Ival_Nidhi_Writes

In my 20s and holding on to it | My Insta | Wattpad | AO3 | Writer | Dreamer | Editor

[nidhi-writes]

Okay, after what seems like an eternity, I have finally swept through my dumps and dumps of one-shots/fanfics that I wrote that one could never search for and read in this pile of never-ending Tumblr. I made them on one master list!!!

You can find all my works in one-shots/gifs, video edits, and drabbles, as well as my upcoming works here. 

What else can I not love about this epic novel and its characters? The love, the politics, the Tamil, the Cholas, the pain—what else can I not love? As my eyes feasted on the scene where characters came to live, my heart beat for more so that my hands could paint the vision I saw.

Nandhini x Aditha

Kundhavai x Vandiyathevan

Vaanathi x ArulMozhi

Manimegalai x Vandiyathevan

Mandhakini X SundaraCholan

Beast Out Of Him

HIS NIYATI

Villains Love

I drabble a lot, and most of the time, I play with words and emotions, converting them into cute poems, or sometimes, those poems will be filled with angst and pain as well, along with the gifs that I have created so far.

Here are some that I have already posted

DEVA X VARADHA: Drabble~1 Drabble~2

VanMozhi: Drabble~1 , Drabble~2 , Drabble~3

Ponniyin Selvan: Drabble~1 , Drabble~2 , Drabble~3 , Drabble ~4 , Drabble~5 , Drabble~6 , Drabble~7 , Drabble~8 , Drabble~9 , Drabble~10 , Drabble~11 , Drabble~12 , Drabble~13 , Drabble~14

Well, what's without a bit of bhakti and love? Yes, I am in love with the stories our ancestors passed on and what our mythologies proudly represent, and my hands could not help but love to paint them in my own words. 

Thirivilaiyadal

Deepavali

Dasavatharam

Chudikodutha Sudarkodi - Kothai and her love

If you have scrolled down to this point, then you have become somewhat interested in my writings and want more. If that's the case, you can find my original/fanfic on the below sites, where I regularly post the stories. I hope to publish them in paperback one day.

Never say Never!!!

Wattpad

ao3

primary taglist [will be tagged in oneshots and the longs fics.] @mahi-wayy @ahamasmiyodhah @harinishivaa @whippersnappersbookworm @willkatfanfromasia @themorguepoet @thirst4light @hollogramhallucination  @celestesinsight ​  @curiousgalacticsoul  @tranquilsightseer @mayakimayahai @jkdaddy01 [let me know if you wanna be added or removed!!]

[nidhi-writes]

Bhama's Krishna

The Pearl of Dwarka

I grew up hearing Krishna’s name always accompanied by Radha when the question of divine love came up.  Like you hear Krishna, and you add Radha before the name of Paranthaman, who ascended into Dwaparyug with so much mischievous and so much nutkhut behaviour. Cause one without another doesn’t feel complete.

In the sanctum of love, I heard whispers of Radha Krishna, and in the sanctum of temple walls where I stood to worship, I witnessed Rumini Krishna. The Moustache Madhava, who was Sarathy to his Partha, hence named ParthaSarathy, stood tall, accompanied by his Priye Rukmini, his Lakshmi of Dwaparyug, with my hands clasped and heads bowed as the mouth whispered prayers, asking for wishes that lips can’t speak out.

In the same sanctum of the temple, someone stood to Maayon's left. I was curious who the second one was. It’s not until I have known the name I know through one who wore a garland that was supposed to be offered to lord Ranga, but chose to wear it first, and the lord accepted with his whole heart. Kothai, the one who ruled Love, the one who ruled Kanna, and the one who ruled Tamil, is hence called “Andal”.

Who is this Andal? She is the only female poet among the 12 Alwars–the saints of Vainavam. She is also said to be the avatar of Bhudevi, who later merged with her Hari in Srirangam, with her favourite Ranga, the one who sleeps atop Adisesh on the cosmic ocean. From this, my heart and mind exploded with a million questions: if Andal is the avatar of Bhudevi, did Bhudevi take any other avatars before Andal? Like how Rukmini is said to be an avatar of Maha Lakshmi, did Bhu Lakshmi take an avatar along with Krishna?

That’s when, through the echoes of time and space, the name landed into my ears and into my heart, which still beats. 

“SatyaBhama”

Who is SatyaBhama? Oh, the one who is egotistic? The one who always fights with her Hari? The one who is always jealous and wants Krishna for herself? Her? 

But wait, how would Bhudevi the Bhumi mata be anything of the sort, like it? She is the most selfless, loving, and caring mother to everyone. The one who holds us, and even with everything we mortals did to her, she always protected her kids. Then why? What made SatyaBhama portray such sense? It doesn’t make sense at all, right?

Was she really like that? That's what kept me awake, of course, she can’t be, what my heart whispered.

That's when my search for who SatyaBhama is began. And in that search, I found myself closer and more in love with her than I could express. Even though Rukmini holds my heart, SatyaBhama holds my mind forever, enslaved in every possible way, just as she was with her Kanha.

The more I read of her and learn about her, the more I am entrapped like she is, this Mohini that entraps people with her beauty, with her way of talking and with her love. After all, she is Bhumi Mata, who has held me since I was born into this mortal body and will hold me even if my soul leaves her to attain moksha; she will forever hold me, as I am as much a part of her as I am of my parents.

She is Playful, she is natkhaut as same as our dear Kanha, she is a warrior, and she knows her worth that none can bring down, and most importantly, she knows what she wants and never compromises. She is an ultimate icon of today’s world as much as she is of Dwapryug.

It’s not until I heard the song, that one song that lives rent-free in my mind and the song I have to chase the meaning of the lyrics. “Sathyabhame Sathyabhame” from the Kannada movie “Ravi Chandra”. But it’s not the original I heard; it's the remix by Sanjith Hegde that made Eem stop and go full spiral, searching for the original. And I am glad I did, and I am glad that in a way the path to me was shown by the dear Bhama herself, if not how I would never have been able to blush, laugh and giggle at the lyrics and imagine the play that Kanha went to attain Bhama’s love?

As the lyrics speak of the poetry, even Narayan has to ask forgiveness of his Narayani, and how Satyabhama made him kneel to leave everything and appease her.

To imagine the Leela just by hearing the lyrics, as I sway to the beat of Manmohana and his Mohini, and imagine the Leela that must have gone on.

Sathyabhāme Sathyabhāme kōpavēne nannali

Sathyabhama, Sathyabhama, why this anger toward me?

Sarasake karedare virasava tōruve yēke nannali 

When I call you for love, why do you show such coldness toward me?

Yēke nannali… yēke nannali…

The whole song made my heart skip a beat many times as I find myself watching the leele happening in front of me. But it got me thinking…why was our dear Bhama angry with our Kanha? What made her so angry that our Krishna had to try to pacify her? Is it because he does not give her enough attention? Or is it because he gives more attention to his other queens?

All the questions, but no answers. After all, I am just a mortal, am I not?

So I did my own research and took my own sweet time to understand the band and the Leela of the sweet Bhudevi. Of course, I am not yet fully travelled through all the Puranas and ithihasas, but I am there, and I am reading, cause savouring each verse’s taste better than rash reading, cause we all have a lifetime to get to our destiny, don’t we?

As I read, the more I fell in love with SatyaBhama, the more sense it made. She is Bhudevi avatar, the Bhumi Mata, who is the epitome of calmness, selflessness, the mother to all creatures that wake on this soil, to all the materialistic wealth that this world possesses, she is the shakti to it. She doesn’t get angry at us mortals for literally making her suffer; she protects us all.

And yet, in Dwapar Yug, she walks into Krishna’s palace with her chin lifted, never covering, and her voice unwilling to soften even for Narayan himself. The same Bhumi who bears everything in silence chooses, in this avatar, to bear nothing quietly. She argues and sulks. She has demands, and most importantly, she makes her Kanha kneel.

So how does the all-bearing Bhumi Mata become the fiery queen who makes even Narayan kneel? That contradiction is where I had to stop and look closer. Because if she is truly Bhudevi, then nothing about her in Dwapar can be a flaw. Everything must have a reason. Everything must be leela.

And the more I read, the more it unfolded like a lotus, petal by petal.

She wasn’t born fierce by accident, of course, she isn’t. She was born fierce because she had to be. You all remember Narakasura, the asura who terrorised the three worlds, who stole the earrings of Aditi herself, who locked away sixteen thousand women in his palace. He was inevitable in all senses because Naraka had a boon. A boon that no one could kill him except his own mother. And his mother was Bhudevi. The earth herself.

So tell me, who else could end him? Who else could lift the bow against her own son to protect the world she also called her child? Only she. Only our Bhama. Krishna flew on Garuda to Pragjyotishpura, yes, but it was Satyabhama who drew the arrow. It was Satyabhama who let it fly. It was Satyabhama who watched her son fall, and then, in the same breath, lifted him into her arms and blessed him to rule in his father’s place.

Tell me, what kind of woman does that? Not a calm one or a soft-spoken one, but a woman who has fire in her. A woman who knows that love sometimes looks like a drawn bow. A woman who is mother enough to give birth, mother enough to grieve, and mother enough to still place dharma above her own womb.

That is Bhama. That is why she had to be the way she was.

And once I understood that, the so-called “ego” started looking different to me. Like a painting I had been staring at upside down all along.

When she demanded the Parijata tree, it wasn’t a tantrum, no. It was a wife who knew her standing. She is Bhudevi, and every flower, every fruit, every tree that exists on this earth belongs to her already. So when Indra’s tree bloomed in Swarga, and not on her soil, of course, she asked. And of course, her Krishna brought it down for her, fighting Indra himself in the sky, because that is what her Kanha does. He doesn’t pacify her by asking her to be smaller. He goes to war with the king of the devas to bring her what she asked for. That is love. That is a husband who sees his wife as an equal, not as someone to be calmed down.

And the Tulabharam — oh, that one cracked me open. She placed her Krishna on one side of the scale and piled gold on the other, all her ornaments, all her wealth, everything she owned, and still the scale wouldn’t tip. And only when Mata Rukmini placed a single tulasi leaf and whispered with love, did Krishna’s side come down.

People read that and say, “See, Satyabhama was proud; she was humbled.” But I read it now, and I see something else entirely. I see Bhama staging the lesson. I see her playing the role of the proud wife so that the whole world, for all the yugas to come, would learn that no amount of gold can weigh down the Lord, of course, not instead of only love can. She didn’t lose that day, but she taught that day. And only Bhudevi, who has held kingdoms and oceans and mountains on her chest, could have known exactly how much gold to pile, exactly how dramatic to make it, exactly when to let Mata Rukmini step in.

That is not ego. That is adhikara. The rightful standing of a queen who knows who she is to her Lord.

And the fights, all the koppa, the sulks, the turning her face away when Krishna comes calling  “Sathyabhāme Sathyabhāme kōpavēne nannali”. I don’t hear that song the same way anymore. It isn’t a fight. It is a love language. It is the way two equals play with each other. Rukmini loves him with devotion; she is Shridevi herself. Radha loves him with longing; she is love itself. But Bhama? Bhama loves him with fire, because she is the earth, and the earth does not love gently. She knows her Kanha. She knows the moustached Madhava better than he knows himself, and she knows that he doesn’t want a wife who only worships him; he wants a wife who will argue with him, who will make him chase her, who will make him kneel and laugh while he kneels.

That is the leela. That is the play. That is why Bhudevi, the calmest of all, chose to wear this particular costume in Dwapar. Because for her, Kanha, she would be anything. Soft as soil for the world. Sharp as a blade for him.

And so, Bhame — let me speak to you now, not about you.

I think I understand now. Or at least, I am beginning to. You were never the angry one. You were never the jealous one. You were the one who refused to be smaller than you are, the one who refused to love your Kanha with anything less than your whole, fierce, blazing self. You held an entire planet on your back and still found the strength to draw a bow against your own son when the world needed saving. You let yourself be called proud so that a tulasi leaf could become the most famous leaf in all of bhakti. You made Narayan ask forgiveness of his Narayani, not because you needed his apology, but because you wanted the world to see that he would.

You are Bhumi. You are a mother. You are queen. You are a warrior. You are the wife who taught Krishna how to kneel and the mother who taught the earth how to bear. You are the pearl Dwarka held in its palm and dared to call its own.

And I, this small mortal who first dismissed you as “the one who fights,” bow my head now. Rukmini may hold my heart, but you—you hold something deeper. You hold the part of me that wants to love without shrinking. You hold the part of me that knows worth is not the same as ego. You hold the part of me that is, after all, made of you.

Sathyabhāme. Sathyabhāme. Forgive this mortal her late arrival. I am here now.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[vishnavishivaa]

Me daily be like-

@ahamasmiyodhah @writersiya @sriwrites

[ahamasmiyodhah]

YOU fr

[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 17

Her heartbeat, or the sound of boots marching, or the echo of something far away that she couldn't name anymore. Everything was blurring together, the edges of reality softening, colours bleeding into one another, and she couldn't hold on to anything, couldn't grip the world tight enough to keep it from spinning away from her.

The transmitter in her ear crackled with voices she wished she had never heard.

Rehman's, Iqbals, and someone else, and everyone is chanting, praying, and laughing at only one thing. One thing only.

"Through some grenade at them. Let those army guys see the hell," Iqbal's voice made her heart clench on his words.

And then the sounds like gunfire through phone lines and screaming echoed in a very low voice like an interruption of voice travel. And underneath it all, like a drumbeat that wouldn't stop, her own heart slamming against her ribs so hard she thought they might break.

"haah..."

The sound escaped her throat as she slid down the bathroom wall, her back scraping against the cold tile, her legs giving out beneath her. The transmitter was still in her ear, feeding her horrors she couldn't turn off, couldn't escape, couldn't unhear, no matter how hard she pressed her palms against her head.

The chip in her chest burned, not the slow simmer she had grown used to but a fire that spread through her veins and lit up every nerve ending until she couldn't tell if she was alive or dying or somewhere in between.

"Hah... hah..."

Her breath came in gasps, shallow and wrong, and black spots danced at the edges of her vision, and somewhere far away, a television was playing the same nightmare she was hearing through the transmitter, and the whole house was watching, and no one knew and no one would ever know that she was drowning in a bathroom floor while the world burned.

The ringing in her ears grew louder and louder. And just then, everything went quiet, and she could finally see it, this day. 

"Appa eppo varuvaar ma?"

When will Appa come, ma?

A little girl with pigtails and scraped knees sat on a kitchen floor, counting on her fingers, her tongue poking out in concentration as she tried to work through numbers that were still too big for her small hands.

"Avar mission la irukaar kanna."

He's on his mission, Kanna.

Her mother's voice was warm and sad at the same time, a combination the little girl didn't understand yet but would learn to recognise in the years to come. Amma knelt beside her and brushed hair from her forehead and smiled in that way that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Eppo pona?"

When did he go?

"November 26, 2008."

The little girl frowned and counted on her fingers again. One. Two. Three. Four. She scratched her forehead and huffed because the numbers wouldn't cooperate, and time was confusing, and why did Appa have to go on a mission anyway when she needed him here to fix her bicycle and tell her stories about brave soldiers?

"But, Amma, it's been years. Why hasn't he come back?"

Her pout was dramatic and exaggerated the way only children can manage, and her mother laughed softly, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head.

"Oh my kanna. He will come one day. Or we will be with him one day. Surely one day."

The little girl nodded because Amma said so, and Amma was always right, and surely one day wasn't so far away.

"No..."

Gul's eyes flew open, and she was back on the bathroom floor with tile cold against her cheek and tears streaming down her face and the transmitter still in her ear with the sounds of a massacre unfolding in real time.

"No no no..."

Eleven..eleven!!! The one number her freaking brain was murmuring for so long...eleven, it's 26/11.

She had missed it. She had MISSED it.

November 26.

The date had been sitting in her brain her whole life, carved into her bones, whispered by her mother every year on the anniversary when they lit lamps and prayed for a man who was never coming home.

And she had been so focused on the mission, so consumed by Rehman and Hamza and the chess game she was playing, that she hadn't even realised.

She hadn't connected the dates, nor remembered them, as her mind still couldn't recall any possible events she could stop!! Well, she wasn't supposed to anyway, like, how!!!

