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Word Count : 3500

Song : Awari (Ek Villain)

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40 | Red, Fiery, Flaming Ichor

Two nursing assistants and a constable rushed towards them hurriedly. Consequently, the sub-inspector was carefully carried into the ambulance on a stretcher.

Meanwhile, the SHO of the area along with two more constables marched towards the spot where the DCP and the criminal profiler were alert on their toes, both of their frames in a crouching position next to the dead body of a supposed perpetrator.

"Jai Hind, Saab!" The SHO shifted his gaze towards Hinduja. "Jai Hind, Madam!"

The two constables followed up with their salutations as well.

Raghav passed a nod. "Jai Hind."

Hinduja stayed still, her pupils clashing against the pupils of the corpse.

"Torch." She said.

The SHO promptly handed his torch to her.

Switching it on, she focused it directly on the man's eyes. His pupils didn't dilate; they remained still.

Indeed, he was dead.

Her gaze then landed on the white froth that had splurged out of his mouth. Shifting the focus of the light emitted by the torch towards the man's hands, she examined them.

Pale and slender. Almost like the hands of an artist.

And around the pale and slender fourth finger of his left hand was a silver ring. Right on its lustrous bezel was what looked like a macroscopic pillbox. And on the pillbox was the carving of a flower.

She adjusted her specs, bringing her head closer to his hand. The carving looked similar to the outline of a lily blossom.

"Sir," she called.

Raghav, who was talking with the SHO, relocated his attention to her.

"The source of the poison." She pointed at the ring. "Look at this."

Both the DCP and SHO crouched down immediately to take a look at the ring.

"There is a carving on it. It looks like a lily to me." Raghav pointed out.

"Well, it is a lily." She replied.

"Let me collect it in an evidence bag." The SHO suggested.

Hinduja nodded.

As said, the station house officer wore gloves, took off the ring from the dead body's finger, placed it in an evidence bag, and handed it out to Raghav.

"Who is the coroner on duty in the SIT headquarters today?" Hinduja asked.

"Dr. Kanwal Dheer Chadha," the DCP replied.

"Isn't he already busy with the forensic investigation of the crime scenes?" Crossing her arms across her chest, she looked at him, a little perplexed.

"Actually." Raghav scratched his chin. "We will have to appoint someone else, it seems."

"I have a recommendation." She trailed, glancing at the corpse for one more time.

"Who?"

Her eyes followed the movements of the two nursing assistants who strode towards them with a stretcher and a black body bag.

"Dr. Rukhsaar Fathima. Currently posted at the Central Coroner Office." She paused, meeting Raghav's eyes. "She is skilled. Moreover, she is experienced and knows when to keep her mouth shut and when to open it."

The DCP nodded. "Alright. Let me inform the IG."

"Okay." Hinduja turned around to stare at the body.

Right in front of her eyes, one of the constables drew an outline of the body on the road with chalk by tracing the chalk along the edges of the body. The nursing assistants, on the other hand, effortlessly placed the body in the cadaver pouch and zipped it up while the SHO and the other constable lent a helping hand each. They then picked it up after stationing it on the stretcher and marched straight towards the patrolling Jeep.

The sudden arrival of an ambulance and a patrolling jeep had caused the suspicions of the locals to rise. Therefore, she wasn't surprised to see a handful of locals already trying to invade the police barriers.

Sighing, she roamed her eyes around a bit to check the situation at hand. Then, rapidly taking out a handkerchief from her blazer pocket, she strutted towards the Peepal tree two meters away from her. Hiding herself behind it's thick trunk, she opened the buttons of her blazer and the first two buttons of her white button-up shirt, the fabric of which had turned carmine due to the blood seeping in through it.

Her jaws tightened as she let her shoulders loose and breathed in deeply.

She raised her hand up and touched her shoulder. A hiss left her lips. Switching on the torch, she directed the light towards her shoulder. A deep and bloody laceration stared back at her, the raw flesh inside it visible to her eyes. Turning off the torch in her left hand, she shoved it inside her pants pocket.

She then set down the kerchief on the fresh wound, tightly tying its ends around her underarm and the acromioclavicular joint. Only once had she used a male handkerchief instead of a female one during her university time, and since then, it had become her habit to only use the male ones. They were longer in length, simple in design, and much more practical in use compared to their female counterparts.

"Rao!" Raghav called out.

Rapidly, buttoning up her shirt and blazer, she wiped her bloodstained fingers on her pants and walked out from behind the Peepal tree.

