Song of the chapter is Suggestions by Orelia Has Orchestra

-51-
-Himanshu Arora-
-Present-

___________

Shillók Motel
20 December, 2019
9:28 pm

The silence reverberating around us was the indication of an impending disaster.

Kartik's face fumed with rage and anger, his knuckles white as a result. The blasphemy in his mind was evident.

" I'm going to kill that motherfucker. I swear to God-" Kartik raged, walking to his car in a swift.

" Kartik, no....stop." Siya whimpered but Kartik didn't stop. I stole a glance at Veronica before running up to a raging Kartik to stop him. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Kartik, what do you think you are doing?" I asked, feeling dumb immediately after.

" What do you mean, Himanshu?!" He yanked his arm out of my grip. " He killed her. He killed my sister!"

" I know, Kartik." I said, in a bold voice to convince him. " I know that you're angry right now. We all are. But you have to think about this rationally, okay? We can't just waltz in front of him and accuse him of being a killer. That's not how it works-"

" I don't care how it works, Himanshu!" Kartik shouted, the veins in his forehead at the verge of popping. " If this guy is the reason I lost my sister and my best friend, then I'm not going to let him see another day."

" Kartik, listen to me!" I said, with emphasis. "He's smart. The guy always stays one step ahead of us for a reason! If we need to defeat him, we need to play like him."

My words seemed to have some effect on him. He breathed heavily and looked at me.

" What do you mean?"

" Yeah, what do you mean, Himanshu?" Zoya asked.

I looked at the others and then back at Kartik again and sighed. "We need to come up with a plan. But before that-"

Before I could complete my sentence, Zoya's phone rang through, startling the rest of us. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked.

" Don't worry, it's just Ahaan."

I nodded as she picked up the call.

" Hello, Ahaan?"

Ahaan's distant voice was heard on the other side, mumbling something.

" I do too...you won't believe what...just happened-" Zoya said.

" No, Zoya...I...I have.... something very...important-"

Ahaan's voice on the other hand sounded somewhat shaky. I asked Zoya to put him on speaker. She nodded and did the same.

"Ahaan, I can't..... can't hear you..... clearly...hello?"

" Zoya....Zoya...." Ahaan's voice broke twice.

"Ahaan,....your voice is.... breaking....hey...."

As Zoya said that, there was no response on the other side. Zoya called his name again and again. Veronica took a step closer to her, tensed.

"Aha-"

Before she could complete, there was a loud noise of something crashing on the other side. My eyes widened. The rest of them grew alert.

"Ahaan!" Zoya screamed in panic.

Two seconds later, the call ended abruptly, leaving us all tensed and scared for Ahaan.

"What was that?" Veronica asked, her voice quivering.

"We need to get to Delmore immediately. Come on." I said, nervously pacing towards Kartik's car. "Zoya go with Saina. Veronica and I'll go with Kartik."

Her face gleamed with fear and apprehension. She stood still in her place, still trying to comprehend the shock.

" Zoya  , come on!" Saina called, getting into her car. Zoya snapped out of her trance and with heavy steps, made her way to Saina's car.

As we all got in and Kartik reversed his car out of the motel's parking lot, all I could think of was Ahaan. And all I could hope for was his safety.

I wasn't ready to loose another friend just yet.

______________

" This is not good."

I said as we entered Ahaan and Siya's neighborhood. There was a police van, an ambulance and several paramedics crowding the street in front of Ahaan's house. Two or three police officers, dressed in clad blue outfits were circling around the ambulance and his house. Ahaan's mother stood beside the ambulance, hysterically crying over something that we couldn't see from the car. Siya's parents and Sanchi stood near her , probably trying to calm her down.

I asked Kartik to park a little far just to avoid suspicions of us hanging out together.  As we got out of the car, Saina's car parked behind Kartik's. Saina and Zoya got out of the car in a swift, watching the seen unfold in front of us.

I asked Saina, Zoya and Kartik to wait by the car as Veronica, Siya and I made our way to the scene.
My steps were heavy, almost stopping at every other turn.A tight knot was formed in my throat and I could feel the beginning of tears stinging my eyes.

As we neared the ambulance, the white stretcher came into view and I paled. Veronica let out a shriek cry. Siya whimpered.

There on the white stretcher, draped in a pearl white sheet was a body.

A gush of wind whistled through the atmosphere, making the sheet furl, revealing his face.

Veronica broke down in an instant on the pavement, covering her mouth and shaking her head vigorously like she wasn't ready to accept the truth.

Truth be told, none of us were.

Siya's parents ran up to her and hugged her as tight as possible as she too succumbed to tears. I guess her parents were just glad the body in the stretcher wasn't of their daughter.

I breathed heavily. His face had a bluish-white tinge to it. Fresh blood flowed from his forehead. He seemed scared and peaceful at the same time.

My breath hitched in my throat as I made my way to the others. As I neared them, Zoya ran up to me and looked at me questioningly. Her eyes spelled the question whose answer had the capability of breaking her into a million pieces.

I nodded, somehow.

She backed away, her body stumbling against Kartik's. Fresh tears stained her cheeks as she lets out a yelp of cry. Kartik wrapped his arms around her and let her scream into his chest. Her screams are muffled in his chest as she broke down crying.