And now...NOW!!! Her father was dying, right now.

In Mumbai.

In the Taj Hotel, where that bastard Iqbal's voice had just listed like items on a grocery list instead of targets for slaughter.

"Appa..."

The word came out broken and small, and she pressed her fist against her mouth to keep the scream inside because she couldn't make a noise, couldn't let anyone hear, couldn't blow her cover even now when everything inside her was shattering into pieces too small to ever put back together. Gul's hand found the transmitter in her ear, and she ripped it out.

For one moment, just silence.

And then the sound of gunfire again, but different this time, not through the transmitter but through the walls, drifting up from downstairs where the television was playing, and the whole household was gathered watching the news like it was entertainment, like it was a show, like people weren't dying while they sat on comfortable sofas and drank chai.

She could hear Faizel's voice very faintly.

"Ammi yeh kya ho raha hai?"

Ammi, what's happening?

And Ulfat's response was too soft to make out, but probably something soothing, completely unaware that her husband was not just watching this attack but conducting it.

Everyone was a monster, everyone. Every single person in this house was part of the machine that was killing her father and many RIGHT NOW, and she was living among them, eating their food, wearing their clothes, accepting their kindness like it wasn't soaked in the blood of innocents.

"Noo..." she curled into herself on the bathroom floor and wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth like the child she had once been, the child who counted on her fingers and waited for an Appa who would never walk through the door again.

And somewhere in that heat which is burning now, a man she loved was taking his last breath, and she couldn't save him among many others, couldn't warn him, couldn't do anything except lie on a cold tile floor in the house of his killers and grieve in silence.

26/11.

The day her father became a memory, the day she and her mother became orphans. The day she lost everything except the rage that was now burning so bright it threatened to consume her whole.

She would make them pay, every single one of them. Rehman. Iqbal. The faceless voices on the other end of phone lines ordering death like takeout. She would burn this house to the ground and salt the earth where it stood.

Hamza.

The name hit her like a second wave, and she gasped and gripped the sink so hard her knuckles went white.

Hamza was there too. She had heard his voice through the transmitter, which was faint but there. Standing in that room with Rehman and Iqbal while they coordinated the slaughter of hundreds. While they laughed about the timing. While they counted bodies like points in a game.

He was there, and he was part of it. He was one of them.

Her stomach heaved and she bent over the sink and nothing came out but the retching wouldn't stop and her body was trying to expel something that couldn't be expelled because it wasn't food it was memory it was the ghost of his mouth on hers and the way she had let him touch her and the way she had kissed him like he was something worth kissing.

She turned on the tap and she cupped the cold water falling down and brought it to her face and it wasn't enough so she scrubbed harder, scrubbed at her cheeks where his breath had been, scrubbed at her forehead where his had rested against hers, scrubbed at her lips where his teeth had caught her skin and drawn blood and she had LIKED it.

"No no no..."

She was scrubbing so hard her skin turned red and raw, but she couldn't stop because she could still feel him there, could still taste him, could still hear his voice saying mera naam bolo like it meant something when all it meant was that she had let a monster get close enough to devour her.

She was so stupid.

Her hand found her mouth, and she dragged her palm across her lips again and again like she could wipe away what had happened, like she could erase the memory of that terrace and the roses and the way her heart had stuttered when he breathed her name against her skin.

The water ran cold over her wrists, and she let it because she deserved the shock of it, deserved the punishment of it, deserved to feel something other than the sick churning in her gut.

"Pari? Beta khana!"

Ulfat's voice floated up from downstairs, and Gul wanted to laugh because, of course, of course it was time for dinner, of course life just continued like nothing was happening, like the world wasn't ending, like her father wasn't bleeding out on the floor of a hotel while the people in this house set the table and passed the roti.

For fucking dinner.

They wanted her to come down for fucking dinner!!!.

She looked at herself in the mirror and watched the girl staring back at her put on the mask, piece by piece. The trembling stopped, the tears dried. The red faded from her eyes as she blinked it away. And when she was done, there was only Pari looking back at her, soft and silent and grateful for the family that had taken her in.

She walked downstairs.

Two days...It's been two days of nothing in her mind but one thing.

The wall wasn't that high.

She had measured it with her eyes a dozen times over the days she was here, calculated the distance, and noted the cracks in the stone where her feet could find the grip. Tonight, she finally went for it as her fingers gripped the rough surface, and she pulled herself up, swung one leg over and dropped down on the other side with a soft thud that barely disturbed the night air.

The street was empty, good as she started walking, no destination in mind. After she crossed three streets, the sound of an engine made her pause.

She didn't turn around, but she knew. She always knew when it was him as the bike pulled up beside her and stopped, and Hamza's voice cut through the darkness.

"Kahan ja rahi ho?"

Where are you going?

She kept walking.

"Gul."

She didn't stop.

"Raat ke do baj rahe hain. Akeli. Bina kisi ke bataye."

It's two in the morning. Alone. Without telling anyone.

Still walking.

The bike rolled forward to match her pace, and she could feel his eyes on her even without looking.

"Bike pe baitho."

Get on the bike.

She stopped then and turned and looked at him, and whatever he saw in her face made something flicker in his expression. She raised an eyebrow. Why should I?

"Kyunki main tumhe yahan akela nahi chhodunga. Toh ya toh tum baitho, ya main tumhare peeche peeche chalta rahunga poori raat."

Because I'm not leaving you here alone. So either you sit, or I keep following you all night.

She stared at him for a long moment, weighing her options, calculating risks. Then she walked to the bike and climbed on behind him, and didn't put her arms around his waist as she had before. Just gripped the seat beneath her and waited.

He didn't say anything and just started driving.

She noticed it after a minute. This wasn't the route back to Rehman's house. After three minutes, she was certain. This wasn't the route to Aalam's shop either, or any of the familiar streets she had memorised in her life here. He was taking her somewhere else, somewhere she didn't know.

Buildings gave way to empty lots, which gave way to darkness broken only by the beam of the headlight cutting through the night. And still he drove, taking her further and further from anything she recognised.

When he finally stopped, she understood why he had chosen this place.

Abandoned railway tracks stretched out before them, rusted and overgrown, disappearing into shadows on both sides. An old station platform crumbled nearby, its roof half collapsed, its walls covered in faded graffiti that no one would ever read. There were no lights here or people, and no witnesses.

A perfect place to kill someone or interrogate them.

She got off the bike, stood there, and waited.

He got off too and turned to face her, and for a moment neither of them moved.

"Tumhe darr nahi lag raha?"

Aren't you scared?

She looked at him. Looked at the abandoned tracks and looked back at him as she shook her head.

"Curious bhi nahi? Main tumhe yahan kyun laya?"

Not even curious? Why I brought you here?

She shook her head again.

Something shifted in his jaw, and he took a step closer, and she didn't step back.

"Kyun nahi?"

Why not?

She just tilted her head and watched him, and gave him nothing.

He laughed, but there was no humour in it, and he ran a hand through his hair and looked away at the tracks and then back at her.

"Tum jaanti ho main kya sochta tha?"

You know what I used to think?

She waited.

"Main sochta tha ke is duniya mein masoomiyat hai. Pyaar hai. Kuch cheezein hain jo pak hain, saaf hain, jinhe koi choo nahi sakta."

I used to think there was innocence in this world. Love. Some things that are pure, clean, that no one can touch.

He moved closer, and his eyes were fixed on hers, and she still didn't move.

"Aur tum Gul. Tum, us sab ka hissa thi mere liye. Aalam bhi yahi sochta tha. Yeh masoom ladki. Jo bol nahi sakti. Jo kuch yaad nahi. Jo bas khoyi hui hai. Bechari."

And you, Gul. You were part of all that for me. Aalam thought the same. This innocent girl. Who can't speak? Who can't remember? Who's just lost. Poor thing.

His voice hardened.

"Lekin tum woh nahi ho. Hai na?"

But you're not that. Are you?

She said nothing. Did nothing. Just watched him with eyes that held no fear, no guilt, and no nothing at all.

"Tum yahan ki nahi ho."

You're not from here.

It is a statement, not a question.

"Kabhi thi hi nahi."

Never were.

She tilted her head and let the silence stretch, and inside her chest, something cold and sharp was waiting to see what he would do next.

The memory surfaced before he could stop it, pulling him back to Aalam's shop just now at noon, and to the look on the older man's face.

"Hamza. Baith."

Hamza. Sit.

He didn't sit. Just stood there with his arms crossed while Aalam spoke out.

"Blood test ke results aa gaye."

Blood test results came.

"Kya mila?"

What did you find?

Aalam was quiet for a moment too long, and that silence told Hamza everything and nothing at the same time.

"Yeh ladki... normal nahi hai."

This girl... isn't normal.

"Matlab?"

Meaning?

"Iske blood mein kuch compounds hain," Aalam whispered. "Anti-interrogation markers. Healing accelerants jo sirf military grade operations mein use hote hain. Aur ek isotope."

There are compounds in her blood. Anti-interrogation markers. Healing accelerants are used only in military-grade operations. And an isotope.

"Isotope?"

"Tagging isotope. Specific signature." Aalam looked up at him, and his eyes were heavy with something Hamza couldn't name. "Hamza yeh sirf intelligence agencies deti hain apne operatives ko. Identification ke liye. Agar agent mar jaye ya pakda jaye toh pata chal sake ke woh kiska hai."

Tagging isotope. Specific signature. Only intelligence agencies give this to their operatives. For identification. So if an agent dies or gets captured, they can know whose it is.

Hamza's blood went cold.

"Kis agency ki signature hai?"

Which agency's signature?

Aalam looked at him with eyes that held pity, warning, and something that might have been fear.

"Indian."

One word.

"RAW ki nahi specifically. Lekin Indian intelligence ki zaroor. Woh protocols... woh compounds... woh sab Indian system ke hain."

Not specifically RAW. But definitely Indian intelligence. Those protocols... those compounds... they're all Indian system.

"Toh woh..."

So she...

"Haan Hamza." Aalam nodded slowly. "Woh tumhari taraf ki hai. Ya thi. Ya hai. Pata nahi. Lekin woh ek trained operative hai. Indian intelligence ki. Aur woh is ghar mein kisi wajah se hai jo humein nahi pata."

Yes Hamza. She's on your side. Or was. Or is. I don't know. But she's a trained operative. Indian intelligence. And she's in that house for a reason we don't know.

"RAW ko pata hai uske baare mein?"

Does RAW know about her?

"Agar pata hota toh tumhe bataya hota na?"

If they knew, wouldn't they have told you?

"Ya phir..."

Or else...

"Ya phir kya?"

Or else what?

"Ya phir woh tumse zyada classified hai. Koi aisa mission jiske baare mein tumhe batane ki zaroorat nahi samjhi gayi."

Or else she's more classified than you. Some missions, they didn't think you needed to know about.

Hamza stared back at Aalam, trying to make sense of something that refused to make sense.

A girl who appeared from nowhere with no records, no history and no past.

Indian intelligence markers in her blood, living in Rehman Dakait's house.

While he played his own game right beside her.

"Hamza."

He looked up.

"Sambhal ke." Aalam's voice was soft but serious. "Agar woh hamare taraf ki hai toh theek. Lekin agar woh kisi aur game mein hai... kisi aur mission pe hai jo tumhare mission se takra sakti hai..."

Be careful. If she's on our side, then fine. But if she's in some other game... on some other mission that could clash with yours...

"Toh?"

Then?

"Toh tum dono ek doosre ke liye sabse bada khatra ho sakte ho."

Then you two could be the biggest danger to each other.

The memory released him, and he was back at the abandoned tracks with the night pressing in around them and Gul standing before him with that tilted head and those impossible eyes that gave nothing away.

"Tumhe pata hai main kaun hoon?"

Do you know who I am?

No response.

"Tumhe pata hai tum kaun ho?"

Do you know who you are?

Still nothing.

He moved closer, close enough to touch, close enough to feel the warmth of her even in the cold night air.

"Bolo Gul."

Speak Gul.

Her expression didn't change.

"Main jaanta hoon tum bol sakti ho. Main jaanta hoon tum sab samajhti ho. Main jaanta hoon..."

I know you can speak. I know you understand everything. I know...

He stopped, and his voice dropped lower.

"Main jaanta hoon tum woh nahi ho jo dikhti ho."

I know you're not what you seem.

And finally, something flickered in her eyes, something that might have been amusement or might have been acknowledgement or might have been a warning.

She raised one hand slowly and pressed her finger against her lips.

Shh, then she smiled.

And that smile was the most terrifying thing Hamza had ever seen because it was the smile of someone who had been playing a game he didn't even know existed.

And winning.

Her eyes left his face and looked past him, behind him.

Hamza's eyes narrowed, and he was about to turn, about to follow her gaze, about to take his attention off her for just one second and that one second was all she needed.

Just then, sand hit his eyes first. Then her fist connected with his chest, and the air left his lungs in a rush, and he stumbled back, and she was already moving, already striking, already in a mode he had only seen in people trained to do one thing, that is to KILL.

He blocked the next blow on instinct, ducked under the third, and tried to create distance, but she followed, her movements sharp and nothing like the lost girl who couldn't remember her own name.

A kick aimed at his knee, but he shifted, and it caught his thigh instead, and he grunted and grabbed for her arm, but she twisted away and came back with an elbow that nearly caught his jaw.

Every move he made, she had an answer for. Every technique he tried, she countered as if she could see inside his head and read what he was planning before he even finished. This wasn't street fighting. This wasn't self-defence. This was training, real training, the kind that took years to embed so deep it became instinct.

She swept his legs, and he hit the ground hard, and his back screamed against the gravel, and before he could roll away, she was on him with her knee pressing into his chest.

He caught her wrist before her fist could connect with his throat, and he smiled.

"Ladna chahti ho? Theek hai. Lado."

You want to fight? Fine. Let's fight.

He threw her off, rose to his feet, and stopped holding back.

Gul's mind was racing even as her body moved through combinations drilled into her over the years she hadn't lived yet.

He knows, he knows about her.

He brought her here to eliminate her, and she had to eliminate him first, had to finish this before he finished her, had to survive because nothing came before the mission, and the mission was all that mattered.

But the combat she thought she was excelling at only worsened.

His counter came faster than she expected, and his fist connected with her side, right where the stitches were, right where she had cut herself open and sewn herself back together, and the pain exploded through her body like fire.

"Aahhh..."

The sound escaped before she could stop it, and she stumbled, and he pressed the advantage, and another blow landed on the same spot, and she felt something tear inside her, and warmth spread beneath her kameez.

It is her blood; her stitches had opened.

"Gul suno meri baat..."

Gul, listen to me...

She didn't listen.

Her hand found the knife hidden in her clothes, and she pulled it free and slashed in one motion, and the blade caught his palm and blood sprayed between them, and he hissed and pulled back, and she lunged forward to finish it.

His head connected with hers.

Stars exploded across her vision, and she staggered as he grabbed her wrist and twisted until the knife fell from her fingers and she screamed, loud and raw and full of rage because there was no one here to hear and no reason to stay silent anymore.

She clawed at his face, and he caught that hand too, and then his weight was on her, and her back was against the gravel, and his hands were around her throat pressing down, not enough to kill, not yet, but enough to hold her in place.

"Gul ruk jao!"

Gul stop!

She thrashed beneath him, bucking and twisting and trying to throw him off, but he was heavier and stronger, and his years of experience outweighed her years of training.

"Gul!"

Her lungs burned, and her vision was starting to spot, and still she fought because giving up wasn't something Operation Parth had taught her, and she would rather die on these tracks than surrender to one of her father's killers.

But her body was failing, the blood loss from her reopened wound and the blow to her head, along with the hands cutting off her air. She stopped fighting and let her body go limp.

Let the tears fall from the corners of her eyes and trail down into her hair.

Hamza's grip loosened just slightly.

"Gul..."

His voice had a tremor in it now, something that sounded almost like concern, almost like he was giving her a chance, almost like he wanted her to take it.

She took it as once again sand from her other hand flew into his face, and she twisted her hips and reversed their positions, and suddenly she was on top, and the knife was back in her hand, and she brought it down toward his face with everything she had left.

He caught the blade with one hand, and blood poured from his palm where the edge bit into flesh, and they were locked there, her pressing down, him holding up, both of them bleeding into the dirt of abandoned tracks that no train had used in years.

