by P. G. Van
“Hang on.”
She watched as his silhouette disappeared into the shrubbery, and after a lot of ruffling noises, there was a loud growl of an engine that boomed in her ears, and a bright light flashed in front of her almost blinding her. She looked in the direction of the light with squinted eyes.
She watched in amazement as Neil drove a massive motorbike from behind the bushes and slowly rode toward her.
“Not taking out your fancy car?”
“Want to be caught and taken back home?” he taunted making her want to slap him, but she refrained. She was itching to touch him again and have him touch her like he did earlier that day. It’s what her body wanted, but is that what her mind, and ultimately her heart, wanted?
She stood by the motorbike, her hand on his shoulder lost in thought.
“Hey,” his soft voice interrupted her thoughts, and when she looked into his eyes, something in her chest flipped. Her heart was trying to say something, but she knew it was lying to her. Her heart betrayed her once—the one time she let someone close to her—that person disappeared from her life. Even when she was a young woman, her heart told her he had something for her, but she knew he didn’t, and it only made her feel like a fool. A heartsick fool, and she couldn’t put herself through it again. Her mind was her weapon, and she fought her body’s impulse and heart’s longing as she climbed onto the bike.
She sat on the bike, her palms flattened on her thighs, back straight, and her body away from him.
“Hold onto something or be prepared to fall,” he warned.
She slowly moved her hands to rest them on his shoulder. Her body wanted more, but she knew she had to stop.
The rumble of the engine resonated with the drumming of her heart as memories of their time came crashing back—the endless time they had spent talking, studying, working on projects—what was the best time of her entire life.
Neil was the one person who showed her what it meant to have a friend, a friend who you could share everything with. But more than the happiness he gave her, he gave her ten times more pain, and that was the moment she decided to wipe him out of her life and to never think about him again.
She looked up at the dark sky fighting tears when she realized he was the reason she had not been able to get close to anyone. At almost twenty-four, she refused to get married because she didn’t trust anyone with her heart. He had managed to break her heart and rip it out of her chest, but the stupid thing was still beating for him.
“Stop,” she cried unable to handle the pain.
Neil pulled off the thin, mud lane and kicked open the side stand. He turned off the engine to look at her as she got off the bike. “Now what?”
She ran her fingers through her hair, her face turned away from him.
“Narmada, what is it? Talk to me.”
The last three words hit the nail on the head for her. “Really? I need to talk to you? Why don’t you start talking to me for a change?”
Neil took a deep breath and got off the bike. He turned off the lights and took a few steps toward her. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Why did you leave?” She didn’t have to give him any context. He knew what she was talking about.
“I had no choice.”
“You couldn’t come say goodbye before you left?” she challenged.
“Narmada, why does all of that matter now? It happened six years ago, we were too young for it to mean anything. We were just friends.”
“Liar,” she snarled.
“As I said, we were young, and if we felt more than just the friendship… it was just… infatuation.” He shrugged like it was nothing.
She felt something clench in her heart turning into a burn. Unable to bear the burn, she reached out to slap him, but he was too fast for her. He caught her by her wrist and held her at a distance.
“You need to stop these dramas,” he growled effortlessly pinning her hands together.
“This is not drama. I need to know… I need to know why you broke my heart.” Her words sliced through him like a Ninja knife.
Neil cursed under his breath not knowing what to say and realized there was no hiding anything from her. She was the one person he could talk to—maybe he should talk.
“I left because I was finished with my task.”
“What task? Being my fake friend or bodyguard,” she retorted.
“Narmada, I was hired as your bodyguard because you refused to go to college with your usual security. I faked not to be a bodyguard, but I did not fake friendship,” his voice wavered.
She had shut him out of her life when he disappeared with no final word. He was the first friend she had after moving back from New York, a friend who turned out to be a hired bodyguard. It angered her when she found out but soon realized his friendship was genuine.
“So why did you leave? I was willing to be your friend after I found out you were my bodyguard,” she challenged.
“That was not the real reason why I was there.”
“Was your task to kill Mr. Reddy?” Her words rang in his ears. He didn’t realize she knew he was the one who killed the man.
“How did …?”
She could tell he was taken aback. “I saw you right after you did it… you had the same look you did when you killed that guy who attacked me, Neil.”
He could not believe his ears. His first kill for revenge, hatred, and duty bore no witnesses or at least he thought so until now.
“You knew, and you didn’t say anything, and you still wanted to be friends?” It was his turn to ask questions.
“You need to answer my question first. Why did you suddenly leave when you stuck around even after finishing your task?” She wasn’t going to let go.
“I stayed longer so I wasn’t a suspect.”
“Just long enough so you could kiss me?” she blurted.
“Fuck!”
