19— Big brother, is he?

The miseries of life never end. Or does it? Because as far as I have felt, we just get used to living with them in it.  

—Saumya Tripathi 

In the silence of the room, the sound of my heart's mellifluous beating in my chest was deafening. I felt a shiver run down my spine as his deep-voiced sentence intruded into my mind again. A mystique breeze whispered past me as I shivered lightly at the intensity of my own fear. As my cough ceased, I drew back slightly. 

“So does that mean: you were in love with me the moment you saw me?”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up at the attention while having an unsettling familiar feeling of being watched. I breathed shakily. 

"Good girl. Now, it wasn't that hard, was it?"

 My hold on the glass tightened. A droplet of fear of sweat strolled down my neck somewhere as I gulped. 

“Hm?”

I dismissed him completely. From then we sat silently. I, with my food, which I was barely eating. Quite forcibly. And him, feeding my brother. The silence was unnerving me and making me think uncertain cautious things until he smashed it with an infusion statement that had my ears perked up with sincerity. 

"This is the hometown of my sister-in-law. We don't really live here. Not like before, that is. Even so, I don't regret a bit, coming here now," his eyes captured mine, seeping the information through his eyes to mine. Though, I didn't quite understand his cryptic way of elaborating. I gazed at the stranger, named Uzair, in front of me, without blinking, still stuck somewhere between confusion and dizziness. “I am oddly familiar with the city. It used to be one of the few places where I found myself engulfed with tranquillity.”

Though, a suspicion rose in my mind at that very moment regarding his said sentence. Oddly family? I frowned. Didn't he say we were neighbours? Tilting my head at his robust sitting form with Shaur on his lap, I acquired: "You said you knew my family,” I blinked at him. “How come you knew my family when you didn't even live here?" I breathed. He lied. He always had. "You were our neighbours, right?"

A spark swept past his face prior to biting his lower lip, he peered at me. His face remained impassive. 

He didn't say anything.

"Why did you lie? What intentions do you have for us by keeping us here?" I asked rather serenely, my insides were everything but. 

I was terrified once again. 

"Did I say by any chance— I don't live here anymore? Not like before?“ he gave a pause. “That sentence was supposed to convey the meaning that I used to." 

His eyes glinted. Was he laughing at me? He shook his head lightly. The piercing on his earlobe gleamed. 

"And, I don't lie, little one,” he took a breath. “I would never lie to you. Never had. Never will. You must know that about me,” he completed it. "And, as I told you before I will tell you again: we were neighbours. We were. I never lied to you about anything. And we were really close. The bond we shared was sacred." The intensity of the truth inside his— those obsidian eyes were something close to the permeable pain which struck me hard. Maybe he was just good at lying to people's faces. A voice: my conscience muttered. "And, my intentions are quite clear. You just have to open up your large doe eyes to perceive it, and then concede it,” he alluded dryly. 

I peered at him through my eyelashes. And, he did the same: unblinkingly staring into my dark— slightly tired brown orbs.

My heart thudded erratically. 

Silence enveloped us in its own arms. Until the intensity of his eyes was too much for me to continue looking at him. My lashes dropped to hide my throbbing ache from my eyes. I stopped and glanced at my brother. His large eyes fluttered open and closed sleepily. Nonetheless, I still could feel his eyes on the side of my face, fixed on me, "What you did was expected,” he paused. I was confused. “I expected you to be irrational and daft,” I shakily breathed. “I expected it,” he clarified. Tugging away the empty bottle from Shaur, he tried to make him burp. "I knew you would be going to do something akin to trying to escape— which you did. Fortunately for me— I found you before you could have gotten hurt or gotten kidnapped by others,” his voice was scaringly calm. “And who knows what they would have done with you and your brother." I breathed slowly letting his words sink in. “Do you have any slightest idea what would have happened to you if I hadn't come?” He paused for a second. A cold shiver ran down my spine. He ran a shaky hand through his face. “The stunt you pulled was nothing but preposterous and absurd.”

In an instant, the doubt which was twirling around my mind came blunting out of my mouth before I could even think properly: "How did you find us? And, on the rhetorical side— I had already been kidnapped. And I still don't know what you are trying to achieve by keeping us!" My eyes widened of their own accord, but it was too late. The question was never supposed to be asked out loud, my hands came up on my mouth, impulsively. A shiver of fear went through me. 

A sudden sound had my head snapped up to the brute sitting across me, on the bed. He laughed derisively, throwing his head back. His laugh reverberated in the entire room. I now sat there, non- plussed with wide eyes.

"The question wasn't supposed to come out so bluntly, was it?" Subsiding his laughter, he mocked me with seriousness. His eyes had mischievousness in their depths. I frowned at Shaurya, who was now very wide awake with no ounce of sleepiness in his dark brown eyes anymore. 