"Kyun kar rahi ho yeh?"

Why are you doing this?

Laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her, not the soft sound of a girl amused by something small, but something darker and something broken.

She spat blood onto the ground beside his head and watched his eyes widen as the sound of her voice hit the air for the first time.

"Want to know?"

He stared at her, and his mouth opened, and no words came out because she was speaking, actually speaking the sentence, not a word or his name.

"Surprised?" She pressed the knife harder, and it inched closer to his eye. "Achha hai. Surprise raho. Jaane se pehle sab pata chal jayega."

Good. Be surprised. You'll know everything before you go.

"Gul..."

"Yeh badla hai."

This is revenge.

The knife was so close now she could see her reflection in his eye, distorted and dark and nothing like the girl anyone in that house thought she was. The blade touched his left cheek, and a thin line of red appeared, and she watched the blood well up and felt nothing except the cold satisfaction of finally, finally doing what she came here to do.

His lips moved as he whispered, "Honsla."

And everything stopped from the night to the air and her heartbeat.

The knife was frozen millimetres from his eye.

"Wha..."

The word wouldn't form properly because her brain was short-circuiting, trying to process what she had just heard, trying to understand.

"Eendhan."

The second word hit her like a physical blow, and she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except stare down at him with the knife trembling in her grip.

No.

No, no, no.

This wasn't possible; this didn't make sense.

Her mouth opened before she could stop it, and the word fell out like it had been waiting for her whole life to be spoken.

"Badla."

Silence was finally heard. Two people are bleeding into abandoned railway tracks.

One knife suspended between them and one truth hanging in the air that neither of them could take back.

And then together, like a prayer neither of them had meant to share, like a secret that had been buried so deep it had become part of their bones:

"Honsla Eendhan Badla."

The knife fell from her fingers.

Two spies of the same colour found themselves standing in the same direction.

***

Somewhere in the year 2022

"Are you afraid?" 

"No."

"But we could be dead."

"That is right. But what is life if we cannot do the right thing?"

A small chuckle was heard through the grounds as the moon shone.

"You are mysterious, my dear Jaskirat."

"And so are you, my dear Maya."

***

Agar tum logon ke fataake khatam ho gaye toh, main dhamaka shuru karun

(If you guys are done with your firecrackers, it's time for me to blow this whole place up.)

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 16

"KYUN KIYA TUNE YEH?!"

"WHY DID YOU DO THIS?!"

Hamza's voice tore through the kitchen as he slammed Aqlaakh against the wall so hard the pots hanging nearby rattled and crashed to the floor. His fist was twisted in the cook's collar while his knuckles were white and veins bulging in his neck.

"What are you talking about, Sab? I... I don't understand-"

"JHOOTH MAT BOL." Hamza pulled him forward and slammed him back again. "Bachche ke khaane mein zeher, Faizel ke khaane mein. Tu ne daala."

"DON'T LIE. Poison in the child's food, in Faizel's food. You put it."

The news had come twenty minutes ago. Rehman's car was attacked on the way to the hospital by none other than the JINN, the one and only SP Aslam and his men.

And Hamza knew, yes, he knew from the moment he watched this man, the one who cooks and cleans this house, who goes around in a circle, who just happened to be in a call while he watched the Rehman, along with his family, frantically travel out of the gate with poor Faizel.

He KNEW and doubted.

"Sab please... main qasam khata hoon... Allah ki qasam..."

"Sab, please... I swear... I swear on Allah..."

Hamza dragged him across the kitchen floor, as Aqlaakh's feet scrambled to hold onto something and found none. He grabbed a whiskey glass from the counter and held it up to the light, letting Aqlaakh see it and letting the fear sink in.

"Ek aur mauka. Kaun hai iske peeche?"

"One more chance. Who is behind this?"

"Main nahi jaanta... PLEASE-"

"I don't know... PLEASE—"

The first hit came, the glass backside hit against Aqlaakh's index finger, tearing it out of the hand, and the scream that ripped from Aqlaakh's throat echoed off the walls.

"HAMZA KYA KAR RAHE HO?!"

Uzair burst through the door with two other men behind him, eyes wide at the scene in front of him.

"Yeh gaddar hai." Hamza's voice was ice. "Isne Faizel ko poison kiya. Isne Rehman bhai ko pakdwaya."

"He's a traitor. He poisoned Faizel. He got Rehman bhai arrested."

"Kya?" Uzair's face twisted with rage, and he moved toward Aqlaakh, but Hamza held up a hand.

"Pehle naam chahiye."

"First, I need a name."

He grabbed the next finger.

"Kaun?"

"Who?"

"NAHI PLEASE NAHI"

The second blow and another scream tore out of the man who was begging as another finger was just cut off. Blood dripping onto the floor, mixing with spilt whiskey and shattered glasses.

"Kaun?"

"Who?"

Aqlaakh was sobbing now, snot and tears running down his face, his whole body shaking.

"Main... main nahi..."

The third blow and the man's third finger dropped just like the other two, and the scream turned into a high-pitched whine and then a whimper, and Aqlaakh's head dropped, and his voice came out broken and hiccupping.

"A-Arshad... Arshad Pappu..."

The name hung in the air like smoke.

Uzair's face went dark. "Arshad Pappu? Woh saala Rehman bhai ka competitor? Usne tujhe khareed liya?"

"Arshad Pappu? That bastard Rehman bhai's competitor? He bought you?"

"Y-yes, but, but listen, please listen... I...I didn't put the poison, I swear, I swear on Allah... I didn't put it-"

"JHOOTH!" Uzair kicked him in the ribs.

"No... no, not a lie, Arshad gave the poison.  I... I kept it in the kitchen, but... but I was scared, yes I...  I didn't put it there; someone else did, or someone took it. I don't know, but I DIDN'T PUT IT-"

Uzair wasn't having it. He grabbed Aqlaakh by the hair and slammed his face into the floor.

"TU NE APNE AAP KO BECH DIYA. REHMAN BHAI KO. JIS AADMI NE TUJHE ROTI DI, GHAR DIYA, SAB KUCH DIYA."

"YOU SOLD YOURSELF. REHMAN BHAI. THE MAN WHO GAVE YOU FOOD, HOME, EVERYTHING."

Aqlaakh crawled toward Hamza, broken fingers dragging on the floor, and grabbed his legs.

"Sab please, please mujhe maaf karo,  haan maine Arshad ka offer accept kiya... haan main kamzor tha... lekin maine zeher nahi daala, MAINE NAHI DAALA... please mujhe yakeen karo-"

"Sab, please, please forgive me, yes, I accepted Arshad's offer...yes, I was weak... but I didn't put the poison, I DIDN'T PUT IT... please believe me-"

Hamza looked down at the pathetic figure clinging to his legs and felt nothing. Whether Aqlaakh put the poison or not, he had betrayed Rehman. He had accepted money from an enemy. He had kept poison in this kitchen, ready to use.

His phone buzzed, and he saw it was Yalina.

He stepped away from Aqlaakh and answered. "Yalina yeh waqt theek nahi hai. Baad mein-"

"Yalina, this isn't a good time. Later-"

"Mere jaan please." Her voice was a soft whisper can make anyone pause and listen. "Apna phone check karo. Maine tumhe ek gift bheja hai."

"My dear, please. Check your phone. I sent you a gift."

He paused, pulled the phone away from his ear, opened the message, and, upon pressing play, saw a video. His eyes widened.

Jameel Jamali, along with Arshad Pappu and SP Aslam, is sitting in a room, talking and planning. Their voices are clear despite the hidden recording.

"...arrest ke baad execution... Rehman ko hospital tak nahi pahunchne dena... raste mein hi khatam..."

"...after arrest execution... don't let Rehman reach hospital... finish on the way..."

Hamza's jaw tightened.

"Yalina." He spoke, "Phone band karo Jab tak main na aaun phone mat kholna. Samjhi?"

"Yalina. Turn off the phone. Don't turn on the phone until I come. Understand?"

"H-Hamza kya"

The gunshot exploded behind him, and Hamza spun to see Uzair standing over Aqlaakh's body with a smoking pistol, the cook's head now a mess of blood and bone on the floor.

Through the phone, he heard Yalina gasp, heard the fear in her breath.

"Hamza?!"

"Ghar jao, Yalina." His voice was flat. "Abhi."

"Go home, Yalina. Now."

He ended the call and forwarded the video to Jameel Jamali.

No message, just the video. Let him see and let him know. Let him understand that Hamza now had the leverage to destroy everything. Then he looked at Uzair, who was staring at Aqlaakh's body with something between satisfaction and disgust.

"Rehman bhai ko lana hai."

"We need to get Rehman bhai."

They found him in SP Aslam's custody.

Beat up and bloodied, but alive. Rehman Dakait walked through his own front door, supported by Uzair on one side and Hamza on the other, his face swollen, his ribs cracked, his eyes carrying the cold fury of a man who had just learned exactly who his enemies were.

"Ulfat? Faizel?"

"They're in the hospital, bhai. They're safe, and Faizel is recovering. They'll be home by tomorrow."

Rehman nodded slowly and let them lower him onto the sofa and closed his eyes.

The house settled into an uneasy silence.

The reception area was quiet at this hour, only the soft hum of machines and the occasional shuffle of a nurse's footsteps breaking the stillness. The night receptionist sat behind her desk with a small radio playing old songs to keep her company through the long shift.

"Dum maro dum... mit jaye gham..."

The melody floated through the empty corridors, warm and familiar.

"Bolo subah shaam... Hare Krishna Hare Ram..."

Gul stood near the window at the end of the hallway, her back to the reception desk, her eyes on the small heating unit that was kept running through the night to ward off the chill. 

Her eyes dropped to the object in her hand as she slowly lifted it, the small vial half-filled with liquid.

"Dum maro dum... mit jaye gham..."

Slowly, very slowly, she threw it on the free unit.

"Bolo subah shaam..."

And it's over the flames.

"Hare Krishna Hare Ram..."

The liquid caught fire and burned bright blue for one instant before disappearing into nothing, the evidence consumed and the truth erased, another secret buried in the ashes of a story no one would ever know.

A smirk pulled at her lips.

And somewhere deep in her chest, the chip burned with a heat that had nothing to do with the flames she had just walked away from.

Nothing comes before country.

Nothing.

The house was too quiet when they arrived.

Ulfat held Faizel close as they walked through the door, his small body still weak from the hospital stay, but his colour finally returning to normal. Gul followed behind them, her eyes scanning the rooms, noting the tension that hung in the air like smoke that hadn't quite cleared.

Rehman was on the sofa, very much alive. Gul felt something cold settle in her stomach. He was supposed to be dead.

"Abbu!" Faizel tried to run toward his father, but Ulfat held him back.

"Nahi beta, Abbu ko aaram karne do. Woh thak gaye hain."

"No child, let Abbu rest. He's tired."

Tired. That was one word for it. Gul let Ulfat guide her toward her room, accepted the kiss on her forehead, nodded when she was told to rest, and waited until the footsteps faded down the hallway before she locked her door and moved toward the bathroom.

Her reflection in the mirror looked the same as always. She smiled at herself and watched the mask fit perfectly.

Then she knelt beside the bathtub, pried loose the tile, and pulled out everything she had hidden there.

The vial of truth serum. A single sniff and they would answer any question she asked without filters or lies.

The micro transmitter. A dot no bigger than the head of a pin. Technology from 2025 that wouldn't exist in this timeline for another eighteen years, or even then, not to the public. Wherever she placed it, whatever was said, she would hear through the matching receiver that looked like nothing more than a tiny beauty mark she could press into the skin behind her ear.

And one more thing, as her hands clutch something under her dress and pull out a knife. Stolen from the kitchen a day before yesterday, when Aqlaakh was distracted, when he was on the phone, when his voice shook with the weight of betrayal he couldn't go through with.

She remembered that conversation, every word of it. 

It was late at night, and he had come down for water, or so anyone watching would think. But she had heard his voice from the hallway, and she had pressed herself against the wall and listened.

"No brother... I can't do it... Yes, I took the money, but... There are children in this house... Rehman sahab gave me everything... how can I... I can't assist with this arrest."

A pause. Someone is speaking on the other end.

"Yes... Yes, I understand... Arshad sahab will be angry... but I... I won't put the poison... sorry brother... I'm weak...I know SP Aslam is behind this as well and planning to arrest Rehman Bhai, but I just can't."

He ended the call and stood there for a long moment with his hands shaking, then opened a cabinet, pulled out a small bottle, and stared at it as if it were a living thing that might bite him.

The poison, as he placed it behind the spice jars and walked away.

And Gul slipped into the kitchen and took it.

The plan had been simple.

A drop in Rehman's food. Just enough, and let the poison do what Aqlaakh couldn't.

But Faizel. Faizel, with his innocent eyes and his stories about Naieem and his absolute trust in the sister who had fallen from the sky.

He had grabbed the wrong plate.

She had seen it happening and couldn't stop it without blowing her cover. Couldn't snatch the food from his hands without question. Couldn't do anything except watch him eat, but knew that she used not more than a drop, and the poison would not cause more effect, but mild poisoning, and she prayed, because the innocent life should not be lost, but also his recovery is more important than anything as well.

She had watched from the hospital window as the news came in fragments, and she had thought yes, finally, it's done, Rehman is finished after all the chaos of firing she witnessed and how Rehman kissed Ulfat's forehead and whispered his loving words and caressed Gul's cheeks wtha look and his eyes defienetly poured love that made her heart burn and stomach want to puke out those anyt kind of warmth she may get form that monster.

But no, nope. Hamza. All because of one that Hamza had brought him back. That he had pulled strings she didn't know existed. Hamza had saved the man she had been trying to eliminate.

Her hand curled into a fist, and she felt the stitches in her side pull with the tension. The wound from the vial extraction is still tender and healing. Still reminding her of everything she had sacrificed to get this far.

She looked down at the truth serum in her palm. Three drops and the most guarded secrets would spill out like water from a broken cup. She reached for her perfume bottle on the bathroom counter. A gift from Ulfat, a fine smell of rose leaves, sweet and innocent. Carefully, so carefully, she uncapped the serum and tilted the vial over the perfume bottle. One, two and three drops, just three. The liquid mixed invisibly with the fragrance, and she capped both bottles and shook the perfume gently.

The rest of the serum went back behind the tile.

She tore a small piece of tissue, dabbed it with perfume, and pressed it against her neck, at the pulse point, letting the mixture sink into her skin. Anyone who got close enough would breathe it in. Anyone who breathed it in would find their tongue loosened in ways they couldn't understand or control.

She needed answers about anything, but first, she needed to know about Hamza. About how he had connections that could override SP Aslam. About why a simple gangster's right hand had the power to snatch Rehman from police custody.

About what he was really doing in this house. Her fingers found the gold chain at her throat, and she twisted it absently. The one Hamza had given her. The one he said Aalam bought.

Aalam, the name made her sigh, he is a good man, or she thought so, but you may never know, as she shook her head. On the other hand, there is Hamza.

The man who kept appearing where he shouldn't, knowing things he shouldn't, watching her with eyes that saw too much.

She was growing to find him very annoying. Very, very annoying.

The way he had demanded answers in her room. The way he had pushed and prodded and made her feel things she couldn't afford to feel. The way he had kissed her back like he meant it and then looked at her wounds like they were puzzles he needed to solve.

She needed to start the groundwork. Figure out what he knew and what he was. Figure out if he was an obstacle she needed to remove or an asset she could use. 

While the house slept and the men licked their wounds, and everyone was too distracted by Rehman's survival to notice a silent girl moving through the shadows. She stood and looked at her reflection one more time.

Pari looked back at her. Just like they named her here, perfect.

***

"What is this?" Aalam asked with a very tiny tube in his arm that carries nothing but a small drop of red thing

Hamza nodded as he whispered, "A blood sample from your little bird, send it to run a test. We need the results fast, very fast"

"But why?" Aalam asked as Hamza looked ahead, causing Aalam to sigh, "More importantly, how did you get Gul's blood?"

Hamza's mind envisioned the kiss and the bit of her lips, and it landed exactly on the ridge of his lips, where he placed the tape to collect it; his instincts told him that, and it didn't go to waste.