"Where were you?" The DCP hollered, sizing up her form with his gaze.

"My clothes were disarrayed. I was correcting them." She answered, ducking her head down.

The DCP cleared his throat. "Oh, okay." Pointing at the police jeep that had just arrived, he continued. "Go. They'll drop you at home."

"Okay." She shot back. "Anyway, which hospital is Daleep Ji being taken to?"

"Dhanvantri." Raghav responded. "That's the closest one."

She stopped on her tracks, her eyes on the road.

"I am coming with you to the hospital."

The DCP felt the gap between his brows knitted together. "What? Why? You just agreed to leave for your house."

"Now I am saying that I want to go to the hospital. Okay?" She affirmed, getting inside the ambulance.

The DCP exhaled, scratched the crown of his head, and then followed suit.

Twenty minutes down the lane, Hinduja witnessed the trauma surgeon bandaging the calf muscles of the SI, two bullets lying in a bloodied metal tray surrounded by carmine-stained gauzes on a stainless steel instrument trolley beside them.

"Kanjron ne goli maardi! Unke pichwaadon da bhartaa!" Daleep Bedi cried out, feeling the stinging pain in his calves.

"We need the bullets for ballistic investigation." Raghav voiced out, facing the surgeon.

The surgeon nodded in return. "Alright, let me prepare a report first."

Saying so, he turned towards the SI. "Daleep, Ji, you need to have proper bed rest."

"Rest kare mera joota!" The frustrated SI cursed again.

Scrunching his face comically, the trauma surgeon left the room, followed by the attending nurse.

Raghav glanced at the feminine figure in the room. Her expression, as always, was impenetrable. She was continuously staring at a distant spot on the whitewashed walls of the hospital.

"What happened?" He finally probed.

She clasped her hands behind her back. "I don't know, but there is something in this case that we are missing."

"What do you mean?" He looked on, befuddled.

"Before he died, he recited something in my ears."

"What?" The DCP now appeared completely engrossed in the conversation.

"It felt like a riddle." She trailed. "Or may be it was just a poem?"

"But what was it? Do you remember it?"

"In the dark we dive, in the dark we dwell,

How dense is this fog? Only time shall tell."

She recited, word by word.

"That's strange." He said while noting it down on his notepad.

"On top of this, that silver pillbox ring and the lily ascribed on it." She further pointed out.

"Pillbox rings, if I am not wrong, are rings with poison containers under or inside their bezels. Right? They were in use in Europe in the Middle Ages, if I am not wrong." He proposed.

"Indeed." She paused. "I feel that there is something that's still hidden from our vision, something or someone that we can't see yet."

"Hmm." The DCP agreed.

"Anyway, sir, if you could excuse me now. I need to use the loo." She said.

Raghav gestured at the door. "Sure, sure. Please go."

"Yeah." Saying so, she strode out of the room.

An even stronger waft of the phenyl-washed scent of the long corridor greeted her nostrils.

She roamed her eyes around and called out the first nurse who came into her line of vision.

"Sister?"

The nurse looked up at her from the metallic tray in her hand. "Yes ma'am?"

"May I know where the department of aesthetic surgery is here?" She asked.

"Aesthetic Surgery?" The nurse smiled. "Sure ma'am. Take the elevator to the third floor and then take a left turn. You will reach the aesthetic surgery department."

"Alright, thanks for the help." Hinduja smiled.

Five to seven minutes later, she found herself in front of room 302 on the third floor, which was actually a cabin assigned to aesthetic surgeon Dr. Chandrakant Bhullar.

But she didn't knock on the door. Instead, she turned around and walked a few more steps to stop in front of room 303-a cabin assigned to another aesthetic surgeon called Dr. Cassandra Shivan.

She gulped. Lifting her right hand up, she knocked twice on the dark wood door.

A faint 'come in' resonated from behind the wooden barrier.

She rotated the doorknob and entered inside.

Inside the cabin sat a woman of almost forty, dressed in a salwar suit, a pair of heels, and a spotless white full-sleeved lab coat. Her hair was chopped in a bob cut. The interiors of the cabin looked a bit cluttered, but she appeared prim and proper.

"Yes, miss? Please sit down and tell me what's the issue is." She uttered mechanically out of habit.

Hinduja swallowed. "I need your help." Saying so, she promptly unbuttoned her blazer and slipped out of it.

A bloodied white shirt greeted the lady surgeon. Her eyes enlarged in a second. "Oh my God! Young lady, we need to rush you to the trauma center!"

