A Month Later

Sanskar stood in silence as he watched his family laughing after quite of lot time, he had spend countless day and night  wishing he knew the person who killed Sakshi, and when he finally found out , it came with the threat of his Shona's life all over again. It has been over a month since his Shona walked into the funeral and faced off with the person who killed her parents and back then they had been terrified and hopeful that soon it will end.

Sanskar may have written books on crimes and murders, may have written how to get the villain caught in his actions by the end of it and face the punishment but reality was proving to be far trickier than fictional world. Yet he wasn't going to lose hope not when each day he wake up with the determination to save his family from her.

The only tangible proof had been Abirami sister words and while it gave them the story, the proof that will be allowed in court remained elusive to them, in a bit to rattle her to act they have been using all her methods against her. And she still remained unshakable. 

One of the first plans had been using Sanskar himself as a bait, as he finally began to respond to her emails, to just rattle her enough to realize and see the person behind the screen, his silence had enable her to build a castle of dreams where she would somehow claim his heart and marry him and it was why he took it down when he sent her the first email after three days of her silence.

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To the one who killed My Wife,

         My Silence never meant I will forgive you in the future, the only place you will have in my life is the place of a Murderer who killed those I loved and I will never let you take anyone away from me anymore. 

To the one who killed Swara Parents,

       Remember that those innocent who died because of you will get to have their justice soon enough, you have escaped the prison so far , but not anymore and I will ensure you spend the rest of your life in an Prison cell of your own making.

To the one who killed her Own Sister,

       Your time in nearing the end. Because you don't deserve to be free to harm anyone more.

                  ***************************

 Each day he had sent her a email, addressing one of the person she killed as if recounting her crimes and her silence had been his answer, there had been the underlying fear she would retaliate every time he sent those emails but those emails purpose had been just that to make her react. 

Sanskar knew Pradeep had ensured two officers were following her all the time, so she didn't kill anymore innocents, what they need was her to feel caged in from all sides for too long before she let those mask slip and he had fervently hoped when it happened they will be able to catch her without losing anyone .

But the one place they cant keep control over her had been her online identity, and it was her most powerful weapon which had given her power to hack into their life from miles away, and Sanskar worried that she will wreck their lives without moving in person, he  rechanged his password every day, he added more security softwares, added more CCTV outside his home and even asked the same level of security in his Laksh house. 

His family were standing by him throughout it all, Laksh is half brother who still didn't about the truth yet was even right now standing beside his wife and smiling at her as they all gathered in his house to celebrate Asha Birthday. 

Swara had went along with all the plans, she had trained with him  everyday to learn to fight when and if her life was in danger, she had been growing stronger everyday yet the fear also haunted them for quite some time .

Each day of silence ,meant they faced yet another day in fear, it had been the reason Swara had insisted they will celebrate his daughter birthday with their family.

"Asha deserves it Sanskar, the little has no idea why she is taken outside of her home for over a month and she  needs not to forego her birthday because some killer is out to ruin our happiness " Swara had demanded it from him and it was why his whole family was in this house at the moment.

And for the first time, his house was filled with laughter after awhile, he saw Asha staying close to Swara as she was bit overwhelmed by all the guests, and it took her time but at the moment his daughter was playing with Laksh who seemed more than happy to be the doting uncle.

After his bade papa death, Ragini remained the firm support for his aunt which had been the reason his aunt initial dislike for her daughter in law faded too quick even as now she was seated beside her , talking quietly .

And then there was Sakshi family, when he called Adhash to invite them, he said Sakshi mom refused to come thinking of herself as no longer invited but Sanskar had assured Adharsh that he would never keep Asha from her Grandparents.

While they have arrived, he noticed his mother in law still failed to talk to him , he had hoped that he had earned her forgiveness after all this while , but her silence still remained between them making him bit sad.

As if realizing his thoughts , his Shona walked towards him and laced her hands with her giving him her support without a word.

"Go talk to her Sanskar ," Swara whispered to him surprising him by her words.

" She may not want to talk to me " he answered back .

" You will never know until you tried ,life is too short Sanskar , don't let this silence between you two stretch for longer than it had already been " she replied back and it was why he approached his mother in law few minutes later.

 
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Swara wasn't an expert in reading people but she knew Sakshi mother silence was no longer out of anger but guilt , she still could remember the night where a gun and mother's pain  threatened the life of the man she loves and she knew they were lucky to come out of it without loss and hurt.

So she pushed him to speak with her hoping they can sort it out, in this room except Ragini ,her cousin no one was related to her by blood but everyone was connected to her by heart and she refused to lose any of them

"Thank You " the stranger words made her turn to see Asha's Grand father standing beside her . Swara didn't notice him walking towards her .

" I saw you ask Sanskar to talk to my wife, Thank you for that , losing my daughter had turned her bitter and I feared she will never get over her anger at Sanskar and now she had been filled with guilt that I feared she was lost in her own actions , and now looking  at them talking makes me finally hope it may get better, so Thank you " his words were spoken silently as the man himself but behind it she saw a grieving father and an concerned husband.

All of them in that room had been affected by one person evil intentions , she broke the families apart, killed innocent to save herself and yet they were no where near catching her.

All the grief and hurt were too much for her to absorb that once the party ended she couldn't sleep well, Asha had been too excited that it took her long time to fall asleep even after that she couldn't sleep as she walked to the kitchen for a glass of milk .

