“People are here to meet you.” The announcement comes later and Mishti jumps up first, quickly getting in line behind the prison guard, her hands cuffed in front of her, yet a smile gracing her face. 

“Mishti!”

“Mishti Doi!”

Both the individuals say at the same time, and it is a pity that Mishti can’t shout in excitement like them, she might get her sentence extended. 

Though that doesn’t mean she won’t go rushing into the open arms.

“Why didn’t you guys come earlier?” she asks, pulling away, a pout gracing her lips, and both the individuals give her that same smile, sad yet fond. 

It took them a week to meet her again. Seven long days. 

“Sorry, sweetheart, I had been enquiring about what you had asked,” Aisha says, brushing the tress of her hair away from Mishti's face, something that her handcuffed hands don't let her do.

“And I bet you didn’t miss me too much.” Vivek rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly, making Mishti rolls her eyes. 

“When you’re in jail all alone,” Mishti can hear Raima correcting her in her head, saying how she isn’t alone. Mishti continues unaffected, “– you even miss your enemies, and you are my enemy turned friend, of course, I missed you.” She huffs, laughing as the duo does who have recently got engaged, well not officially because they are waiting for her to get out of the prison but the promise rings around their fingers are proof enough. Mishti can’t be happier for the two.

“How have you been, Mishti?” Aisha asks her, in that soft voice that makes Mishti reminisce those good ol’ days. She shrugs noncommittedly.

“It’s fine, I guess... Still alive.” She jokes but no one laughs.  She shakes her head.

“What happened to the search? Did you guys find anything?” Mishti asks thereafter and can’t help the way her heart sinks when Aisha just lets out a heavy sigh, shaking her head in resignation.

“We tried, Mishti. I hacked into their system: the agency’s, Mihir’s, Raghav’s, Ruhi’s …but I couldn’t find any trace of their whereabouts. The agency’s system have no inputs about them, most probably because they tried to clear out their name, while Raghav’s and Mihir’s have a really strong firewall. I’m unable to penetrate it. Those guys don’t want anyone to know where they are.” Aisha tells her remorsefully and Mishti just slumps down in the chair with a hopeless exhale, trying to control the way her lips quiver at yet another futile attempt.

It’s been so long; doesn’t her brother miss her?

“I have something to tell you though,” Vivek says, and in a low voice continues,

“About Samra –”

Just like that Mishti gets out of her melancholic daze, her gaze snapping to Vivek at his suggestion, her brows furrowing and face morphing into that of utter shock and melancholy at the same time.

“No.” she says, her hands clanking in the handcuffs. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“But Mishti, you need to –”

“No!” this time her voice comes out even more urgent, one that she instantly covers with the mask of indifference or at least she tries to. “Please, Aisha…”

They stop at that, looking at her with an empathetic gaze that she doesn’t want to be subjected to, but she knows they want her best.

“Alright, time’s up!” the prison guard says, bursting through the door with a thud, and Mishti has never been this glad for his interruption before. 

She looks at her friends one last time, and waves at them with a relatively forced yet sad smile knowing that she’ll not be seeing them for at least the next three days and will have to spend all the time fending for herself, staring at the wall and missing her brother. And of course, Raima. 

“Why do you look like you’ve been convicted again for a crime that you didn’t do when you’ve just returned from meeting your friends?” Raima asks, her hands busy carving up a soap with a pin which she got from God knows where. 

Mishti huffs out a humorous breath from her nose, rubbing her wrists as soon as the guard, this time a female, takes off the handcuffs from her hands and sits beside her cellmate.

“No, I’m happy.” She lies.

“Don’t lie.” Raima forbids her from doing so and so she lets out another tired sigh, laying back on her hard bed and staring at the dirty and water seeped ceiling. 

“It’s nothing. They just made me remember the day when everything happened. But I am glad that they came to meet me.”

“Hmm, say, didn’t your friends try to get you out on bail? I’m pretty sure theft is not an unbailable offence.” Raima wonders out loud and a bitter scoff leaves Mishti’s mouth.

“Oh, they did. But I’m not here for theft. Not anymore. They put me here for something else…” Mishti trails off, gaze still stuck on the ceiling.

“Which crime?” Raima asks, making her gaze once again avert to her.

“Huh?”

“Which crime are you here for if not theft? It’s been three months of you living with me and this is the first time you have uttered something of that sort.” Raima says, sitting up and Mishti mimics the action, choosing to look at the girl contemplatively.

“Even I haven’t heard why you are here. If you’ll tell me, I’ll say as well.” She quips, applauding herself for her diplomatic skills though Raima doesn’t seem to have the same view if her nonchalant shrug is anything to go by. 

“Mine’s not a big secret or anything. I severely injured the guy in self-defence who tried to molest me. The court made it sound like an attempted homicide, but I know what I did was right, I’m sure my lawyer would get me out of here. And even if he doesn’t, I’ll find my way to get out of here, one way or another.” She says, a determined yet sharp glint in her eyes. Mishti isn’t less of anything but proud for the girl. 

Of course, the molesters should be punished and had she been in Raima’s place, she too wouldn’t have waited for the court to punish the offender. 

“Yes, you will. What you did was absolutely right.” Mishti affirms and Raima smirks, mouthing a quick “I know!”

“So,” Mishti’s cellmate then says, leaning back against the bedstead. “What’s your story then? Why are you here?” she asks and Mishti tells her.

*

“Everyone betrays someone at some point in their life, and even if the betrayer doesn’t feel so, the person standing opposite to them always feel like it. I too betrayed and got betrayed in return.” Mishti swallows thickly, staring at the wall behind Raima’s shoulder. 

“First a person who we all considered as our friends betrayed us for reasons unknown, and then the agency that we worked for; gave all our time to; sacrificed our morals and risked our lives for…they betrayed us. They were all we knew and yet they conspired against us, against me, joined hands with a person who hadn’t had any problem making prey out of her son. She was a corrupt officer, a murderer. They asked me to do the things that would bring suspicion on me at its best and I, unknowingly, kept on saving myself in an attempt to save someone else….” Mishti gulps, shaking her head to get her head off the thought.

“My friends and brother ran away, fortunately. But since it was only me who had been left behind, they tried to put all the blame on me. Even for the crimes, I didn’t do. I was merely a thief who worked on instructions but that woman…” Mishti grits her teeth, still not believing how someone like her could be Daya sir’s wife.

“She made the police, her former acquaintances put me here on the charge of selling drugs. Drugs! I don’t even know their names or how they look like. But just to get back her reputation, to prove to the police that she isn’t a murderer, that she knows how to put criminals behind the bars, she did all this, got my fingerprints and now….” Mishti swallows thickly after voicing out her truth, a helpless look washing over her features. She remembers how her brother had warned her against the same thing, had instructed her to get rid of any identity markers or her fingerprints from around the place but she hadn’t. She didn’t get the chance to. 

Had stupidly thought something else to be more important than her safety. 

“Don’t you have anyone to help you out of this? Someone who you trust completely, who will do anything to get you out of here?” Raima asks in a pensive voice.

Mishti only has to wonder for a second.

“My brother will. One day, somehow, he will. And even if he doesn’t, I’ll just be content knowing that he is away and safe. What is five years of jail in front of my family’s safety.” Mishti says giving Raima a small smile. 

“I’m not sure about anyone else. No one loves me enough to not see me in this jail. The people that I thought did, they just…. stood there…. didn’t stop them …. He didn’t –” Mishti scrunches her eyes shut at the memory. She shakes her head.

“No, there is no one else.”