"No, I can't go there. Please." She took out her official ID from her pants pocket and showed it to the surgeon. "You have to help me here itself. Nobody should know about this."

"I can't, officer. What you are asking me to do is clearly against the protocols of the hospital!"

Hinduja let out a few staggered breaths. "Please ma'am. It's a request. Fifty innocent lives are on stake. I really need your help... not only in this." She paused, meeting the aesthetic surgeon's eyes with a soft gaze. "...but something else as well."

The surgeon sighed and remained silent for a second. "Alright."

"Settle down there." Pointing at the Gatch bed on the left corner of her cabin, she wore her clinical gloves.

"Thank you."

***

"Where are you?

- M. Dogra

The message read. She turned around to glance at Raghav.

"Can you please come and pick me up from the Trimurti Bypass road?"

- You

His response arrived almost immediately.

"Stay there. I am coming."

- M. Dogra

"Don't bring the security. It will rouse suspicion. Come alone."

- You

"Okay."

- M. Dogra

Shortly after, he went offline.

Turning off her own phone, she called her senior. "Sir, I am leaving."

Raghav shifted his attention from Daleep to look at her. "Okay, let me inform the police Jeep. They will drop you."

"Not required, sir. I'll go on my own. I have to fetch a few household goods from the supermarket along the way."

The DCP shrugged. "Alright, as you wish. Be safe." He halted in his speech. "By the way, you were right. Ramandeep, Patwardhan, and their respective teams did find the lilies at their specific locations."

Hinduja nodded. "That's good."

She then took a look at the SI resting on the hospital bed. "Take rest, Daleep Ji."

"I will, madam ji." The senior policeman gently replied. "After I deep fry all of their asses in Desi Ghee!" He finished violently.

The straight faces slipped, and the trio guffawed in unity.

Fifteen minutes down the line, at nine thirty p.m., Hinduja handed out the auto fare to the auto driver.

The auto driver left the premises while Hinduja stayed put on the footpath in the Trimurti Bypass Road.

***

Mahadevan steered the Range Rover into the left cross from the Barahmurti road and entered Shastri Marg.

Driving on the same road for fifteen minutes straight, he took a right turn and entered the Trimurti Bypass road.

Glancing at his watch for the eleventh time, he decreased the speed of the Range Rover but kept on driving. Meanwhile, his visual senses traipsed on both sides of the roads in search of her familiar, slender frame.

A minute into the search, his eyes landed on the feminine figure in black formals standing on the footpath on the right side of the road.

He quickly maneuvered the car in her direction. Promptly pressing on the breaks right in front of her, he keyed out of ignition.

Swiftly, fetching the tidily folded Black Pashmina shawl from the back seat, he got out of the car.

Their eyes met the moment he wound the shawl around her sylphlike torso.

To an onlooker, she must have appeared normal and all put up together. But to him, she didn't.

Gently grasping her hand in his own, he helped her to settle inside the car. He then himself settled inside, on the driver seat.

Instead of keying in the ignition, he pulled open the dash box. Instantly, a glass Tupperware container came into their line of vision, and inside the container were peeled and diced apples. Next to the container was a bottle of juice.

He picked up the container and handed it out to her. "Eat."

She stared at the container in silence for a few moments. Instantly, her eyes watered and her lips wobbled.

He immediately understood that something was definitely not right. Especially her posture; her shoulders were inclined in an unnatural angle.

He again unbolted the driver's side door and got out of the Range Rover. Bolting the door behind him, he rushed towards her side.

Unlatching the chic black metallic barrier, he helped her out of it and then settled her on the back seat. He himself sat down beside her.

"What happened?" He tenderly whispered, placing her hand on her right cheek.

She looked up to meet those earthy swirls that were slowly tilting her world around.

"Don't. . . Don't look at me with those eyes." She pleaded.

"Why can't I?" He tilted his forehead against hers.

"Because in the end, you might end up with a broken heart in your chest to nurse and an unveiled illusion in your sight to curse."

"What if my heart never breaks at all? What if I end up wishing for that illusion to be my reality in the end?" His lips wobbled.

She smiled faintly, tracing her digits slowly along the edges of his brows, gazing softly at his russet globes, the source of her catastrophic undoing. "Then, these eyes-these eyes shall become my one true reality. The only pair of eyes all my poems will ever be about. The only pair of eyes I'll ever let my existence define. The only pair of eyes that will together form up the last seven minutes of my life."