I took a breath of stress. I stayed silent, however. 

As seconds ticked by while he sat there quietly, I found myself dreading his presence. "Immediate back-to-back questions? I can't do that in one go. Can I?" My eyes darted back into his secret ones. I wanted to ask what he meant by that vague sentence but the fear kept me at bay as another one of the images swept past my mind of him assaulting me after he found us. My heart thudded against my ribs remembering the brutal side where he had tried to threaten me by hurting me physically.

He grinned broadly looking at me. His full grin never faltered as I gulped. My heart started pounding like crazy.

"Though, I can tell you one stipulation." 

My heart rate quickened up, instantly. What stipulation could it be?

"So?" He pressed. "Are you okay with it?"

“Does my opinion really matter to you?” The question sounded so simple and yet the meaning it contained was way deeper. 

He didn't reply. 

The palpitation of my heart was frantic, the sound almost giving me a heart attack. 

I speculated in my brain with my head down.

“As a matter of fact— it does.”

His answer baffled me.

“If it's true, you wouldn't have been keeping me here without my will,” my octave was barely audible. 

“Maybe because I am unveiled to the perils which hang in our world that would never slink back from taking you in its captivity if given a chance.” Coldness seeped inside my veins as I couldn't feel my fingers which appeared to have gone numb. “To protect you from the danger lurking around in the darkness to devour you,” he took a breath of fresh air before adding. “I had to do it my way seeing you wouldn't have ever agreed to the other way. Or would you have?”

Silence fell upon us. 

He was right. I would never have agreed to any of this. 

“Thought as such.”

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I ran a shaky hand around my eyes feeling how stinging they were. Blinking, I tried to wipe the tears that had gathered underneath my eyes. 

"Shall I say what that condition might be?" He settled after pausing for a long time. 

I nodded my head meekly. My eyes were on my brother, Shaurya, who was also gazing at me, though innocently. I wanted to protect him from all the monsters which were active all over the world; lurking in the darkness. 

"You have to come with us, willingly. With me to Dubai without making a fuss," he stated. It was as if the burden of the entire world had been dumped upon my shoulders. I panted in panic when feeling the weight of the boulder growing inside my chest. I stilled at his remark. Dubai? And, before I could even come out from the daze to deny it in the foremost place, he continued: "I would even let you talk to your Uncle. And not on just a phone call, but I can arrange a meeting for both of you," he stopped. I gulped and blinked at the negotiation. As the boulder inside my chest grew heavy, I felt my fingers trembling from nauseating thoughts that clouded my mind. Would he really? “Do you agree?” Ever so slowly, I turned to look at him fully. 

“Are—are you speaking the truth?”

My eyes watered again. How could he say that so easily? 

Time seemed to have frozen. A shiver of shock went through my spinal cord. My mind was slowly going into rest mode. Another shock coursed through me when his condition sank in me.  

Happiness.

Longing.

Sadness.

Hope.

Would he really allow me to meet my uncle?

"What would you get in doing this to us?" My lips wobbled. The little food I gulped coercively just a few seconds ago, wanted to come out suddenly at his unprecedented stipulation. I felt sick in the stomach and tired and again confused. “What are you trying to achieve by doing this to us?” The question was a demand. 

Why would he let us meet our uncle knowing fully well I would want to leave this place instantly? 

He stared with an intensity which was new to me, I felt uncomfortable in his lucid state.

"You are more than safe with me. And, your uncle knows that too,” he nodded. His eyes slowly and leisurely stroll from my eyes to beneath and lingered on my cheeks and mouth. I turned away quickly. My eyes watered, yet again. I could feel his stare drilling a hole in the side of my face. "On the contrary, I don't need anything more than what I have already. You see— all I have that I need is right before me. And one thing that I desire— you would come to know in due time. Let's just get you mature enough to understand things, shall we?"

I paused. 

"I don't want to live here, let alone go with you to Dubai or anywhere.” It was a whisper but I knew he was able to hear it. “If being safe would let us be with you, then, I don't desire to be safe anymore." My head still down, I started with finality. "And, pray tell, what is this danger you continue to talk about?"

Silence. 

Racking his head through his hand, he stayed quiet. Staring intently at me without saying a word. There was a fire in his eyes that I had never seen before. 

Still silent, he was. 

“We were safe before you. We will be safe without you.”

“You were safe because your parents were there to protect you. With them being gone— you are bare to the world. You are nothing but prey for the predators to pounce on when given the chance. Don't let your naive mind fool you into thinking you could have survived without—” he stopped, taking a long breath in between. His nose flared. 

My breath hitched. "We are always safe because we have our uncle to protect us!” I was adamant about it. “What has changed? Our Papa made sure we always were kept safe," I continued in his silence. Nevertheless, he did not make any move to answer me. “Our uncle does the same. I am certain he will continue to do so in his absence.”