"That's not important", he whispers and goes away, his bike's sound erupting in the neighbourhood. The more moments he stood, he may realise and have to accept the truth that he is trying not to let near him. 

As Aalam stood with the blood in his hand, well, the blood of someone who he still thinks innocent, or so they say?

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 15

Her teeth sank into the folded cloth so hard her jaw ached.

"Mmmpfh"

The groan escaped anyway, muffled and broken, as her fingers found the edge of what she was looking for beneath skin and muscle. She pulled, and her vision went spotty as blood pooled in the white bathtub. It turned pink, then red, and it got darker and darker, and a sound ripped from her throat that she couldn't stop.

"Nngh...ahhhh..ahhhh" She found herself trying to breathe in through her nose, out through her nose, as her mind whispered "don't scream, don't scream, don't"

It slid out slick with blood, and she almost dropped it twice before her trembling fingers managed to grip it properly, as she set it on the edge of the tub and let her head fall back against the porcelain.

"Hhhh..."

The cloth between her teeth was wet with spit, and copper sat heavy on her tongue from where she had bitten the inside of her cheek. Black spots danced across her vision, and she waited for them to clear because she wasn't done, couldn't be done, had one more to go.

The first aid box sat on the closed toilet lid, which she had taken from Ulfat's room. Earlier that day, while everyone argued about her future as if she were property.

She threaded the needle with hands that shook and poured antiseptic directly onto the open wound, and her lips whimpered as her fingers trembled, "MMMPFH"

Her whole body seized, and the cloth almost fell from her mouth, and tears streamed down her face, and she stuffed the fabric deeper between her teeth and bit down until her jaw screamed.

Each stitch took her breath away, and pain erupted. Her fingers moved even as her body trembled, and the needle was too thick, and the thread was wrong, but she had done this before on pig skin and then on herself because a soldier who couldn't stitch their own wounds wouldn't survive.

Once she had done it all the way, she cut the thread and wrapped bandages tightly around her midsection and let herself breathe for one moment, just one moment before turning to face the mirror.

The shoulder blade would be worse.

She turned her back to the glass and craned her neck to see over her shoulder, and the angle was wrong, and the light was dim, but she found the ridge of scar tissue below her left shoulder blade and pressed the scissors against it, and the pain shot over her shoulder more than before.

Blood ran down her back in warm rivers, and she watched it in the mirror, watched her own hands reaching behind her at an angle that made her shoulder burn, watched her fingers digging into flesh.

"Hah...hah... hah"

Deeper than she planned. The scar tissue had grown around it, and she had to cut more and dig deeper, and a whimper escaped that sounded like an animal dying. Her fingers closed around the edge, and she pulled, and something gave, and it came free, trailing blood, and she dropped it into the sink, and her legs buckled.

She caught herself on the tub and slid down to the cold tile floor with her back screaming and her front aching and blood everywhere.

"Hhhh... hhhh..."

Her breath came in shallow gasps, and black crept at the edges of her vision, and she wondered if she had cut too deep, if she was going to die here with everything incomplete.

No, she forced herself to breathe and forced herself to reach for the needle with everything in her, and she forced herself to stand. The mirror showed her back now, the wound ugly and gaping, and she twisted her arm at an impossible angle to reach it.

She watched in the mirror as the needle pierced her skin. Six stitches done blind except for a mirror and something deeper than training driving her forward. She cut the thread, reached for bandages, and realised she couldn't wrap her own back. 

Gauze then pressed it down as best she could, and it would have to be enough because she had nothing left.

She slid back down to the tile floor and sat there with blood drying on her skin and her chest heaving and her whole body shaking with aftershocks.

"Hhhh..."

The things she had pulled out sat in the sink. She didn't know how long she sat there before she found the strength to move again. Long enough for the blood to dry tacky on her skin. Long enough for her breathing to slow from desperate gasps to something almost normal.

She cleaned everything. Scrubbed blood from porcelain, tile, and mirror until no trace remained. Washed herself and bandaged what needed bandaging. She hid what needed to be hidden behind the loose tile she had discovered weeks ago. Well, she has one more to be taken, but that could wait cause she doesn't have the energy or risk getting a blackout from the loss of blood.

By the time she was done, the girl in the mirror looked almost normal. Almost like someone who hadn't just cut herself open twice and sewn herself back together, and whatever was left of her sanity.

She pulled her kameez down carefully, checked that nothing showed, and practised moving so that no one would notice the stiffness.

She looked at the girl in the mirror, and the girl looked back, and neither of them had answers for what came next.

Eid came with colours, sweets, and a house full of guests.

The Jamali family arrived in the afternoon, and Gul stood beside Ulfat, greeting them with the soft smile she had perfected over time. Jameel Jamali is just another politician who doesn't care about people's welfare as and a joker in the outer but Gul can see thats all a mask as there is something beneath it, something dangerous but she shook it off as he gave out a politician's smile shaking Rehman's hand like they were equals, even though everyone in this room knew the power dynamics were far more complicated than that.

Her eyes watched his wife and his daughter, almost the same age as her, standing, looking all beautiful and smiling, a smile showing the world or proving that she is innocent, with nothing to be responsible for in her life ever, or needed to be. 

Yalina.

But it's not how she looked, caught Gul, but a subtle eye movement that ventured at one particular figure, the one standing looking like he doesn't know or act like not knowing what's happening, but yet she caught the eyes that hovered at the newly entered guest's daughter.

They weren't being obvious about it. Weren't touching or whispering or doing anything that would draw attention from the dozens of guests filling the space with noise and movement and the smell of biryani and kebabs. But Gul noticed things now that she hadn't noticed before. The way Yalina's cheeks flushed slightly when Hamza looked at her. The way his lips curved just barely at whatever she reacted to as he stood back. The way their bodies angled toward each other like flowers turning toward the sun, even when they were pretending to watch the room.

Something twisted in her stomach, something that felt hot and sharp and completely unwelcome.

She shook her head and looked away and told herself it didn't matter because Hamza was just another piece on the board, just another rogue playing games she didn't have time for, nothing special, nothing worth risking for. Well, that's what she kept on whispering to herself.

The afternoon stretched into evening, and guests mingled and ate and laughed, and Gul played her part of someone who had been trained to disappear into roles like water disappearing into sand. She smiled when Ulfat introduced her. Let Faizel drag her around, showing her off to cousins she would never remember the names of.

And she didn't look at Hamza. Didn't let herself notice when he slipped away from the main gathering. Didn't let herself care when Yalina followed a few minutes later with a smile she was trying to hide.

But her feet carried her toward the hallway anyway, and she told herself it was just to get away from the noise, just to breathe, just to find a quiet corner where she could drop the mask for a moment.

She turned the corner and stopped.

Hamza stood in the alcove near the back stairs, with Yalina in front of him, and something small, wrapped in a gift box, passing between their hands. He was giving her a gift, and Yalina was looking up at him with eyes that held too much, and Gul should have turned around, should have walked away, should have, but Hamza's head turned.

His eyes found her figure in the shadows, and for one moment, they just looked at each other across the space, and Yalina was saying something, but he wasn't listening anymore, wasn't seeing anything except the girl who had frozen in the hallway like a deer caught in headlights.

Gul ran.

Not literally, but close enough, her feet carrying her up the stairs and through the door and onto the terrace, where the evening air was cool, and the noise of the party faded to a distant hum. She gripped the railing and breathed and told herself the burning in her body was the stitches pulling, not anything else, definitely not anything else.

"Phir bhaag gayi?"

Ran away again?

She didn't turn.

"Gul."

Now she turned, and he was standing there with the last light of sunset painting him, and she hated how beautiful he looked, hated how her heart stuttered at the sight of him, hated everything about this moment and herself and him.

She raised an eyebrow and waited.

"I have something for you."

Her heart fluttered against her will, and she hated that too, hated the hope that sparked in her chest before she could crush it.

"Aalam ne diya."

Aalam gave it.

Oh.

The flutter died, and something in her face must have shown it because his expression shifted slightly, but she forced a soft smile onto her lips and held out her hand.

He placed a small box in her palm and she opened it and inside lay a simple gold chain, delicate and fine, the kind of thing that must have cost Aalam more than he could afford but he had bought it anyway because that's who he was, a man who gave everything he had to people who needed it even when he had nothing left to give.

Her eyes burned, but she didn't let the tears fall.

"Pehenao?"

Should I put it on?

Hamza's voice was soft, and his hand was already reaching for the chain, but she shook her head immediately, took it from the box herself, and reached up to clasp it around her neck, causing his face to fall. Just slightly and enough for her to see the rejection land even though she hadn't meant it that way, had only meant to protect herself, to keep distance, to remember that she couldn't let him close, no matter how much some broken part of her wanted to.

She fumbled with the clasp and had to lift her hair out of the way, and that's when his expression changed completely.

His eyes locked onto something on her back, and his whole body went rigid. Before she could process what was happening, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, and he was pulling her closer and spinning her around, and his fingers were pushing her hair aside and- "Yeh kya hai?"

What is this?

His voice was low and dangerous, and his fingers hovered over the tape she had pressed against her shoulder blade, the tape that was supposed to be hidden, the tape that covered stitches she had put in herself two nights ago in a bathtub full of her own blood.

She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened.

"Gul." The word came out rough and broken. "Yeh kya hai? Kya hua tumhe? Kisne-"

What is this? What happened to you? Who-

She shook her head and tried to twist free, but he wasn't letting go, wasn't backing down, was looking at her with eyes that held too many questions she couldn't answer.

"Tell me." He spun her back around to face him, and his hands gripped her shoulders, and his face was inches from hers. "Tumne khud ko hurt kiya? Ya kisine, Gul agar kisine tumhe haath lagaya main-"

Tell me. Did you hurt yourself? Or did someone, Gul, if someone touched you I-

She raised an eyebrow as if she was mocking him with her eyes glistening, but a smirk pulled on her lips even though her heart was pounding.

As if asking, almost asking. Done with your secret lover?

His eyes widened, and then his jaw tightened. " Gul yeh woh nahi hai jo tum soch rahi ho."

Gul, this isn't what you're thinking.

She raised an eyebrow. No?

"Nahi." He moved closer, and she could feel the heat of him through her clothes. "Woh sirf, it's complicated. But woh, woh..."

No. She's just, it's complicated. But she, she....

He couldn't finish because he couldn't give up. He could never, as he sighed and let out a laugh as he shook his head, pointing his finger at her, "You know what, it's none of your business", causing her to tilt her head

As he nodded, "Of course, why do you care? isn't like you are ready to just jump in and marry the Major Iqbal like in a flash, second, and have his bunch of his, like, a few days ago?"

Gul's jaw tightened as she looked away, but he kept on taunting her with his words, "You have no right to act like you are jealous, what the hell, Gul? ah? Just because you are mute, you can walk over people? ah? act like a self-centred person and, when someone wants to take care of you, you even go to cause harm to them? Like you done with Aaalm, if not for me?"

Something snapped inside her as her hands moved and landed on his perfect face with a thud, causing her to gasp as she immediately retrieved and found herself realising what she had done.

Hamza's eyes darkened as he moved towards her, causing her to step away. His height and body would intimidate anyone anyway, and now the look she could not look away from, could not stay in one place. As he whispered, "Truth hurts when it spills."

And just as he whispered, she moved before she could think, and her hands fisted in his kurta, and she pulled him down and pressed her mouth to his. Everything she had been holding back since he first held her face and told her to breathe, everything she had been denying since he whispered mera naam bolo against her skin, everything she kept telling herself didn't matter but mattered anyway.

He froze for one second, and then his arms were around her, and he was kissing her back with the same desperate hunger, his hands in her hair and her back against the railing and his body pressed so close she couldn't tell where she ended, and he began.

His mouth was hot and demanding, and she gave him everything, and his teeth caught her lower lip, and she gasped against him, and he swallowed the sound and kissed her deeper, and she was drowning and burning and forgetting every reason this was a terrible idea.

"Gul." He breathed against her lips like a prayer. "Gul, Gul, Gul-"

A cry pierced through the air.

"FAIZEL"

They broke apart, and Hamza's eyes went wide, and he was already moving, already running back toward the house, and Gul followed at a slower pace with her lips swollen and her heart racing.

Faizel was on the floor, clutching his stomach and crying, his face pale and sweaty, and Ulfat was on her knees beside him with terror in her eyes while Rehman shouted orders at servants who scattered in every direction.

"Hospital! Abhi! ABHI!"

Hospital! Now! NOW!

Rehman scooped Faizel up, and Ulfat followed, and Gul joined them as they rushed toward the car because that's what a daughter would do, that's what Pari would do, the car pulled away with Rehman driving, and Ulfat holding Faizel, and Gul pressed against the window watching the house shrink behind them.

And in the doorway, Hamza stood watching them go with swollen lips and eyes full of questions that had just multiplied a hundredfold.

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 14

"She is not from here"

"She has no trace, no background, no system picked her up"

The same sentences echoed in his ears as he drove back from Allam, his hands gripping the bike's handlebars so tightly his wrist started to turn white.

"Who is she?"

Who are you, Gul? Who are you really?

He wants to shout, definitely something logical for all to see, but how? Everything Aalam said and his look while spluttering out the news like she is no one, a ghost.

This can't be. Hamza shook his head as he parked his bike and strolled into the gates of the Apex Predator.

But unlike normal days, when the house sounds absolutely silent, he can hear voices, more like arguing.

The voice of Rehman Dakait and his wife, Ufat, is not whispering but openly discussing, more like arguing with each other. 

"Absolutely not."

Ulfat's voice was fire and iron, carrying through the hallways.

"Ulfat zara suno toh-"

Ulfat, just listen-

"Nahi Rehman, nahi. Meri beti ko us aadmi ke haath nahi dena mujhe. Woh aadmi jo uske baap ki umar ka hai, jiske walid ne meri bachi ko aise dekha jaise woh koi jaanwar ho khareednay ke liye."

No, Rehman, no. I will not give my daughter to that man. A man who is her father's age, whose father looked at my child like she was some animal to be purchased.

"Main bhi khush nahi hoon is rishte se-"

I'm not happy about this proposal either-

"Toh phir kyun? Eighteen years we waited for her, and now that she's finally with us, you want to sell her?"

Then why?

"Bechna nahi hai, protect karna hai. With Iqbal, she'll be safe"

Not sell, protect. 

"Safe? Woh ek pinjre mein band hogi Rehman. Aur woh aadmi usse touch karega, uske saath, nahi. Main nahi soch sakti."

Safe? She'll be locked in a cage, Rehman. And that man will touch her, will, no. I can't even think about it.

Hamza had never heard them argue like this. Never once in all this time had he been here. This couple dealt with each other through eyes and gestures, through a language built over decades. His eyes found Uzair standing near the far doorway with his arms crossed and his body angled away like he was trying not to get caught in the storm.

"Yeh sab kya ho raha hai?" Hamza asked quietly as he approached.

What's all this?

Uzair leaned closer. "Shaadi ki baat chal rahi hai. Bhabhi khush nahi hai."

Marriage talk is happening. Bhabhi is not happy.

"Shaadi? Kiski?"

Marriage? Whose?

"Pari ki. Iqbal sahab ka rishta aaya hai." Uzair shrugged. "Bhabhi pagal ho gayi hai. Kehti hai bilkul nahi hoga."

Pari's. Iqbal Sahab's proposal came. Bhabhi has gone crazy. Says it will absolutely not happen.

Something cold slid through Hamza's chest, but he kept his face blank.

"Aur Pari ko pata hai?"

And does Pari know?

"Pata nahi yaar. Woh toh apne kamre mein hai." Uzair waved his hand dismissively. "I don't want to get involved, cause what ever Bhai's decision I will follow".

Don't know, man. She's in her room

Hamza clutched the keys in his hand so hard that his palm might have started bleeding, but he didn't care. He excused himself, walked slowly to the back, and ventured in without anyone noticing him. His feet were carrying him toward the stairs before his brain could catch up. The argument faded behind him, and all he could hear was Aalam's voice saying she had no trace, Uzair's voice saying Iqbal's proposal, and his own voice screaming inside his skull.

Her door was closed, but he didn't knock; he just pushed it open and stepped inside. She was sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on the window like she was watching something far away.

