16— Home but not ours!

In the longest silence that followed, he wanted to tell her a thousand things.

.

.

.

Beginning with a plea that she could stay. The need to beg, pulsed in his veins. Yet, hoping against hope, he wished she stayed.

— Saumya Tripathi 

“If it were on me, I would never come with you.”

“That's a fortunate thing it isn't on you then,” he bent and whispered in my ear. “Otherwise that would have turned out to be such a disappointment. Wouldn't you agree?”

His words were like a dagger piercing through the heart. With a touch of poison rooted into the tone, I inched back. 

“Why?” There was a catch in my tone that I wanted him to know what he wanted from me. I would never give him willingly. Not until when I knew I still had a fight left in me. “Why are you torturing me like this?”

He clenched his jaws while levelling with me with an angry frown. Moving closer, he leaned towards me, his hand capturing almost the whole of my already wet face, “Because it's the only choice you have that I can allow you to have.” His unsolicited touch burned me. I joggled back. “And to what you are calling torture is what I call keeping you safe.”

I closed my eyes as another wave of tears hit me.

“Who are even you to provide me with choices?”

His fingers slightly tightened their hold at my obvious question. 

“I am someone you must start to trust.”

“On what grounds?”

“You should because I have both of your lives in the palm of my hands. Your— brother's, technically who you love dearly.” 

“No, please..” Before the tears could drip down, he wiped them away. I watched him with my wet eyes, hoping. 

Was that a flicker of softness I saw in his dark eyes, momentarily?

Though, it went away as soon as it came. With a flick of his wrist, he gestured towards one of his cars which were stationary in front of us. Just a few steps away. My eyes glazed with emotions which were even unknown to me. He sighed though his emotions gave nothing away. "Time is what I cannot render you, little one. The cars are all ready and waiting for us. You must not delay more than you already have."

Wanting to say something that I couldn't make myself stop, I told him under the influence of my emotional state:

“I would never forgive you for this,” a muscle in his jaw clenched as words barely left my mouth. His piercing dark eyes nailed me to the spot. The flicks of black and brown danced together when he stared down at me in shock or maybe the reason for his widened eyes was the panic I saw in them. Like he already thought if I could actually say something like that. He drew away from me at that moment as he retreated his hand abruptly from my face. 

“Wrong,” his hand dived down and gripped my upper arms. The grip was brutal. He brought me closer to him. It ripped a startled cry from me. “But as long as it will make you come with me out of your own free will, I don't care.”

My body went completely rigid. His impassive look further twisted my stomach around until the anxiety crept inside my heart like a poison slowly taking its roots in the veins. How could he say that?

“Why?!” I croaked up at him. “Just answer me, why?! Why do you even want us to come with you? Why are you doing all of this?” 

“You don't get it. Do you?” He stared straight down at me, hands folding against my face, again. I flinched. “No. Don't look away. Look at me,” he growled lightly. “I want you to look at me. Open your eyes!” gripping my jaws, he forced me to meet his burning eyes. “Because I want you with me, that's why! Do you hear me? Do you?” 

All air left my lungs after hearing what he had just said. Gripping my wet dripping braid in his hand, coiling it around his hand like a rope, he tugged on it. The tug was hurtful. Yanking me closer, pushing me against him, he breathed into me. I felt like I could not breathe. My head swirled in a daze. 

“I am sick of your silly questions,” he snarled thickly against my ear. I let out a whimper at his brutal grip on my hair. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to calm myself,” biding anger was hidden in the tone. “Don't make me do something I might regret later because you really have no idea how hard I am keeping myself in check with the thoughts at bay. Don't tempt me, little one. It won't end well.”

I gasped and then got forced to meet his eyes again when I dared to close them. 

“Now, be ready to go home,” leaving me abruptly, he drew back. 

That was when another wave of sadness kicked in knowing I was bound to listen to him. Without having any choice in the matter. 

“Get back up, little one.”

He waited, crouching down for me to get up. With his hands laid before me to take, he looked straight down at me. “I won't repeat myself.”

Waiting. I was crushed. Maybe for him, it was just a wait of a few minutes. I did not know. But the heavier part of the majority told me if I didn't take action, he would do something inhumane. And the letter part of his sentence had already confirmed it.

He nodded at Shaur, his eyes on me. "He is likewise waiting for his only sister to join him. See; how he has been staring with those innocent large warm brown eyes of his, towards you with hope in those shimmering eyes. Haven't you seen it yet?” he commanded. “Won't you be going to him? Are you going to leave the tiny him in the bunch of wolves out there to swallow him whole up? Will you, little one?" He alluded, tone gentle with a bit of amusement.

My heart leapt into my mouth at his stated sentences which were made up in my skull with illusions that felt so substantial that I flinched back, unconsciously. Nevertheless, I kept rooted on the spot. Perhaps frozen or maybe I was in too many deep thoughts to move.

To make me react, he carried on with his manipulation once more,

"Won't you go to him to ascertain if— he is even safe or not or probably doing fine, perhaps?" He intimated, while raising his hand, and gently tugging on my untamed wet tresses​ behind my ear. His callous fingers lingered more a few seconds than needed on my cheek. Strolling his warm callous fingers some more, he brushed my ear so softly which had me thinking at that moment if he really knew me in the past due to his sudden tenderness. Whichever, as fast as the thought struck me, it went off when I thought rationally. If he really knew me as he stated not a long time ago, he would not have been threatening me. Would he? Manifestly not!

"The more time you will take to choose, the more he would have to suffer," he reminded, motioning me towards my brother who was taken in the car which had the window opened.

When I saw him wriggling in the arms of the brute of a person who was holding him in a grasp, something in me snapped. My eyes widened further, even if it was possible. I kept gazing at my brother with my eyes wide and mouth gaping open. Another afresh trickle of tears made its way to my cheeks as I watched him helplessly. My muscles and tissues felt jammed. I felt torn apart from inside and out. Looking away from my wriggling brother, I leaned my head toward the person who was the reason for my woes.

"Just- just don't hurt him, sir. Please!" I articulated to him, while both hands folded with entwine fingers in front of him beseechingly. “Please…”

"I won't have to, you see, little doe. If you shall listen to me. I won't do a thing. I could never do that. And I really don't intend to. But for that you need to come with me," he alluded, gazing, yet once more.

The silence was what he got as voices inside my head started to chant out:

You have to go with him now. You don't have a choice anymore. Do you? No. You couldn't exactly leave your little brother alone with them. With him! Would you? Another certain voice at the back of my mind shuddered out. Within my own turmoils of my inner notions, I did not realise what happened next as it spurted like flopping birds in the mountains.   

"We have argued more than we needed already. I cannot afford to waste more time, moreover. Let's just get going, little one," bending a little more in my direction, he took my hand that was prodding in the grime of the splotchy road from his already extended hand into his— surprisingly large warm hand. Without any further intention of letting go, he made me stand and I was too blanked out to even resist the grip he had on me when taking me away from the concrete floor— in a standing position till I was standing very outside of his car with him beside me holding the door of the car for me to settle down.

"Go on, sit in the car and he—," pointing his long thick index finger at another Audi which was just behind him, where my brother was still trying to wrestle out from the grasp of the brute gazing at me with his bright brown eyeballs. "Will be given to you in no time," he completed, holding the door wide agape open. For me.

'There is no choice left, Radhika. You have to go with him for your brother.'

Yes, I have to!

I have to.

I will.

                              •

Hello my spectacular readers, who have been still continuing to support my story with love and care on ficfun. I couldn't just thank you enough. I just couldn't.  Because your love for my first story is unthinkable and untold for me.

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