“Your papa is not here anymore. Is he?” His eyes were cruel; cold. “Nor do I see your uncle here to protect you. Is he?” His stance remained as stoic as a cool iceberg. Eyes cold, so cold I couldn't see any warmth in them or the emotions which should be present in human beings for other people: compassion. He lacked compassion. I was struck by the realisation. And his unreadable emotions had me awash with disbelief. I felt small at the intensity of his stare. Even when in a sitting pose, he seemed huge, bulky and taller. I chewed my lower lip after downcasting my eyes onto the open buttons of his white shirt. He had accomplished his motive by making a point there. Didn't he? Because his words weren't untrue. Filled with angry tears, I clenched my hands into fists. He hummed before taking a firm grip on my small-fisted hand. I jerked with the prompt contact but he didn't let me snatch my hand back. His callous tanned fingers stroked my fist softly which made me sigh fearfully and shakily before he placed it on Shaurya's soft head, all the while gazing gently at me. "And, what about him, little one?” My hand on Shaur's head shook. “Are you that selfish to destroy such an innocent life who even doesn't know how to stand on his own two legs, yet? Are you willing to embrace that stupidity and selfishness?" My heart skipped several beats at his accusation. 

No, I was not selfish! My conscience screamed.

Withal, reading my thoughts, said softly. Too softly like I was his long-lost acquaintance. "I know you're not selfish. You could never be,” he sighed. "There are people much more perilous and worse than I am who— are waiting for some little slip to strike back. There is a certain darkness of entities lurking around in every corner which even I can't get any control over, sometimes.”

His ragged breathing captured the silence. I could notice a little shadow beneath his eyes that held…was it stress, I…see? Maybe. 

"How come they are after us? My parents never had any enemies let alone these dangerous people!" I asked, eyelashes wet with my tears. Eyes round as of saucers. His dark emotionless eyes never left mine when I kept on asking the obvious questions which had my mind clouded with unsettling feelings. “We are a normal middle-class family!”

Gently, keeping my brother down in the centre of the bed with a pillow laid at the end of his form, he stood at his full height, almost hovering over me. His shadow engulfed me completely. 

I blinked twice. "I don't know you. How could you expect me to believe a total stranger like yourself?" 

"Come with me." 

“No! I would never come with someone who had captured us!” Incensed with his audacity, I yelled. 

“It's for your own—”

"Why are we here?"

"I already told-"

"Quit giving me lame excuses and half-truths! Please. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know how, but I found myself hitting him with my tight fists. I even did not know how I moved that fast. But, I did. Was it me? Or him I didn't know. I continued, thawing him with all my frustrations and pain I had in me. And he let me. He let me, before he clamped his stout arms around me, embracing me to his warm- wide chest. Everything was so overwhelming. So difficult to handle. My strong stance disappeared as I let him hold me. For a moment, leaving the fact that he was a total stranger to me and, because of him I was here crying in the very first place. I cried, cried and cried and he let me by holding me tightly. For the first time since I met him, I did not feel disgusted while being touched by him. Nor did I feel fear consuming me by standing this close to him. Maybe I was so lonely that I needed a hug, even if it came from a stranger. I did not know. I know nothing. The anguish which kept on building inside of me because of the biggest loss of my parents was too immense and too much to endure anymore that I couldn't help but wonder how very difficult it was to live life without them now. The realisation made me cry more. 

But, it felt good. I felt good. I felt light. My fists had stopped thawing him, however, remained on his chest beside my head as he held me. His hand slowly stroked my hair. Softly and gently and leisurely, I observed, even in my dazed state.

"I have got you, my little fragile bambolina," he murmured ever so slightly that if I hadn't been this close to him I could never have heard him.

He held me and I let him.

"We are not strangers, little one. We never were,” it was a soft murmur. “You just don't seem to remember it,” he let his hand keep on strolling at the length of my hair at a slow pace. “Whichever doesn't make me a stranger if you cannot remember me," he emphasised. “I remember you very well. You are the precious little present I was bestowed with.” He turned silent for a minute or two. "Don't worry as in the end— I will always be there to hold you even when you won't be needing me,” there was a vibration in his chest as he told me. His sentences were barely hearable. Almost half of it made no sense to me. “I would not let you put your life at risk. No matter what,” I closed my eyes in sadness, getting aware of the fact he would never let me go free at any cost. I would forever be his captive. That lone factor made me clutch his shirt tightly under my fists with vague thoughts which had me in confinement. 

“Ssh..” he silenced me. I just cried harder as his whisper entered my earbuds. His hand rubbed my hair as I cried, heartbreakingly. 

“Even if I have to force you into it— I would not back down from it. Because at the end of the day, it's your life on the line. I cannot afford for you to tamper with it.”

I cried harder. 

“Let me help you, little one.”

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