She didn't startle when he entered. Just turned her head slowly and looked at him with those eyes that held too many secrets.

"Tumhe pata hai kya ho raha hai neeche?"

Do you know what's happening downstairs?

She tilted her head slightly.

"Iqbal." He moved closer. "Uska rishta aaya hai. Tumhare liye. Tumhe pata hai?"

Iqbal. His proposal came. For you. Do you know?

She just looked at him with no reaction or emotion to tell apart.

"Gul. Main tumse pooch raha hoon."

Gul. I'm asking you.

Again, he met with silence; well, he is accustomed to her silence, but the reaction over the past few days is killing him slowly. With everything going on, he says his soul is fed up with feeling alive, and now they are playing dead, too.

But he knows he can't be harsh, no, it's not her fault, as he solwy bend towards coming  down to meet eyes to her eyes on her level

"You know you don't have to accept. Nothing has been finalised; all this you don't have to worry about," he whispered.

But at the moment she let out a sigh, not a relieved sound on his words of protection, he was trying to offer me, with the sound of doubt, no, the sound of not caring.

Gul's mind already calmed down, she already thought of it, the moment she heard that legs don't work, wheely old guy words, and look, she knows the plot even before it becomes a plot. She had let her mind work through everything. Major Iqbal, "the military connections and political access". It's all too much, and it will also be good for an insider to get a closer look at collecting data that will be worth saving many, even if that means losing hers.

"No hesitation, no backing away", the voice of her charioteer, her mentor, echoed in the back of her mind.

And in that small flicker of a second, Hamza caught the reaction she was not trying to let out, but did, and his eyes hardened as he spoke, his breath hammering.

"Kya ho gaya hai tumhe? Dimaag kharab ho gaya hai? Pagal ho gayi ho?"

What's happened to you? Have you lost your mind? Have you gone crazy?

She blinked at him but still said nothing.

"Ek aadmi jo tumhare baap ki umar ka hai, jiske baap ne tumhe aise dekha jaise tum koi cheez ho, woh tumse shaadi karna chahta hai. Aur tum... tum aise baithi ho jaise tumhe koi farak nahi padta?"

A man who is your father's age, whose father looked at you like you're something, he wants to marry you. And you... you're sitting here like you don't care?

She raised an eyebrow, and he wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her until words fell out of that mouth she kept locked shut.

"Jawaab do mujhe!"

Answer me!

She pointed at her throat, gesturing the same excuse, and Hamza is so done.

"Haan haan, bol nahi sakti." His voice was bitter now. "Lekin sun toh sakti ho? Samajh toh sakti ho? Toh kyun, kyun tum aise react kar rahi ho jaise tumhe koi farak nahi padta ki tumhari zindagi kya hogi?"

Yes, yes, can't speak. But you can hear, right? Can you understand? Then why, why are you reacting like you don't care what your life will be?

She looked at him for a long moment, and something shifted in her expression, something that looked almost like pity, and that made him angrier.

"Tum jaanti bhi ho tum kaun ho?" The words came out rough and desperate. "Kahan se aayi ho? Kya ho tum?"

Do you even know who you are? Where did you come from? What you are?

A flicker in her eyes erupted, but it dissolved as fast as it came.

"You're like, like someone made you and left you here. Like you're not a person, you're a ghost."

Her lips twitched ever so lightly, barely a slight curve, but it was there, and it held something that looked like sadness. Then she shrugged one shoulder and slowly raised and walked away, leaving him hanging there in the middle of the room, where anyone could walk in. The danger is obvious, but the two people in here don't give two damns about it when they should.

"Nahi." He grabbed her arm and pulled her to face him. "Tum mujhe ignore nahi kar sakti. Jawaab do. Tum kaun ho? Aur yeh shaadi, tum seriously is ke baare mein soch rahi ho? Tum bewakoof ho? Pagal ho?" He has to repeat his words again, cause that's how insane it sounds with everything going on.

No. You can't ignore me. Answer me. Who are you? And this marriage, you're seriously thinking about it? Are you stupid? Crazy?

She looked down at his hand on her arm and then back up at his face, and her expression asked a question louder than words.

Why do you care?

"Kyunki", He stopped, and his grip loosened. "Kyunki tum aise biki nahi ja sakti. Sabse oonchi boli lagane wale ko nahi."

Because you can't be sold like this. To the highest bidder.

He stopped himself and took a breath, and she watched his hands curl into fists at his sides like he was physically restraining himself from doing something he would regret.

"Kya soch rahi ho tum?" His voice dropped lower, more dangerous. "You think this is a game? You think you can just walk into that house and survive?"

She stared at him and said nothing because she couldn't, and even if she could, what would she tell him? That she knew exactly what she was doing? Was this a strategy or a surrender? That she had been trained for exactly this kind of sacrifice by people he would never know existed?

"Fine." He moved closer, and she had nowhere to go, her back already flat against the wall, and he was right there now, close enough that she could see the pulse jumping in his jaw and smell the familiar scent of him that made something in her chest ache in ways she didn't want to examine. "Then just listen. You're not marrying him. Main nahi hone dunga."

I won't let it happen.

The words hit her chest like stones, and the burning started without warning, the chip flaring to life with a pain that made her gasp and double over, and her hand flew to her chest pressing hard against the fire spreading beneath her skin. 

"Gul? Gul kya hua?"

His hands were on her shoulders, steadying her, and the anger was gone from his voice, replaced by something that sounded almost like fear. She couldn't respond, couldn't do anything except press her palm harder against her chest and try to breathe through the pain that was spiking higher with every heartbeat.

"Gul, look at me"

His hand found her chin and tilted her face up, and she met his eyes, and the worry in them was so real it made something crack inside her, some wall she had been trying to build since she remembered who she was and why she was here.

"Dard ho raha hai? Here?"

It hurts?

His other hand hovered over where her palm pressed against her chest, and she nodded slightly. Then, his hand covered hers, and the pressure of his touch started to ease the burning like he was drawing the pain out through her skin.

A small sound escaped her throat.

Not quite a moan, but close enough, and she watched his eyes darken at the sound, watched his breath catch, watched something shift in his expression that made her stomach flip.

"Better?"

She nodded slightly, and he let out a breath, and his forehead dropped to rest against hers, and his breath was warm on her face. She couldn't breathe with him this close, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except feel the warmth of his palm over her heart and the whisper of his breath mixing with hers.

"Mera naam bolo."

Say my name.

The words were barely audible, spoken against her skin like a secret he was ashamed to want. His nose brushed against hers, and his lips were so close, so close, she could almost taste them.

"Bolo Gul." His voice dropped even lower, rough and desperate and doing things to her she couldn't name. "Ek baar. Bas ek baar mera naam."

Say it, Gul. Once. Just once, my name.

Her lips parted, and she could feel the word forming in her throat, could feel herself about to give him exactly what he was asking for, could feel the last of her resistance crumbling.

"H-Hamza"

That word, his name, just five letters, and that's all it took for his brain to go crazy, the sound of the name from her lips.

"Tum mujhe pagal kar dogi."

You'll drive me crazy.

The words were barely a whisper, spoken against her skin, and she felt them more than heard them. His nose brushed against hers, and her eyes were closing without her permission, and his breath was warm on her lips, and he was so close, so close, the gap between them disappearing inch by inch and just right when the touch of each others where they oculd finally discover whats behind in those space that leads to their inner sul, just very close, almost there.

"Pari? Beta jaag rahi ho?"

Pari? Child, are you awake?

Ulfat's voice came through the door, and they flew apart, and Hamza's eyes went wide with panic, and Gul grabbed his arm and shoved him toward the bathroom, pushing him through the door just as Ulfat ventured into the room.

"Beta main bas, tum theek ho? Chehra laal hai tumhara."

Child, I just, are you okay? Your face is red.

Gul pressed a hand to her burning cheek and nodded quickly, pointing at the bed, miming sleep.

"Oh haan, haan, tumhe aaram karna chahiye." Ulfat's face softened with guilt. "Kal baat karte hain. Zyada mat socho aaj raat."

Oh yes, yes, you should rest. We'll talk tomorrow. Don't think too much tonight.

She smiled softly and closed the door, and Gul stood frozen until the footsteps faded, and then the bathroom door opened, and Hamza emerged looking like a man who had just lived through a war.

They stared at each other, and the almost hung between them like something alive.

"Yeh baat khatam nahi hui." His voice was rough, stripped of everything soft it had held moments ago. "Tum us se shaadi nahi karogi."

This conversation isn't over. You're not marrying him.

She just looked at him as her chest still heaving from the pain just faded, and also from the act they had almost they perfoemed.

"Koi bewakoofi mat karna Gul."

Don't do anything stupid, Gul.

He waited for a few moments and slowly walked out of the room, making sure no one was there in the hallway, but not before whispering the last words as he turned and looked back at her with eyes that held too many things neither of them knew how to say.

"Main serious hoon."

I'm serious.

And then he was gone into the darkness, and she was alone with her racing heart and the ghost of his voice still echoing in her ears.

Mera naam bolo.

Say my name.

She touched her lips with trembling fingers and wondered if almost counted, if wanting counted, if any of it mattered when she was Operation Parth, and he was whoever he was, and nothing could come before the mission.

Nothing.

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 13

"Hold her legs don't let her move."

"Come on be quick before someone comes."

The cries muffled against a palm pressed too hard against a mouth and the legs kicking and thrashing against hands that grabbed and pulled and tore and the moans of someone trying to scream but the sound dying in a throat that couldn't push past the fingers crushing her lips against her teeth.

"Shut up you whore stop shouting you'll enjoy it don't act sad." said another voice now and it was laughing, laughing like this was a game, laughing like the body beneath them wasn't a person but a thing to be used and thrown away.

"Once we're done we'll make sure you see the heaven of yours."

More laughter and the sound of fabric ripping and the muffled screams getting weaker like hope draining out of a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding and then.

Just then the sound of something hard connecting with a skull was heard as a crack and the hands on the mouth loosened, and a body slumped sideways and the screaming started then, a voice that was young and high and filled with a rage that didn't belong to a child but lived in one anyway.

"YOU DARE TO TOUCH HER."

Another crack and another body falling and footsteps scattering as the men who had been laughing seconds ago scrambled to get away from whatever demon had descended upon them in that place.

"YOU DARE TO TOUCH HER."

The voice was screaming now and the brick in her hands was red and wet and she couldn't stop, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except bring it down again and again on the head of the man who hadn't run fast enough, the one who was still trying to crawl away with his hands scraping against dirt and his mouth making sounds that weren't words anymore. The blow came down again and again and again.

Until the crawling stopped and the sounds stopped and there was nothing left except the ragged breathing of a girl standing in a pool of blood that wasn't hers and the shaking figure on the ground behind her who was trying to pull torn clothes over skin that would never feel clean again.

She turned slowly and the brick fell from her fingers and her eyes found the woman on the ground and she didn't see the torn sari or the bruises already forming or the blood on her lip where teeth had cut through from the pressure of a hand that wanted silence.

She just saw her when her legs gave out and she fell to her knees in the blood and the dirt and her hands reached for the shaking figure and her voice came out broken and small and nothing like the demon who had just crushed skulls with a brick.

"Ma."

Gul's head snapped back at the sound of the kettle singing, the chai ready as she came back from the memory of hers. Or the once of her past future one.

The morning scattered across the breakfast table in fragments of chai steam and the clink of ceramic and the low murmur of voices she had learned to tune out but now heard with a clarity that made everything sharper, clearer, like someone had wiped a film from her eyes she hadn't known was there.

She simply sipped her chai and watched.

Not the desperate watching of before, not the lost girl searching for anchors in a storm, but the careful watching of someone who knew exactly where she was and why and what she needed to do to survive it. Her eyes moved across the table taking in Ulfat's gentle fussing over Faizel's plate and Rehman's quiet authority at the head and the servants moving in silence and she catalogued all of it like data being fed into a machine that had finally remembered how to process.

And for the first time since she had arrived in this house her eyes did not drift to Hamza.

He stood where he always stood against the wall near the small side table opposite to where she sat, his position giving him a view of the entire room and everyone in it, and she knew without looking that his eyes were on her because she could feel the weight of his gaze the way she always could but she didn't look back, didn't search for those hazel eyes that had once been the only thing keeping her tethered to sanity.

Hamza watched her sip her chai and something shifted in his chest that he didn't want to name. Where were the eyes? The desperate doe eyes that had followed him since the first day full of life and hope and ache and want and something that looked too much like trust for a girl who had no reason to trust anyone in this house. They had always found him. Always. Across rooms and courtyards and crowded hallways, her eyes had always searched for his, as if he were the only solid thing in her drowning world.

But today they stayed on her cup.

On the table.

On Ulfat and Faizel and even Rehman.

Everywhere except him.

He shook his head slightly and cleared the thought because it didn't matter, shouldn't matter, she was just a girl and he had bigger things to focus on than whether or not she was looking at him the way she used to.

"We are visiting someone today."

Rehman's voice cut through the morning noise and Ulfat leaned closer to listen, her hand pausing mid-reach for the bread basket.

"Today? So sudden?"

"Well as the king of Lyari, we need to maintain certain relationships." Rehman's voice carried that particular weight it always did when he was talking about power and politics and the careful games he played to keep his throne. "People with strongholds and the means to elevate our position, we go to them and show respect."

Ulfat nodded at her husband's words understanding without needing explanation.

"Who, Abbu?" Faizel asked through a mouthful of bread and Rehman smiled at his youngest son's curiosity before his eyes moved to Gul in a way that made her immediately lower her gaze to the table because it was never good to look into the eyes of a lion who was waiting for prey.

"Someone important." Rehman's voice softened when he addressed her. "Make sure to behave your best, I know you will my Pari."

Who could they be visiting? Gul's head swirls with names, trying to remember the powerful people for hai time here.

Across the room, Hamza's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly but he kept his position against the wall, kept his face blank, kept everything locked away behind the mask he had worn so long it felt more real than his actual skin.

Then Rehman's gaze shifted to Faizel and something playful crept into his voice. "But you should be careful at the table, don't embarrass me."

Ulfat chuckled and Uzair joined in from his spot near the door and even Hamza let out a small breath that might have been amusement if you were generous and Gul smiled softly at the family moment playing out around her like she was part of it, like she belonged here, like she wasn't counting exits and cataloguing weaknesses and playing a role that had been written for her before she even knew she was in the play. Perfect in the play and acting still. But now she knew the script.

The evening shadows stretched across the city as the cars pulled out of Rehman's compound and Gul found herself in the backseat pressed between Ulfat's warmth and Faizel's restless energy while Rehman sat in the front with the driver and somewhere ahead in the lead car Uzair and Hamza moved through traffic.

Ulfat smiled and reached over to fix a strand of Gul's hair that had come loose from its pin, tucking it behind her ear with fingers that were gentle and sure, and Gul let her do it with a shy smile that came easier now that she understood exactly what game she was playing.

"You are looking like an angel." Ulfat's voice was soft with affection as she cupped Gul's cheek briefly. "My Pari."

Gul smiled and lowered her eyes in the demure way she had learned Ulfat loved and inside her chest, something twisted that might have been guilt if she let herself feel it. But she didn't. Couldn't. Not when there was so much at stake and so much still hidden and so much she needed to uncover before this was over.

She didn't know everything but she had a feeling deep in her bones that this visit was going to change things in ways none of them could predict.

"Who are we visiting my jaan?" Ulfat whispered as Rehman leaned back in his seat.

"Major Iqbal"

Motherf***** is what Gul was able to think... She is on a visit with Major Iqbal!!!!

Oh, she is in for something today as the car turned and ventured into a residence of the one called as "Angel Of Death" and there he stood.

God have mercy on me is what Gul whispered.

The dinner proceeded with the careful choreography of powerful people sizing each other up across plates of biryani and lamb curry, and Gul ate her rice slowly, keeping her movements small and her presence smaller. No sudden actions. No changes. Nothing that would draw attention or raise questions. Just the quiet daughter of Rehman Dakait, blessed miracle, eating her dinner like a good girl.

But she could feel eyes on her

Not the eyes she had grown used to, not the hazel gaze that made her feel safe even when it shouldn't have, but something else entirely. Something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and her skin prickle with the instinct of prey being watched by something hungry.