She stopped short at the sight of another person in the kitchen, since Dida had been staying with Asha grandparents after the funeral, as she felt her daughter needed her more for awhile, it meant only one another person who had chosen to  stay in her room for the Party. And Swara in her turmoil failed to check if she had dinner.

" I am sorry Aandhi , I forgot to check if you had dinner ?" Swara spoke up as she tried to make amends for her carelessness.

" It totally fine Swara, I was working on my research papers and time flew by when I finished it , I realized a dead person can't publish any papers and I felt like I need some food and slice of cake to forget that " Anandhi answered back cheerfully as she ate a spoonful of the cake .

" I know it will be just words but Sanskar is trying to do all he can .." Swara answered back, because she understood where Anandhi was coming from and even if she didn't say it , she could know today would have been hard on her as it also happened to be her birthday.

Swara only knew about it because she had seen Pradeep bhai with two gifts and he confessed who it belonged too before he left as Anandhi failed to make an appearance throughout the party .

Back then Swara didn't know how to deal with the news , asking Anandhi to join on the celebration was too late and also the fact her family will be mourning her death will surely not make this day memorable to Anandhi, so she let it go to talk to her later . And forget all about it until now .

" I know Swara , don't think of me as ungrateful, I am fortunate that you were all kind to the person who sister is the cause of most of your pain , Asha would have had her mother by her side to celebrate her birthday  if not for Abirami , and I know all of you want to catch her as soon as possible . " Aandhi answered back .

At first whenever her family gathered to discuss about Abirami or how to catch her they excluded Aandhi in the discussion partly because they couldn't trust her fully and but also because they didn't want her to go through it .

Until two weeks ago she walked inside on one of their letting and made them realize she was on their side for this battle.

" When Abirami asked me at first to take the blame for her crime , I acted as her sister who had been so removed from the victims of her family that my sisterly instinct wanted to save her and hoped she would change as well .

But now I have been here for less than a month and yet I have seen the damage she did to all your life more clearly than ever before and I will never let my misplaced affected for my sister keep me from getting you the justice you deserve . So don't think I will betray you " Aandhi had spoken that and from that point she had been involved in their plans until now.

Not that their plans yielded much result until now. Their opponent silence was haunting them as surely as her actions .But Swara decided not to think about her at the moment as she gently walked away from Aandhi leaving her to eat her dinner whole placing the gift in her bed .

Swara didn't know what the gift contained but she knew Pradeep bhai seems to really like Aandhi and so hoped whatever it was the gift will ease her sorrow a little.

             ***********************

Aandhi walked inside her room to find the gift beside in the bed, she thought no one knew about her birthday and had been thankful no one said a word to her about it

There had been no card in the gift but she knew it was from him, another loss she had to endure was his lack of friendship, if they met at a different circumstances when she wasnt the sister of his suspect , if he hadn't shot her and felt guilty about it ,they could have talked normally with each other .

But until the case got over , she knew he would keep her distance from her and maybe hoping for something more after that was just her and he had already written her off or so she assumed until she opened the gift.

There was a bunch of photos inside it, her family members pictures except Abirami of course and the simple gesture touched her heart as she starred at her family , the pictures seem to have been taken today as all of her family was out together including Abirami it seemed because there were few pictures that someone was cropped out on purpose.

And she saw the cake in the pictures , it was as if her family was celebrating her birthday instead for her . The place had been the one Aandhi used to drag them to have some family time , A Villa of sorts located near a beach and she felt the tears fall down to see her family who seem to miss her after all.

Then she couldn't help it seeing the pictures made her want to see them more as she searched for their name in the social media sites , almost all of their sister posted a message about her and almost below all of them were cruel comments calling her a murderer.

She was seeing the twitter account of her sister and reading through those hateful comments made her angry, she didn't deserve those words and neither did her sister deserve it but that was the way of the world.

She was about to close them when a new message popped from her younger sister that shocked her beyond words.

" My sister didn't kill anyone , I will prove it at any cost "

          ************************

Abirami was fuming mad today that her family forced her to spend the day with them mourning her sister , she would have genuinely grieved for her sister if she had successfully took the blame for her crime

Instead she died without serving her purpose, today there had been no message from Sanskar , she had been hoping her continued silence will somehow make him believe the real killer had been her sister who died and hence no longer responding to him.

She wasn't a fool to reply back and prove that the killer was yet Alive but she also was a fool who opened the message everyday to read .

She didn't like this version of him , he was always rude to her and even made her remember the people she had to kill, it was like he hated her and Abirami didn't like to think she could never get him back.

And just when she was about to shut down her laptop , she got a notification from her sister twitter account and the tweet that read " My sister didn't kill anyone , I will prove it at any cost "

And just liked that Aandhi became her yesterday problem as Abirami walked towards her youngest sister room only to find it empty .

" Where is Anjali ?" She asked her other sisters trying not to imagine that the foolish girl would destroy all her silence by her actions

" You know how hard it is for all of us today, and so she asked to stay with her friends for the night " Ashwini answered back as if it was totally fine. 

" Which friend , tell me her name , I need to know " Abirami realized she was shouting by then but she didn't care as she refused to let another sister of her ruin everything.

When her sister failed to have the answer ,she went and used her hacking skills to see her sister's phone GPS location and once she saw her sister location she realized for the second time the cards she stacked so carefully was falling apart because her youngest sister was at the moment standing outside Sanskar house .

P.S : " That it for now . Let me know your thoughts and feedback .Hit the votes if you liked it "

Juanita Reid