at a dinner table with people who didn't know about family legacies, about feudal politics, about blood soaked into land.

Ajiya had been there too, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, unusually quiet, speaking softly about confusion. About Arsalan. About not knowing what she wanted, but thinking – maybe – that it might be him.

"You should talk to her," Meerab said now, gently.

Arsalan scoffed under his breath, his arms crossed over his chest. "She wanted to marry my brother."

"Ehhh," Meerab waved a hand. "Her parents wanted her to marry Armaan. Mami wanted her to marry Hamza. She was just along for the ride."

"Same thing," he muttered.

"It really isn't," she said softly, the edges of her voice turning serious. "Talk to her. Or you'll regret it forever."

His shoulders slumped, the tension easing just a little.

He nodded, once.

"Do it before my wedding," Meerab added, her voice lighter, teasing.

That was when he turned to her fully, and she stilled.

His eyes – those large, expressive eyes she had grown up with – were suddenly brimming with tears. He didn't speak right away, but when he did, his voice cracked ever so slightly.

"Murtasim will wake up by then."

Meerab nodded, quickly, fiercely. Because she had to believe it.

"We're going to feed him so much protein," Arsalan said after a pause, clearing his throat, clearly trying to laugh through the knot in it. "And he's going to exercise and bulk up again before the wedding too. Biceps, chest – abs, all of it. No way you're marrying him looking like a fragile prince in a hospital bed." He paused, then grinned, nudging her shoulder. "You deserve a sexy husband...that's why you fell for him, isn't it?"

Meerab let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh – soft, startled, and wholly hers. It slipped into the silence like a fragile promise, and something heavy within her shifted, just slightly, like a door cracked open in a long-dark room. For the first time in what felt like forever, the night didn't feel so suffocating. Because beside her sat someone who believed – truly believed – that Murtasim would wake.

That love, the kind that didn't wither in silence, waited on the other side of this long, breathless pause. And somewhere deep inside her, she imagined the thread between them – that invisible string of fate stretched taut across time and pain and distance – still holding firm. Still humming. Still pulling.

It had to.

Because if there was any justice left in the world, that thread would lead him back to her.

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Author's Note: Tadaaaaa! So what do you think? Whatever shall happen next? Hehehehe. Someone might come back, maybe, OKAY BYE.