She looked up slowly, carefully, letting her gaze drift across the room like she was simply taking in her surroundings, and that's when she found him.

Brigadier Jahangir.

Major Iqbal's father sat in a wheelchair in a room just off the main space, the door only slightly open, but through that gap his eyes found hers with an intensity that made her stomach turn. He was old and withered and confined to that chair but there was nothing weak about the way he looked at her, nothing fragile about the calculation she could see moving behind those yellowed eyes.

She clutched her shawl instinctively and pulled it tighter around herself and looked away but she could still feel it, still feel him watching, still feel the eerie weight of attention that wanted something from her she didn't want to give.

Major Iqbal himself was full of questions and wordplay, his eyes moving over her with an interest that was harder to read than his father's naked hunger. When Rehman had introduced her as his daughter the Major's eyebrows had risen just slightly.

"Never knew you had a grown-up daughter."

Gul couldn't tell if it was a remark or just a sentence but she kept her eyes down and her smile soft when she wanted to tell him that she is hardly bgrown up as she is just merely 19 but let Rehman handle the explanation the way he always did with that smooth confidence that made lies sound like truth. She could tell Iqbal was not someone who would let a mystery go unexamined, not someone who would accept surface answers when there were depths to be plumbed. But good luck to him. No matter how deep he dug he would find nothing but the unknown girl who had appeared from nowhere with no past and no papers and no trail to follow.

The dinner ended and the adults moved to the sitting area for conversation and drinks and Hamza and Uzair had glasses in their hands that they sipped slowly but ofcourse Hamza's eyes made sure to capture all, while Faizel fought a losing battle against sleep, his head drooping and jerking up and drooping again.

That's when Guls leg took her slowly away from the people without catching anyone's attention, her fingers trailing along marble walls and wooden artefact tables, taking in the details the way she had been trained to do without looking like she was doing anything at all. The home had taste, she would give it that.

Her legs stopped when she saw a figure moving inside a room with the door partially closed.

Curiosity got the best of her and she leaned slightly to see better but before she could pull back the eyes inside the room found hers and a small face smiled at her through the gap.

"Haa" the sound made Gul take back, what she was being greeted by the unknown?

She pushed the door open gently and found a child sitting on the floor surrounded by crayons and paper, colouring with the intense focus that only children could manage. Younger than Faizel, maybe ten years old, with features that held an innocence that seemed untouched by the military coldness of the rest of the house.

Gul's eyes moved to the paintings scattered around, not very good ones technically but full of colour and joy.

"Ma painting." The voice came out with a pronunciation that wasn't quite right for a ten-year-old, syllables soft and slurred in a way that told Gul everything she needed to know.

Special child. Well who her to judge when she can't even speak until recently bow, well she has not made it public yet.

She smiled and picked up a crayon from the floor and handed it to the girl as the little one beamed and went back to her coloring and Gul let her eyes wander around the room taking in the toys and books and the small bed in the corner and then her gaze stuck on an image on the wall.

A photograph.

A woman holding a baby, her face soft with the kind of love that needed no translation, and Major Iqbal crouching beside them looking at his family with an expression Gul had never seen on his face in the dining room. Very tender and human.

The baby must be her.

"Ammi and Abbu and me." the little girl pointed out even without the need to ask.

So Major Iqbal was married. Or had been. The photograph looked old and there had been no woman at dinner and no mention of a wife and Gul filed that information away for later examination.

A throat cleared behind her and Gul immediately stood and turned to find Major Iqbal filling the doorway, his tall frame almost touching the top frame, his hands in his pockets and his expression unreadable.

"Rehman is looking for you," he spoke without any emotion.

Gul nodded and moved toward the door, pressing herself sideways to slip past him without touching, and as she walked down the hallway she looked back just once.

Iqbal had lowered himself to his daughter's level and was pressing a kiss to her forehead, his lips moving in whispered words that were too soft to hear but carried a tenderness that seemed impossible for the hard military man she had seen at dinner.

There is so much to uncover, Gul thought as she walked away.

The goodbyes happened at the front door with handshakes and pleasantries and promises to do this again soon, and Gul stood beside Ulfat with her shawl pulled tight and her eyes carefully lowered while the men conducted their business.

And then she saw it.

Brigadier Jahangir had wheeled himself to the door, his presence demanding acknowledgement even from his chair, and he reached out and patted Rehman's hand with a smile that held too many teeth and too much meaning. A proud smile. An approving smile. The kind of smile Gul noticed he had never once given his own son.

The words were whispered but Gul had trained her ears to catch what wasn't meant to be heard.

"I hope you consider." The old man's eyes slid to her, lingering in a way that made her skin crawl. "Such miracles should not go to waste."

And Gul knew with absolute certainty that they were talking about no one but her.

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Spelling mistakes? I guarantee neither of us saw those at 3:00 AM Monday Morning.

[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 12

make sure to play the song linked while you read the chapter end

Charioteer of Karma

Somewhere in India, 2020

"Have any of you present here today read the Bhagavad Gita?"

The question hung in the air of the dim room for a moment before the sound of a chuckle broke the room's silence. Somewhere in the back, a person could not help but laugh before they could stop herself.

"Something funny?" The person who posted the question asked, tilting their head to get the angle of the one who laughed at it, as if it were a joke they'd cracked.

"Not interested in myths and fake tales," said the voice of one who laughed. They spoke bravely, but anyone with a good ear can hear the tremor beneath it, the bravado of someone trying to prove they belonged in a room full of people who had all been chosen for reasons none of them fully understood yet.

The person smirked and nodded slowly, hands clasped behind their back, as they took a single step forward. "True to some extent, but I didn't ask whether you believe in it; I asked if you have read it."

This made the person's receiving end shift uncomfortably. "Yes, sir, somewhat."

"Good." The one asked the question, replied as they took a step forward, as they continued, "Then tell me what you think of the Gita, do you think Arjuna fighting against his own fellowship was right? His own family? His teachers? Or do you think Krishna, the one we call supreme, was right to instruct him to fight against everything he loved?"

"Since it's a god who asked, one can't deny." The person who is being questioned finally spoke, their voice more careful now, choosing words like stepping stones across a river. "Also, it was already planned, so what's there to question? Also, Krishna is more than a friend to Arjun; he is like a guru, so one should not go beyond the guru's words."

The slow smirk erupted on the questioner's lips and extended into something that might have been a smile if it had reached their eyes. "So, if I tell you to do something, will you do it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come here."

The person hesitated for just a moment before rising from their spot and making their way to the front of the room, their footsteps echoing in the silence as many pairs of eyes followed their progress. The questioner reached into their coat and pulled out a gun, the metal catching what little light there was, and placed it in the person's hands with the same casual ease someone might hand over a cup of chai.

"Shoot yourself."

"What-?" The person who received their hands started to tremble as they tried to lift the gun halfway to their temple before stopping. They didn't do it.

The gun lowered slowly, and their head dropped.

"Anyone here will do it?"

The question was barely out of their mouth when a hand shot up from somewhere, and in a moment the gun was passed and without a single tremor, and clicked the trigger straight pointing at their forehead.

Nothing happened. The gun wasn't loaded.

The new person who volunteered lowered the weapon and handed it back to the person who gave it to them with the same calmness 

The questioner turned to the first person still standing there, hands empty, face pale. "You folded quickly and acted brave before, but when the moment came, you hesitated. How will you survive out there when hesitation is the difference between life and death?"

They had no answer.

The questioner turned to the person who did follow the words. "And you, why did you do it?"

"Because I trust my guru, sir." The words came out simple and sure. "And I already knew the intention, if I read your face, I could see you were testing, not killing, the way you held the gun, the way you asked, the weight of it when the other person lifted it, everything said the chamber was empty. If we can't read faces and minds, we have not readied ourselves for the mission yet."

The questioner stared at them for a long moment, and then something shifted in their expression, something that looked almost like approval, almost like pride. They reached out and patted the shoulder of the one who answered once, firm and brief.

Then they turned to face all of them, with their voice rising to fill every corner of the room.

"You are all Parth here."

"Every single one of you is Arjuna standing on the battlefield looking at everything you know and love and wondering how you can possibly raise your weapons against it. You will question. You will doubt. You will want to run. That is human. That is expected."

And began to pace slowly, their eyes moving from face to face.

"But I am the charioteer."

The words settled over them like a cloak.

"When the readiness arrives, you must be prepared, no hesitation, no backing away, no folding when the moment demands everything you have. You will do what needs to be done because that is what you were chosen for, that is what you will be trained for, that is the only path forward from this room."

They stopped pacing and stood perfectly still. "Some of you will not survive training. Some of you will survive but fail when it matters. Some of you will disappear into missions that will never be acknowledged, never be remembered, never be written in any history book or celebrated in any ceremony."

"But some of you will change everything."

"Operation Parth"

"Each one of you has been curated for a specific task, you were not chosen randomly, you were not picked from a lottery, every single face in this room was selected because something in your history, your pain, your loss, your anger, made you perfect for what comes next."

He paused and looked at them, really looked, like he was memorising each face for the last time.

"But I need you to understand something, and I need you to understand it completely before we go any further. This task has no plan. No backup plan. No escape route. No extraction team waiting on the other side to pull you out when things get difficult. Once you are in, you are in. There is no coming back. There is no calling for help. There is no rescue."

Someone shifted in the back, and he heard it but didn't acknowledge it, just kept talking in that same steady voice.

"Some of you will lose your memory completely and wander through your mission like ghosts who don't know they're dead. Some of you will lose your lives before you even understand where you've landed. Some of you will go crazy from the displacement, from the confusion, from being so far from everything you know that your mind simply breaks, and you will be murdered in the streets by people who think you're just another mad beggar with no name and no history."

He let that sit there, let them taste it.

"We don't have the technology to send you somewhere specific. We can't pick a date on a calendar and drop you there like a package. We can't choose a city, a building, or a moment in time. You go in, and you land where you land, and you survive however you can. That is the reality. That is what you are signing up for. We are not there yet, but we are starting, and you, all of you, are the Parth on this path, the test for a future where this country becomes a superpower that no one can touch, no one can threaten, no one can break."

His voice softened just slightly, just enough to make the next words hit harder.

"If you reach successfully, and that is a very big if, you may gain your memory back. In very small, very rare cases, your mind will unlock, and you will remember who you are, why you are there, and what you are supposed to do. If that happens, then you fight. You do your duty. You complete what you were sent to complete."

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"If not, it was good knowing you all."

The silence that followed was the loudest thing everyone who sat there heard.

"Nothing comes before country." His voice rose again, filling the room, filling their chests, filling the empty spaces where doubt was trying to take root. "Nothing. Not your family. Not your love. Not your life. Not your fear. Nothing comes before the soil that raised you, the air that filled your lungs, the mother who is waiting for you to protect her even if she never knows you did."

He stood tall and straight and looked at them like a general sending soldiers into a war they might not return from.

"As Krishna guided his Parth into battle against everything he loved, I am guiding you into this battle, the battle for your motherland, from one time to another time, across years and decades and distances that no human was ever meant to cross."

He brought his hands together in front of his chest, not quite a salute, not quite a prayer, something in between.

"May the force be with you."

***

Her eyes flew open as her mouth let out a gasp. She remembers it all, everything and every plan.

And only one voice echoed throughout.

"Utho Parth Shastra Uthao"

(Rise, Partha (Arjun), and take up your weapons)

She had raised her hands slowly as they landed at the centre of her chest, and, in a pattern, she tapped a sound so soft and low that it carried her message.

"Parth has risen"

A small smirk lifted her lips as tears flowed down her face.

Nothing comes before country.

Nothing.

She had a mission.

She had a purpose.

And she was done being lost.

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 11

"Amma?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think he is watching over us?"

"I think he never stopped, my Kannu. Not for one second, not even now."

"I don't remember him at all."

The words came out smaller than she intended, almost ashamed, like admitting to a crime she hadn't meant to commit.

"You were barely walking when he left. That's not something to feel bad about."

"But you remember."

"I remember everything."

"Amma?"

"Sollu Kaanu?"

"Do you feel secondary?"

Everything else stopped immediately.

"What do you mean?"

"Like his love for his duty was more than his love for you and for us. Like, we came second to whatever he was doing out there. Like he chose something else over choosing to stay."

Hands cupped her cheeks, warm and familiar "Look at me."

She looked.

"What he did, he did for us. Every single day he was out there, every single moment he spent away from home, it was so we could have this. So you could grow up safe. So I could sleep at night knowing there were people like him standing between us and the darkness."

"But he's gone now."

"His body is gone. But what did he stand for? What did he believe in? That lives in you. In me and in everything we do to honour what he gave."

Something cold and small pressed against her chest, right over her heart, and she looked down to see fingers pinning something there, metal catching light, a shape she couldn't quite make out but knew was important.

"Nothing comes before it, my dear." The whisper was fierce and tender all at once.

"Nothing."

Just like that, everything vanished, and Gul's eyes finally opened to witness the sunrays peeking in.

She lay there for a long time trying to hold onto what she had seen, and heard the voice that called her Kannu. And she can understand it, the words without difficulty, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Word Kannu, she loved it, and her heart welcomed it, like it was a name she had heard a thousand times before waking up in this nightmare. She pressed her palm flat against her chest, right where the cold metal had been pinned in the vision, and felt nothing but the fabric of her kameez and the rapid beating of her own heart underneath.

What was it?

What had the woman pinned there?

She tried to remember the shape, but it kept slipping away, dissolving like smoke every time she reached for it. Something small and metal. Something important enough to warrant those words spoken with such fierce tenderness, they still echoed in her hollow chest.

Nothing comes before it.

Before what?

What was so important that nothing could come before it?

And the woman who was she? The features had been blurred as if looking through water, but Gul knew her. Knew her the way she knew breathing, knew her in her bones even if her broken mind couldn't supply a name or a face or any of the details that should have made the knowing make sense.

Amma.

She had called her Amma.

Mother.

Was that her mother? Her real mother, not the woman in this house who called herself Ammi and looked at her with desperate love she couldn't return? Was that where she came from, that place of jasmine and waves and morning sunlight?

She didn't know and couldn't know, but something else was haunting her now, something that had crept into her mind while she was trying to hold onto the fragments and refused to leave, no matter how hard she tried to push it away.

Eleven.

The number kept appearing behind her eyes every time she blinked, burned into her vision like she had stared at the sun too long. Eleven. Just the number, nothing attached to it, no context or explanation, just those two ones standing side by side like they meant something she should understand but didn't.

Why eleven?

What was eleven? The number of something she had lost or found or was supposed to remember?

She pressed her hands against her temples and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force the connection, trying to make the pieces fit together into something that made sense. Jasmine and waves and Kannu and nothing comes before it and eleven eleven eleven, but nothing came, just fragments floating in darkness, refusing to connect, refusing to give her the answers she needed.

The lunch table was loud in ways she still hadn't gotten used to, and Uzair was there today, Rehman's cousin, the one with the sharp smile and sharper eyes who always looked at her like he was trying to figure out if she was worth the trouble everyone was going through on her behalf. He sat across from Rehman at the head of the table, the two of them deep in conversation about things she couldn't follow, names and places and numbers that meant nothing to her broken mind.

"Woh log phir se masla kar rahe hain," Uzair was saying between bites of the food, his voice low but not low enough to keep her from hearing. "Babu ke aadmi. Unhe lagta hai humne-"

Those people are causing problems again. Babu's men. They think we-

"Pata hai mujhe." Rehman cut him off, his voice flat in that way it always was when he was trying to control something simmering beneath the surface. "We'll handle it."

"Hamza kahan hai?" Rehman asked, his eyes scanning the room like he expected the man to materialise from shadows the way he always seemed to. "Subah se nahi dekha."

Where is Hamza? Haven't seen him since morning.

Uzair shrugged, reaching for more food. "He said he will be here by evening, out with some work."

Rehman nodded as he gazed over Gul and Faizel, who were silently eating well. Gul and Faizel are always having a big convo, and Ulfat is in the kitchen.

Gul found herself wondering the same thing, found herself searching the corners of the room for hazel eyes that weren't there, found herself feeling the absence of his presence in ways that made no sense for a man who had threatened to have Aalam killed just to keep her compliant.

Where was he?

He had been disappearing more and more lately. It shouldn't bother her.