“Oh yeah, you think it’s frustrating to be asked questions? It’s the one I’ve asked myself a million times.” She sobbed.
“I’m sorry… I…”
“Unacceptable, Neil, a measly sorry doesn’t cut it. Why did you disappear.”
The pressure on his chest was too much to handle. “Because I had a long list of people to kill,” he growled.
“What? Why?”
“You won’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I was out there to kill the bastard who took the life of the man who rescued me, made me part of his home, and just when I thought I had everything…” He couldn’t continue, his throat was closing in like it was too painful to talk about it.
She took a step toward him to close the gap and wrapped her arms around him. “What happened?”
“I can’t talk about it…”
“You need to, you can tell me.” She was right, if there were anyone he could open up to, it would be her—not even the people he grew up with—only her, and it was beyond his understanding as to why he felt that way.
“Let’s walk.” Her voice was soft. She took his hand in hers and led him down the dark, narrow mud road. “Who is this man?”
“The man who rescued me from this goon who was training me to be an assassin.”
“What?”
“I was five when I took the first shot with a pistol. I was told I was born to kill and… it turns out I still couldn’t escape it.”
“Escape what?” She entwined her fingers with his.
“Being a killer.”
“Why do you have to be a killer?” Her question was innocent.
“I have no choice, I have to finish what I started,” he declared roughly.
“What is…”
He didn’t let her finish. “I need you to eat first, and then we can talk.”
“Neil…”
“Not now.”
“Fine, let’s go get your bike now. I don’t want to walk if you are not going to talk.” She grumbled and started walking back toward the bike.
CHAPTER 8<
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Thirty minutes later, Neil sat under the bright lights at the table in the village fair and watched her bring the food from the stall.
Narmada was excited to finally be with other people and wouldn’t stop talking to everyone who made eye contact with her. She switched topics to talk about their time in college when she realized it was hard for him to talk about his past.
She set the tray of food in front of him and settled down to eat. “I am so glad we stopped here… Did I pick up the right order?”
“Yes, you did. Thank you. I offered to bring the food.” He smiled.
“Hey, you ordered the food, I picked it up.” She wasn’t into the habit of anyone treating her like a lady, she had enough of being treated like she couldn’t do anything by herself, all her life.
She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she took a few bites of the local food.
“This is so good.” She finally looked up from her plate.
Neil was not eating. He hadn’t even touched his food. He was looking up at something behind her, almost into the sky. She turned around to follow his gaze and realized he was staring at a Ferris wheel.
“Never seen a giant, wheel-shaped roller thing at a carnival?”
He looked at her and shook his head. “Every time I see a Ferris wheel or a giant wheel like that, it reminds me of something, but I just can’t place it.”
“You probably had a bad experience on it.” She laughed.
“No… I haven’t been on one before.”
She almost choked on her bite of food. “And I thought I had a traumatic childhood.”
“Seriously, what does that thing remind you of?” He looked at the slow-turning giant wheel that people rode for fun.
“Maybe a water mill, a giant water mill.”
“No.”
“A windmill, an airplane turbine… Oh… the London Eye?”
He scrunched his nose and shook his head.
“This one is like the mini London Eye, the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe.” She giggled.
“I don’t know… but it’s not London. I’ve never been outside India.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“From what I can remember, I grew up in the orphanage run by a church, then with the bastard who turned me into a killer, and later with the person who came close to being my father. I will stop the killing once I get to the last guy, and Raj has the information.” He clenched his jaw.
“How in the world does that idiot have information, and how does he know?”
“I will kill him with my bare hands if he is messing with me,” he growled and added, “I don’t believe him either, but I cannot take a chance. His only source is through the connections he has with the Mafia.”
“That moron has connections to the Mafia.”
“Don’t call him names so much, he plans to win your hand in marriage.”
She spewed the sip of water she had taken. “I will kill him before I marry him.”
“I like that.” He laughed.
“What?”
“You said you would kill him, not yourself,” he teased.
“I’m a Senani. Senani women kill before they die,” she said with pride.
“I believe you.”
“You better believe it. I have an entire research paper about my grandpa’s cousin, the only woman of their generations… she was a true warrior queen.”
“Is that your history research?”
“Yes, and potentially my book about the families in the region.” She beamed with pride.
“What region?”
“My grandpa’s province, a land with its own story.” She had a sense of pride in her voice.
“Interesting.”
“What’s your story, Neil?” A hush fell between them.
He shrugged. “Just like everyone else’s story.”
“No… you are different. Your eyes tell me you’ve seen it all… like nothing will faze you.” Her eyes bore into his for answers.
He smiled shaking his head. “The historian is turning into a psychologist.”
“What do you really do?” she asked softly.
“I kill, I kill for money.”
A shiver ran through her spine in reaction to the cold, hard truth.