The four chambered organ inside his sternum accelerated vigorously, yet he maintained his calm. "Seven minutes are not enough. I want all seven lives to be mine. I need them to be mine."

Saying so, he placed his hand on her shoulder. She hissed.

His eyebrows scrunched up together in the fraction of a second. "Take off the blazer."

"No. Plea-"

He cut her off in the middle. "I. said. take. of. the. blazer."

She swallowed and nodded.

In a swift movement, he helped her out of the blazer.

A pristine white turned blood red shirt greeted his eyes.

His eye stared at her, agape, while his hands trembled. They slowly turned cold and sweaty.

Meanwhile, his heart felt as if it was dropping down towards his stomach every passing second. It wasn't a good feeling. It was terrifying.

His body shuddered.

Without even wasting a second more, he unbuttoned her shirt.

"Dogra Sahib, no-"

"Please." A tear dribbled down his cheek. "Let me."

One faint nod, and the shirt pooled at her waist. He avoided looking down; instead, he stared at the thick bandage around her underarm and acromion. "Who did this?"

"Just an accident at a crime scene."

"Stop lying!" He roared, his body tense and eyes diabolically red.

She shivered. "I can't do anything. At least, not until the end of this month." She paused, finally letting the tears of exhaustion out.

"I am exhausted."

His eyes softened. "Me too." He tilted his forehead against hers.

Picking up the shawl from beside her, he wrapped it elegantly around her unsheathed upper body. He then wound his arms around her waist and hauled her onto his lap.

His cold essence met with her comforting warmth.

"How long do we have to fight more?" She mumbled.

He chuckled. "Exactly what you say every time-Until the end of this month."

He slowly kissed her neck. Nibbling on the tender skin, he licked the spot.

"I am tired."

"Me too." He trailed.

"Can I cry?" She asked.

Combing his thick digits through her delicate hair, he answered. "If you want, you can, but I won't suggest you to do so." Swallowing the lump in his throat, he continued. "Okay, tell me something; does the Earth have any light of its own?"

"No."

"So where do you think it derives its light from?" He feathered a kiss over her chin.

"From the Sun."

"Exactly." He bumped his nose tenderly with hers. "I derive my light from you."

He paused, tracing his finger across her eyebrow.

She quivered. Her breath hitched.

"So, how is it possible that my only source of light has turned so weak? How will I subsist then? If you fall weak, how am I going to stand tall then?"

In response, her body only quivered more. He exhaled, rubbing his left hand on her back comfortingly.

"Chin up." He commanded. "Look me in the eye."

In a trice, dark brown earth clashed with deep black sky.

"You know what's the difference between a coward and a valiant?" Tracing his palm along her cheek, he flicked off the tear gliding down the corner of her right eye with his thumb. "A coward sheds tears over his fate a thousand times in his life; a valiant does only once-on the day of his victory."

He then placed his hands on her shoulders, comforting yet firm.

"And my wife is a valiant, not a bloody coward." He paused, their breathing intense, their eyes flaming. "So, here is a decree then: the next time her eyes shed tears, it shall be the day of her victory. Have I made myself clear?"

"Crystal."

"Repeat after me." He ordered.

She nodded.

"No blood, no glory." He pressed a kiss on her bandaged shoulder.

"No blood, no glory." She repeated.

"No sweat, no glory." His lips touched both sides of her temples one by one.

"No sweat, no glory."

"No toil, no glory." He kissed her forehead.

"No toil, no glory." She followed, her voice soft.

"No guts, no glory." He finally placed a kiss on her shawl-covered chest.

"No guts, no glory." She finished.

Finally, placing his head in the crook of her neck, he hugged her tightly. "I will be your sabre, shield, and bolster, all three together, when you fight wife, but just know that you are too precious for me to lose. Anything else but losing you. Death is acceptable, but not your loss. Losing this battle is acceptable, but not your loss. Keep that in mind."

***

It was three thirty in the morning. They were in their bedroom, and his head was in her lap.

Lifting her hand from his head, she picked up the pen in her diary kept on her left thigh, and glanced at the words in black ink threaded together on the pale folio.

The fire around me once engulfed me whole.

My battered body,

My shattered bones,

My scattered cremains.

The fire around me once devoured my soul.

My scorched skin,

My seared face,

My scuffled breaths.

But then I saw the sun rising on its own.

No support,

No uphold.

So, I rose too.

Bones cold to the core,

Red, fiery, flaming ichor.

- Hina

***