She should be grateful for the distance, grateful that the man who had backed her against a wall and whispered threats into her skin was choosing to stay away. She should be relieved that she could breathe without feeling his eyes on her, could move through this house without wondering when he would appear from the shadows to remind her of everything she couldn't escape.

But she wasn't relieved.

She was something else. Something that felt uncomfortably close to missing him, which made no sense at all because you couldn't miss someone who had never been yours in the first place, couldn't long for the presence of a man who saw you as nothing more than a tool to be used and a problem to be managed.

And yet.

Where was he?

***

"You want me to do what?"

Aalam looked at the content in his hand, a ziplock bag containing strands of dark hair, and his weathered face shifted through confusion and something else Hamza couldn't quite name before settling into careful neutrality.

"Find a way and run a test to find who she really is. Where she is from. Who is related to her?"

"Gul?" Aalam's voice caught on the name, and he opened his mouth to say something else, our Gul, but immediately shook his head and swallowed the words back down because she wasn't theirs, couldn't be theirs, was nothing more than a mystery that had wandered into their lives and refused to make sense.

"Aalam Bhai, you are my senior, and you know it better than me."

The simple line made Aalam nod slowly, his fingers tightening around the bag as he turned it over in his hands, examining the dark strands inside like they might reveal their secrets if he just looked hard enough. He didn't ask why Hamza wanted to know. Didn't ask what he planned to do with the information once he had it. Just nodded again, the nod of a man who had been in this game long enough to understand that some questions were better left unasked.

"You will have your result in a while."

Hamza stood to leave, already reaching for the door, his mind already somewhere else, on the next task, the next step, the next move in a game that had too many pieces and not enough time.

"Leaving already?" Aalam asked from behind him, something almost like amusement creeping into his tired voice.

"Have work."

Aalam smirked, the expression strange on his weathered face. "Work or seeing someone?"

Hamza paused at the door and let his own smirk pull at the corner of his lips as he walked out into the afternoon light because seeing someone was his work now wasn't it, had been his work for weeks, would continue to be his work until the mission demanded something else from him.

His phone rang in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see the caller ID glowing on the screen.

Yalina.

"On the way. Ten minutes." He whispered into the phone and ended the call without waiting for a response, his footsteps carrying him away from the shop and toward whatever waited for him on the other side of this city.

Aalam watched the young man disappear around the corner, and then his gaze drifted to the wall across the room, the spot where a calmer presence had once sat, knees pulled to her chest, her sea-green eyes full of questions she couldn't voice. Gul. The girl who had cried into his shoulder like he was the father she couldn't remember. The girl was trapped in a monster's house because of choices none of them could control.

His lips pulled into a sad smile as he looked down at the contents in his hands, at the dark strands of hair that might hold answers to questions he wasn't sure he wanted answered.

"Who are you really?"

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 10

She had done nothing, yes, nothing for the past four months. Yes, you heard it right, four months of nothing but being here in the den of the predator, and all she could do was to keep up the act, the act of being silent,, even though she doesn't know any other language to speak of now, but it's a struggle, the struggle of acting like everything is alright when its not.

When everything is already in a stage of giving out, she is trying not to show; it's not that she is afraid of herself, well, that's bold to think, but now. She is afraid of someone, and it's because of someone she is not afraid, because she doesn't believe in him, but believes in him so much.

Its Hamza

Yes, it's all because of him. Not only did he bring her here literally on the verge of hurting the one who is close to him, well, other than himself. She was never able to get his eyes and how they looked when he slashed Aalam on his wrist and dragged her back here to this hell.

She remembers it all clearly; how the motorbike slowed, and she slept as if she were fully awake, dreaming of every roll of the wheel passing the road, taking her into that jail. No hell.

The gates of Rehman's compound loomed before them like the mouth of a beast waiting to swallow her whole.

Gul felt the motorcycle slow beneath her, felt Hamza's body shift as he navigated through the entrance, felt the weight of her fate pressing down on her chest with every meter they travelled deeper into this nightmare. The entire area is inside the house of chaos, and in the middle stands Rehman, with his back to them, his voice thundering across the space like a storm that refuses to pass.

"KYA SAMAJHTE HO TUM LOG KHUD KO? Security ke naam pe kya kar rahe ho? Ek ladki... EK LADKI, ghar se nikal gayi aur tumhare mein se kisi ko pata nahi chala?"

What do you think of yourselves? What are you doing in the name of security? One girl... ONE GIRL left the house, and none of you knew?

A servant stumbled backwards with his hands raised in surrender and his face pale with terror.

"Sahab, humne socha woh room mein-"

Sir, we thought she was in her room-

"SOCHA?" Rehman's roar made everyone flinch, made even the guards standing at their posts look down at their feet. "Sochne ke liye nahi rakhta main tumhe! Kaam karne ke liye rakhta hoon! Aur tumhara kaam tha usse safe rakhna!"

You THOUGHT? I don't keep you thinking! I keep you to work! And your job was to keep her safe!

He grabbed the nearest servant by the collar of his kurta, yanking him close, and for one terrible moment, Gul thought she was going to watch him kill again, thought the blood was going to start flowing right here in the courtyard just like it had in that market square. But Rehman just held the trembling man there with his breathing hard while his knuckles were white around the fabric.

"Agar usse kuch ho jata..." His voice dropped dangerously low, the quiet somehow worse than the shouting. "Agar kisi ne usse haath lagaya hota... main tumhari haddiyan tod deta. Ek ek karke. Samjhe?"

If something had happened to her... if someone had touched her... I would have broken your bones. One by one. Understand?

The servant nodded frantically, tears streaming down his face, and Rehman threw him aside like garbage before turning to face another cowering figure.

"Aur tum? Kya kar rahe the? Gate pe so rahe the? BOLO!"

And you? What were you doing? Sleeping at the gate? SPEAK!

He didn't look at Gul.

Didn't acknowledge her presence at all.

Just kept tearing through the servants like a hurricane, demanding answers no one could give, his voice carrying across the compound in waves of fury that made her stomach turn. This was who he was. Not just the monster in the market. This constant edge of violence, this readiness to destroy, this capacity for cruelty that lived just beneath the surface of everything he did.

Ulfat appeared from somewhere in the chaos, her whole appearance dishevelled in ways Gul had never seen before. She rushed toward the motorcycle with hands already reaching, already needing to touch, to confirm, to make sure.

"Pari, meri beti, tum theek ho? Kuch hua? Kisi ne tumhe-"

Pari, my daughter, are you okay? Did something happen? Did someone-

Her hands fluttered over Gul's face and arms, checking for damage, her voice cracking on every word.

The words tumbled over each other too fast for Gul to follow, Ulfat's face streaked with tears and makeup and the kind of devastation that came from hours of imagining the worst. Her hands were shaking as they gripped Gul's shoulders, her whole body trembling with relief, and something that looked dangerously close to anger.

"Tum jaanti ho humne kya saha? Do you know what we went through? Main toh mar hi gayi thi andar se, socha ke tumhe kuch-"

I died inside, thought that something had happened to you-

"Ulfat."

The voice came from behind them, deep and quiet and carrying a weight that made everyone in the courtyard go still.

It was Rehman's.

Gul's whole body locked up at the sound of his voice, every muscle going rigid with a terror that had nothing to do with the man he pretended to be and everything to do with the monster she had seen in that market square. The calm, empty voice asking questions while his hands delivered death.

She couldn't turn around and couldn't face him.

Couldn't look into those eyes knowing what they had watched without flinching, what those hands had done without hesitation.

But Ulfat was already stepping aside, already making room for her husband to approach, and Gul had nowhere to run.

He stopped in front of her.

Close enough that she could smell the faint scent of cigarettes and something metallic that might have been blood still clinging to his skin. His shadow fell over her like a shroud, and she stared at the ground between them, her whole body shaking and her breath coming in short, sharp gasps that she couldn't control.

"Pari."

Just her name. Just that one word in his deep voice, spoken softly like he was afraid of scaring her, like he didn't know that she had already seen the worst of him, and there was nothing left to be scared of except everything.

"Meri taraf dekho."

Look at me.

She couldn't.

Couldn't lift her eyes from the ground. Couldn't make herself see the face that had been twisted with violence just hours ago, the jaw that had clenched while he swung that weight over and over, the eyes that had held nothing human while a man begged for mercy at his feet.

"Pari." His voice was harder now, the softness cracking around the edges. "Maine kaha meri taraf dekho."

I said look at me.

A hand appeared in her vision, reaching toward her chin, and she flinched so violently that she stumbled backwards and nearly fell. The sound that escaped her throat was something between a whimper and a scream, animal and desperate and full of a terror that she couldn't hide, no matter how hard she tried.

Rehman's hand froze mid-air.

"Kya hua?"

Ulfat's voice was confused, worried, and unsure why her daughter had just recoiled from her father as if he were something to be feared.

What happened?

"Pari, beta, kya-"

But Gul was already moving, her body acting on instinct before her brain could catch up. She twisted away from Rehman's frozen form only for her to be backed into what appears to be a wall, a hard but soft wall. It is Hamza

Her eyes begged him to let her go, but he kept his face stone cold as he turned to the figures before him, his hand moving from her arm to her back, pressing there like a warning and a support all at once.

"She is scared, as she was lost and trying to find the way out", he said to them, his voice giving nothing away. "She needs rest"

Ulfat stepped forward immediately, her maternal instincts overriding whatever confusion she felt about her daughter's strange behaviour. "Haan, haan, bilkul. Andar chalo, beta. Main tumhe room mein le jaati hoon."

Yes, yes, of course. Come inside, child. I'll take you to your room.

But Gul's eyes were fixed on Rehman.

On the monster standing in the courtyard with his hands at his sides, looking at her with an expression that held hurt and confusion and something that might have been guilt if monsters were capable of feeling such things. He hadn't moved since she flinched away from him. Hadn't tried to touch her again, just stood there, watching his dream daughter look at him like he was something to be survived.

"Pari."

His voice cracked on the name.

She flinched again, shorter this time but still visible, and she saw the impact of it hit him like a physical blow. His jaw tightened as his hands clenched at his sides. And for one terrible moment, she thought he might close the distance between them and demand to know what had changed, what she had seen, why she was suddenly looking at him like he was the villain of her story.

But he didn't.

"Jao," he said quietly. "Rest karo. Kal baat karte hain."

Go. Rest. We'll talk tomorrow.

Ulfat's eyes darted between her husband and Gul, questions forming on her lips, but something in Rehman's posture warned her off. She just nodded once and wrapped her arm around Gul's shoulders.

"Chalo, beta. Andar chalo."

Come, child. Come inside.

As Ulfat lay her in the bed and whispered the soothing words that did nothing but make Gul even more wanting to leave her.

"Just sleep, my love. Tomorrow everything will be fine."

A kiss on her forehead that burned like a brand, and then Ulfat was gone, only for Gul to lie there and wait for sleep, but it never did. The hours crawled past, dragging the night toward morning, and every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again, the weight coming down, the spray of blood, the sound of skull cracking like something breaking that could never be fixed, Rehman's face twisted with violence, the crowd watching in horror. She couldn't sleep. The sky outside her window shifted from black to grey, that space between night and dawn where everything felt suspended, and she sat up slowly, pushing blankets aside; she had to leave.

Had to try again. Had to get to Aalam, warn him, find a way out of this nightmare that didn't end with her trapped in a monster's house pretending to be his daughter.

She crept toward the door on silent feet, her heart pounding with her hands trembling as she reached for the handle, and that's when his voice came from the shadows to her left, low and quiet and carrying a warning that froze her mid-step.

"Kahan?"

Where?

She turned slowly and found Hamza leaning against the wall, his hazel eyes catching the faint pre-dawn light like he had been waiting there all night just for this moment, and his next words came out flat and cold.

"Andar jao."

Go inside.

She didn't move, just stood there with her jaw tight and her eyes locked on his, refusing to be the first to look away because she was terrified, yes, but she wasn't going to let him see it, wasn't going to cower and comply like a good little prisoner. She rolled her eyes, like he was an annoyance rather than a threat, and then stepped forward and tried to push past him.

His hand caught her arm before she made it two steps, and she twisted, shoved at his chest with her free hand, but he was faster and stronger and so much bigger that her struggling meant nothing at all. His other hand gripped her face, fingers pressing into her cheeks just hard enough to hold, and then he was walking her backward until her spine hit the wall and there was nowhere left to go and she shuddered at the impact, at being trapped between stone and warmth, at his face suddenly so close she could see every fleck of gold in those hazel eyes that gave nothing away.

Her hands came up, fingers clawing at his wrist, trying to pry his grip loose, but his hold was iron, surprisingly not hurting at all, but entirely strong, and she couldn't turn her head, couldn't look away, couldn't do anything except stare at him while her heart hammered against her ribs.

"Suno meri baat."

Listen to me.

His voice was barely a whisper, his breath warm against her lips.

"Woh aadmi jo tumhari care karta tha..." His thumb pressed into the soft skin below her cheekbone, holding her still when she tried to jerk away. "Jisne tumhe safe jagah di. Jisne tumhe khana khilaya. Chai pilayi. Tumhare saath baitha jab tum ro rahi thi."

That man who cared for you... who gave you a safe place. Who fed you? Gave you chai. Sat with you when you were crying.

Aalam. He was talking about Aalam. Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall, refused to give him that victory.

"Chahti ho woh mare?"

Do you want him to die?

Her breath caught, and her fingers stilled on his wrist.

"Chahti ho ke woh bhi aise mare jaise tumne aaj dekha?" His voice dropped even lower, each word landing like a stone dropped into still water. "Waise hi? Berehmi se? Un haathon se jo rukna nahi jaante? Jo hesitate nahi karte?"

Do you want him to die the way you saw today? Just like that? Mercilessly? By hands that don't know how to stop? That don't hesitate?

The market square flashed behind her eyes, and Hamza continued, relentless, pushing the knife deeper even though his hands remained gentle on her face.

"Tumne dekha na aaj? Tumne dekha woh kya kar sakta hai. Toh socho, socho agar woh decide kare ke Aalam ne tumhe chhupaya. Ke usne Rehman Dakait ki beti ko apne paas rakha bina bataye."

You saw today, didn't you? You saw what he can do. So think, think if he decides that Aalam hid you. That he kept Rehman Dakait's daughter with him without telling.

A sob built in her throat, but she swallowed it down, her nails digging into his wrist hard enough to leave marks as he kept talking, kept destroying her.

"He won't stop. It won't be a weight. It'll be something else. And Aalam doesn't have the strength that the man in the market had. He won't even be able to scream."

The tears came then, and she couldn't stop them, couldn't hold them back anymore; they just spilt down her cheeks and over his fingers where they still held her face. Her body was shaking with the effort of not making any sound, of keeping her grief and terror locked inside even as it tore her apart, and his voice was almost gentle now, a mockery of tenderness.

"Toh bolo. Tumhe yeh chahiye? Tum bhaagogi, woh marega. Simple hai."

So tell me. You want this? You run, he dies. It's simple.

She shook her head frantically within his grip, as much as he would allow, the only answer she could give.

"Then you'll stay here. In this house. As their daughter. And no questions."

Another shake of her head, then a nod, then she didn't know what she was doing anymore because everything was falling apart inside her, and there was nothing to hold onto except his hands on her face, and even that felt like drowning.

Something broke inside her, and her hands stopped clawing at his wrist and curled into fists instead, slamming against his chest with all the strength she had left, once, twice, again and again, beating at him with fury she couldn't voice, with helpless anger that had nowhere else to go. Her fists connected with muscle and bone, and she didn't care if it hurt him, didn't care if it hurt her, just needed to let it out before it burned her alive.

Hamza didn't stop her.

Just stood there and let her hit him, let her pour everything into blows that grew weaker with every passing second because she was tired, so tired, and the anger was draining out of her now, leaving nothing but ashes.

Her fists slowed and stopped, and then she was sagging forward, her forehead dropping against his chest, her whole body going limp as her fingers uncurled and pressed flat against his kurta, not pushing anymore, just resting there like they had nowhere else to be. She hated him, hated herself, hated everything about this moment, but she was so tired, and he was so warm, and she couldn't fight anymore.