Saina came up to me and hugged me tight as ever. And I stopped the urge to resist my tears and let them out ,if it were at all possible.

The rings of our phones chimed at once, breaking the sanctity of the silence that was once so peaceful. I and Saina took out our respective phones and then shared a glance.

Exhaling an exhausted sigh, I clicked on the notification.

‘He knew too much. ’

                  _____________

Paper Lantern
23 December, 2019
6:30 pm

An unwanted weight settled in the atmosphere as we all sat in silence.

They often say that to grieve is to be human. Psychology attempts to justify a person's reaction when they lose a loved one through a guide book of rules. The five stages of grief : Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then finally, acceptance. These stages however failed to justify what a person actually went through when they lost someone close. Especially in our case.

We were at all stages at once, with full intensity.

Siya wanted to deny the whole truth. She wasn't ready to face the situation just yet. Her agonizing cries as she sat by me after we came back from cremating Ahaan's body were enough evidence of that.

Zoya was angry. She grieved differently than the rest of us. She used her anger as a distraction from accepting the truth. The nothingness of the loss was something that was structured into anger, which exploded on anyone and anything.

And Veronica was numb. Again. She sat alone in a corner, not one tear escaping from her eyes. She often did this to sheild herself from any kind of pain. She relinquished herself into not feeling anything at all.

I wasn't sure which state I belonged to and honestly I didn't care. My friend was gone and there was no justification or correct way as to how I should grieve this loss.

Three days after the incident, we had decided to meet at the Paper Lantern. We all wanted to avenge his death and stopping ourselves wouldn't help with that.

But as we sat in the far vinyl booth of the cafe, none of us knew how to break the silence. I guess we still couldn't comprehend that Ahaan was no longer with us anymore.

" Did any of you talk to Ms. Jaiswal ?" Saina broke the ice. Thankfully.

I nodded negatively. " Not yet. She's not really in a good state right now. I'll stop by later."

Saina nodded slightly and sipped her coffee.

Zoya suddenly stopped tapping her fingers against the table and looked up at me, " Did you talk to Daniel?"

" I did." I nodded , recalling my exchange with Daniel two days back. He had dropped by Ahaan's house the day after the incident after hearing about the situation in the news. He had succumbed to tears as soon as I had confirmed the news. It was truly heartbreaking to see him in that state. He must've felt awful considering he was with him not even three hours before the incident. After a lot of persuasion and comforting, he had left for his house. " He was distraught when he heard the news. I somehow calmed him down and told him to go home."

" Did he tell you where he was when Ahaan got hit?" Zoya asked.

" Yeah, he was in his house. He said that after their date ended, Ahaan had decided to walk back home on his own."

Zoya nodded and breathed a soft sigh. Her eyes were gleaming with tears, that she tried hard to control.

" He was trying to tell us something. " Kartik began, looking at the rest of us. "You know....before...."

" Yeah....but what?" Saina asked , looking back and forth between him and I.

I blinked, narrowing my gaze on the salt shaker kept on the table.
" I don't know....his phone was destroyed in the accident, so there's no way to figure out what he wanted to tell us."

I looked over at Veronica, who sat by the window, her eyes fixated at the site outside. I frowned.

" Ronnie, what do you think?" I asked.

When she didn't respond, Siya nudged her a bit. Veronica snapped out of her trance and looked at her and then at me.

"Huh?"

" I said...what do you think Ahaan wanted to tell us before....he...you know.." I nervously fidgeted with my fingers.

" Oh...uh... I don't know, Moose." She mumbled, looking away.

" But...we need to find out what he wanted to say....it could be evidence against....the killer-"

" I don't care, Moose." Her eyes landed on me in a frantic beat, their usual glistening sheen replaced with a murderous glare.
" I don't fucking care if his last words were some kind of cryptic evidence against that sick fuck! I'm done... trying! I'm done putting everyone of your lives in danger!"

" Ronnie-"

" He's gone, Moose! He's not coming back!" The rawness in her voice compelled me to remain quiet. I had never seen Veronica so fiercely angry. "It doesn't matter what we do! He's always going to be one step ahead of us! He did this to Ahaan because we investigated about him! He punished him for something we did! Poor Ahaan, never even wanted to get himself involved in this!"

Her voice broke at the end,a depressive sound that broke my own heart. Tears were streaming down her porcelain cheeks, marking a glinting path along the curve of her smooth skin. There's rage burning in her eyes, darkness fueling the anger within her.

" So you're just going to give up?" Kartik bellowed , looking at her.

" No, Kartik. I'm not giving up." She looked at him , her eyes fierce and bold. " But I'm done playing his games. I'm done playing by his rules. I'm done with this shit."

She pushed Siya aside and stood up and looked at me. " Don't come after me."

Saying that , she walked away , her shoulders tensed beneath her flannel. Nausea bubbled in my stomach and threatened to come out. The diner's bell rang once more and then it's door closed with a faint click.

And despite Veronica's warning and the queasy feeling in my stomach, I stood up and ran after Veronica.

After all, that's what I did the best.