“Why do you have to kill?” It was an innocent question.
He didn’t answer immediately, and she wondered if he was going to go silent on her again.
She slowly reached to place her hand on his. “You have nothing to lose by sharing.”
“Because one of those morons was the reason my life became shattered,” he growled.
“What happened?” She realized he had a lot of pent-up darkness, and over the years, it had turned him into a monster, a killer, and a hunter.
“I was eleven when I was sent to the local market to assassinate one of the goon’s enemies.” He gritted his teeth.
“Neil, who is this goon you keep mentioning? How did you end up with him?” She remembered he was in an orphanage.
“The goon raided the orphanage run by the church, beat up the pastors, and loaded all the kids there into a truck and transported them to the city.”
“How old were you?”
He shrugged. “Probably five or so.”
“How did you end up at the orphanage?” She grew up with a family around even if they weren’t the loving family she hoped for. The whole idea of a kid not being with parents or some family did not make sense to her.
“Just like how all orphans end up in one place. Someone finds an abandoned child and brings them to the orphanage.” He made it sound like an everyday thing, making her sick to her stomach.
“When were you brought to the orphanage? Do you remember anything before you were taken there?”
He shook his head, but his dream of the woman with the child walking to the fountain, surrounded by a lotus pond, kept flashing in front of his eyes. He didn’t know why he saw that particular scene play and why every time something happened to the woman who was part of his dream.
“Why did the goon take the children?” She couldn’t help herself, she needed to know everything.
“Part of his business.”
“What?”
“Every child was assessed to do something, either they sell cheap goods at every traffic light, or they beg all day and bring the money or… the girls were groomed to be sold to sick men overseas as sex slaves and…” His voice trailed off like he had a block in his throat.
“What did they make you do?” her voice shook.
“I didn’t fit either of their normal profiles because the day I was taken to the goon’s warehouse, I tried to escape, and when they caught me, I took one of the men’s gun and shot him in his thigh.”
She gasped covering her mouth with her hand. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I pulled the trigger, and to this day, I don’t know how I did it. I knew what a gun looked like and as soon as I took it in my hands, it was like I knew what to do.” He ran his fingers through his hair.
“Oh my God… did you escape?”
“There was no escaping the warehouse. They caught me, beat me up, threw me into an empty underground water tank for a day to contain me.”
“Oh shit!”
“The water tank was nothing… anyway, that was a long time back, and it’s no use talking about it.” He brushed it away.
“I want to know, Neil, I want to know what made you, you.”
“Why does it matter now?”
“It may not change the past, but it can influence your present, and, in turn, define the future. Remember, I am a historian.” She smiled trying to lighten the conversation.
“Well, let’s just say I was trained to kill, I was the goon’s golden goose. He had me do demonstrations of my shooting skills, and for that, I got him to treat my friends better.”
“Your friends?”
“Yes, the other kids who were living in the warehouse with me.”
“How many years?”<
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“I lost count of years until I was captured by a police officer and rescued from the mess.” His voice held sadness.
“Who is this man and what happened to him?” She leaned closer to him, her voice a whisper.
“We need to go, Narmada,” he declared abruptly and stood up.
“What?”
“Too many people noticing you. Move.” He walked around to her side and grabbed her by her hand.
“Okay, okay… I’m coming.”
*****
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Mishra.” Abhay shook hands with the jailer of one of the most secure jails in India. Abhay had asked Dev to stay outside as he knew Dev would attack the goon the moment he saw him.
“I appreciate you coming here this late, Mr. Singham. We normally don’t allow civilians in this facility and couldn’t let anyone see you.” The jailer led him out of his office through a dark, stone-walled hallway.
Abhay had to put in a request to a central minister to get permission to talk to the goon who would know something about his little brother’s whereabouts. Dev and Abhay were hopeful they would find their brother in spite of everything they had heard about what could have happened to him. It took them a long time to find the person they were looking for—the person who kidnapped their brother from the orphanage.
“This man you are about to talk to is a beast. He is very tough to extract information from, no matter what we do,” the officer confessed.
Abhay didn’t care what the man was like. He had to stop himself from taking the man’s life when he saw him knowing the atrocities he had committed against small children, his brother being one of them. He could only imagine killing him with his bare hands.
“We cannot let you into the cell, Mr. Singham. It is not safe.”
For the goon, Abhay thought to himself.
Abhay followed the man in silence along the long hallway stopping at a dozen gates and finally down a flight of stairs. The lower level of the large facility had smaller cells with heavier bars on the gates. Abhay noticed most of the cells were empty, and there was an eerie silence that enveloped the area.
The jailer stopped at another set of double doors. “We moved him into isolation last week because he tried to escape for the seventeenth time.”