His hands shifted, and the grip on her face loosened, fingers sliding down to cup her jaw with a gentleness that didn't match anything else about this as his other arm came around her waist, holding her up when her legs threatened to give out.

"Chalo."

Come.

He didn't wait for a response, just bent and lifted her like she weighed nothing at all, one arm under her knees and the other supporting her back, and she should have fought, should have struggled, should have done something other than let her head fall against his shoulder, and her eyes drift closed. But she was empty now, hollowed out, nothing left inside except the ache of defeat.

He carried her back into the room as he put her on the bed and pulled the blanket up over her body. She stared up at him in the night light, too exhausted to hate him properly, too defeated to do anything except watch as he crouched beside the bed and brought his face close to hers.

"Sleep." With that, her exhaustion took her out this time, but not before a faint whisper caught her ears that she thought she was dreaming, "You will be free one day, very soon", and a faint heat on her forehead, that almost took her out

That's the last day she tried anything. It's been months, and she left with nothing but blending here, but that all shifted today.

It all started suddenly; the smell, the wind, and her throat tightening.

One moment, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at nothing, and the next, the breeze through the half-open window carried something that made her whole body go rigid. Salt, the sharp, tangy scent of salt that had no business being here in this landlocked house surrounded by dust and exhaust and the constant noise of a city that never slept.

But there it was.

Salt and sea and something else underneath, something warm and familiar that wrapped around her chest and squeezed until she couldn't breathe.

And then the flashes came.

Not memories exactly, not anything she could hold onto or make sense of, but images that slammed into her mind like waves crashing against rocks. A beach stretching out before her, sand warm beneath her feet, water the colour of the sky during monsoon season rushing toward her and retreating again in an endless rhythm she somehow knew by heart. Laughter ringing in her ears, bright and joyful, and she wasn't sure if it was her own laughter or someone else's, but it felt like home in ways nothing else had since she woke up in this nightmare.

And eyes. Kind eyes looking down at her with so much love, it made her chest ache, a face she couldn't quite see but knew she should remember, features that blurred every time she tried to focus on them like looking at something through water.

The images flickered faster now, jumbling together into a chaos of sensation and emotion that her broken mind couldn't process. Sand and salt and laughter and love and then something darker creeping in at the edges, something that felt like loss, like grief, like a wound that had never healed and probably never would.

Her lungs stopped working.

She tried to breathe, but the air wouldn't come; her chest locked tight like someone had wrapped iron bands around her ribs and was pulling them tighter with every second that passed. Her hand flew to her throat, fingers pressing against the skin as she could physically force the passage open, but nothing helped. Nothing worked. She was drowning on dry land, suffocating in a room full of air, and no one was coming to save her because no one knew she was dying.

She needed to get out. Needed air, needed the sky above her head and the wind on her face and the openness of the terrace where she had learned to breathe again after days of feeling like these walls were crushing her from all sides.

Her legs moved, carrying her off the bed and across the room on feet that felt like they belonged to someone else. She stumbled against the doorframe, her shoulder hitting the wood hard enough to bruise, but she didn't stop. The terrace was up there somewhere, up those stairs she had climbed with Faizel what felt like a lifetime ago, and if she could just reach it, she would be okay.

She would be okay. She had to be okay.

Her mouth opened to call for help, but nothing came out, just a strangled gasp that disappeared into the empty hallway without reaching anyone's ears. Of course, her voice would fail her now, would abandon her in the moment she needed it most, would stay locked away in whatever dark place it had been hiding since she woke up with no memory and no name and no idea who she was or where she belonged.

She climbed the stairs on hands and knees, her vision going spotty at the edges, her lungs screaming for air they couldn't seem to find. One step, another and another. The door to the terrace was right there, just a few more feet, and she could see the sky through the crack where it wasn't quite closed, and it looked so blue, so open, so free.

She pushed through and collapsed onto the stone floor, gasping, trying desperately to fill her lungs with the air that surrounded her, but her body had forgotten how to work, and nothing was helping, and she was going to die here on this terrace looking up at a sky that didn't know her name.

"Gul!"

The voice came from somewhere below. "GUL!"

Sound of someone taking the stairs two at a time, moving faster than she had ever heard anyone move, and then the door was slamming open to reveal him, Hamza, dropping to his knees beside her with an expression on his face she had never seen before.

Fear, real, actual fear, twisting those hazel eyes into something almost unrecognisable, making him look human in a way he never allowed himself to look.

"Kya hua? Gul, kya hua? Meri taraf dekho, meri taraf-"

What happened? Gul, what happened? Look at me, look at-

His hands found her face, cupping her cheeks, forcing her to meet his eyes when all she wanted to do was disappear into the panic consuming her from the inside out. His palms were warm against her skin.

"Breathe."

The word was simple, something she desperately needed when everything else was spinning out of control.

"Take a breath. With me."

His thumbs moved across her cheekbones, wiping away tears she didn't remember crying, and his eyes never left hers as he drew in a slow, deep breath and let it out again. 

"In."

He breathed in.

"Out."

He breathed out.

"Phir se. Again. Mere saath."

Again. With me.

She tried to follow him, but the flashes kept coming, the beach and the laughter and those kind eyes she couldn't quite see, all of it crashing through her mind in waves that wouldn't stop. Her hands found his shoulders and clutched at them like she was drowning, and he was the only solid thing in an ocean of chaos.

"Tum kar sakti ho." His voice was closer now, softer, his forehead almost touching hers as he pulled her deeper into his space. "I'm right here. Just breathe."

You can do it.

"That's it," he murmured when her breath started to even out, when her lungs finally remembered how to work, and the iron bands around her chest began to loosen. "Just like that. Good Girl, My good girl."

She was crying properly now, tears streaming down her face and dripping onto his hands where they still cradled her cheeks, her whole body shaking with the aftershocks of whatever had just happened. She didn't understand any of it. Didn't know why the smell of salt had triggered something so violent in her mind, didn't know whose eyes she had been trying to see, didn't know why it hurt so much to almost remember.

But Hamza was here.

Hamza was holding her face like she was something precious, looking at her with those eyes that gave nothing away to anyone else, but right now, right here, were showing her everything.

He was scared.

He was scared for her.

And that meant something, even if she didn't know what.

"Tum theek ho?" His voice was rough, cracking slightly on the edges like he had been running for a long time and hadn't quite caught his breath yet. "What happened?"

Are you okay??

She shook her head because she didn't have an answer, didn't have words even if her voice would cooperate, didn't have anything except the lingering echoes of something that felt like a memory but might have been nothing at all.

His thumbs kept moving across her cheeks, wiping away tears that kept falling, and he was so close she could feel his breath on her face and see the tiny flecks of gold in his hazel eyes that she had never noticed before. So close that if she leaned forward just a little, their foreheads would touch. So close that the rest of the world seemed very far away, like they were the only two people who existed in this moment.

"Main toh ghabra gaya tha," he admitted quietly, and she could hear in his voice that the words cost him something, that admitting fear wasn't something he did easily or often. "Neeche se dekha tumhe gir te hue aur-"

I got so scared. Saw you from below, falling, and-

He stopped himself, looking away for just a second while his jaw clenched, like he was trying to pull himself back together, trying to rebuild the walls she had somehow knocked down.

But his hands stayed on her face. And his body stayed close to hers.

And when he looked back at her, there was something in his eyes that hadn't been there before, something soft and scared and almost hopeful.

She wanted to tell him.

Wanted to explain what she had seen, the beach and the salt and the laughter, the eyes she couldn't quite remember but knew she should. Wanted to ask him if any of it made sense, if he had any idea who she was, where she came from, or why her mind kept showing her pieces of a puzzle she couldn't put together.

But the words were stuck, had always been stuck. Would probably stay stuck forever in the dark place where her voice had gone to hide.

Except his hands were warm on her face and his eyes were soft and scared and hopeful, and he had run up those stairs like he thought she was dying, like losing her would have meant something, as she mattered to him in ways he couldn't say out loud any more than she could.

And something shifted inside her, something cracked. Something broke open.

Like Ganga flowing down its course, the only thing that mattered to be out of her mouth right now is...

"...Hamza."

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The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 9

Warmth did find her in an unexpected way, yes, it did.

She didn't remember or know how, but Aaalam did find her when she was dried up with tears curled up on the wall of the pathway.

And she is more than glad that it was the same person who found her and took her in, as he did when she first came here, unlike before; now her brain contains memories, and the recognition helps her feel delighted.

As her body shivered from the cold, yet her heart carried the warmth just then, with a smile that she could feel at home, Aaalm brought in his famous milk soda as her hand immediately clutched it and drank it like a starving person, well, she is as she can't remember when she ate for the day.

Aalam sat beside her, close enough to make sure she was feeling ok as his weathered face tightened with emotions he was trying very hard not to show. He shouldn't be doing this, she could see it in the way his jaw clenched and his hands fidgeted in his lap, could sense the war happening behind his eyes between the man he was supposed to be and the man he actually was.

"Tum theek ho, Gul?" His voice came out rougher than usual, thick with things he wasn't saying. "Kuch hua? Tumne kuch dekha?"

Are you okay, Gul? Did something happen? Did you see something?

She couldn't answer. Could only sit there clutching the cup with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling, her red-rimmed eyes staring at nothing, her mind still trapped in that market square watching blood spray through the air like rain.

"It's okay,"Aalam murmured, more to himself than to her. "You don't have to say anything. Just stay here. Okay?"

He reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away if she needed to, and when she didn't, he let his hand rest on her back and patted softly, saying, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, you're not alone.

And something inside her finally broke as the tears came without warning, spilling down her cheeks in hot streams that she couldn't control and didn't try to. Her body folded toward the warmth beside her, her head finding his shoulder as it belonged there, like this was the place she had been searching for through all those weeks of silk sheets and wrong names and people who loved a ghost.

He stiffened for just a moment, ofcourse his years of training telling him to pull back, to maintain distance, to remember that this wasn't part of the mission, but then something softer won out, and his arm came around her shoulders and pulled her closer, rocking her gently the way fathers rocked their children when the world became too much.

"Shhh," he whispered into her hair. "Main hoon. Aalam hoon. Kuch nahi hoga."

I'm here. It's Aalam. Nothing will happen.

This was what a real father felt like, she thought through the haze of her tears. Not the desperate, hungry love of a man who had dreamed her into existence, not the careful gentleness that hid something dark and violent underneath, but this, this quiet, steady presence that asked for nothing in return, that simply offered comfort because comfort was needed, and it made her cry harder.

For the girl, she couldn't remember being. For the nightmare she was trapped in and for the kindness she had almost trusted before watching it shatter in a spray of blood and cracking bone.

And Aalam just held her, rocking gently, letting her tears soak into his old kurta without complaint.

Just then, an engine's sound cut the moment short as her head snapped towards it. Her eyes darted to the door from which the sound came, behind it, behind the door, and it frightened her, her fingers clenching Aalam's kurta as if he might disappear if she let go.

"Bus bike hai," Aalam said quickly, his hand tightening on her shoulder. "Sirf bike."

It's just a bike. Only a bike.

With her chest heaving with her breath, her ear picked up again the sound of the door opening, causing her eye to widen, please let it not be the Rehman...please please please she prayed to a god she has no idea of how to.

The door opened only for Hamza to step inside.

He looked the same as always, but Gul couldn't see him the same way anymore. Because she remembered now, remembered seeing him at the edge of that crowd in the market, remembered his figure standing among Rehman's men while their leader beat a man to death in broad daylight.

He hadn't been covered in blood like Rehman, but he had been there and had watched as he done nothing to stop it.

Her body pressed closer to Aalam while her eyes locked on Hamza's face, searching for the man who had promised her he would be here and finding only a stranger who worked for a monster.

"Hamza." Aalam's voice was careful, measured. "Kya hua? Sab theek hai?"

What happened? Is everything okay?

Hamza didn't answer immediately; his gaze moved from Aalam to Gul and lingered there for a minute. He looked at her tears and red eyes, at the way she was clutching Aalam like a lifeline, and something flickered across his face, there and gone too fast to name.

"Woh bhag gayi."

She ran away.

Three words, flat and empty, but heavy with implication.

Aalam's arm tightened around her shoulders. "Mujhe pata hai. Woh yahan aayi. Main-"

I know. She came here. I-

"Rehman pagal ho gaya hai." Hamza cut him off, his voice dropping lower. "Poora ghar talash kar raha hai. Agar usne pata laga liya ke woh yahan hai..."

Rehman has gone crazy. He's searching the whole house. If he finds out she's here...

He didn't finish the sentence; he didn't need to.

Just then, slowly, Aalam patted her shoulder and withdrew as he went and walked closer to Hamza. They talked in whispers after that, Hamza and Aalam, their voices too low for her to catch more than fragments. But she watched them, her eyes never leaving Hamza's face, trying to reconcile the man who had held her hands and traced patterns on her palms with the man who stood beside killers and did nothing.

Then she heard it.

"Main usse wapas le jaane aaya hoon."

I came to take her back.

Her whole body went cold.

Hamza was looking at her now, those hazel eyes that she had trusted meeting hers with something that might have been an apology or might have been nothing at all.

"Gul. Chalo."

Gul. Let's go.

No.

The word exploded in her mind even though it couldn't reach her lips. She was on her feet before she knew she was moving, stumbling backwards, shaking her head so hard her vision blurred. Her hands came up between them like a barrier, as she could physically stop what was about to happen through sheer force of will.

No, she wasn't going back to that house. Wasn't going back to that monster. Wasn't going back to people who loved her while their hands dripped with other people's blood.

Never!!! NEVER!!!!

Hamza sighed, the sound heavy with exhaustion.

"Don't make this difficult, Gul." His voice was quieter now, almost gentle. "Please."

She shook her head again, backing up until her shoulders hit the wall behind her. Her eyes darted between Hamza and Aalam, desperate for an ally, desperate for someone to understand that she couldn't go back, she couldn't, she would rather die in this shop than return to a house built on blood and bones.

Hamza took a step toward her.

She twisted away from his reaching hand, ducking under his arm and darting toward Aalam with a speed born of pure terror. Her fingers found the old man's fabric and fisted in it, clutching so tight her knuckles went white, and sounds started coming from her throat, not words, she didn't have words, but desperate whimpering cries that said everything her voice couldn't.

Please don't let him take me.

Please, please, please.

I can't go back there.

I saw what he did.

I saw the blood.

Please.

Hamza sighed as he walked back, his hands reaching out, his palm closing around her small wrist, trying to pry her, to take her back as he should.

Bu Gul was not having it, no she wont let him, not even his palms warmth almost want her to let him take her, let him hold her, but nope as she beat at his hands when he tried to pull her away, her small fists connecting with his wrists over and over, not hard enough to hurt but frantic enough to make her intentions clear. She would fight, claw and bite, and scream without sound if that's what it took. She would-

"Bas."

Enough.

Hamza's voice had changed.

Gone was the gentle tone, the tired patience, the almost-softness she had glimpsed in her bedroom, what felt like a lifetime ago. What remained was something harder, something colder, something that made her freeze mid-struggle and look up at his face with wide eyes.

He was looking at her the way Rehman had looked at the man in the market. Like she was a problem to be solved, like her resistance meant nothing. Like he would do whatever it took to get what he came for.

"Maine kaha bas."

I said enough.

She didn't move or let go of Aalam. Didn't do anything except stare at Hamza with defiance she didn't feel and terror she couldn't hide.

Something dangerous flickered in his hazel eyes as he turned away from her slowly, and when he turned back, there was a knife in his hand that made her blood run cold. He didn't point it at her, no, he didn't threaten her directly. Instead, he took two steps toward Aalam and pressed the blade against the old man's wrist, right where the veins ran blue beneath thin skin.

"Tees second."

Thirty seconds.

His voice was calm, as if he were discussing the weather rather than threatening to cut open the only person in this city who had shown her genuine kindness.

"Tees second mein tum mere bike pe baitho, warna..."

In thirty seconds you sit on my bike, otherwise...

He let the sentence hang, let her imagination fill in the blanks.

Gul's grip on Aalam's loosened slightly, her eyes fixed on the knife, on the way it pressed into skin without breaking it, yet her mind spoke no, Hamza wouldn't, not to Aalam, let alone anyone, would he?

He's bluffing. He has to be bluffing.

He wouldn't actually-

The blade moved.

A thin line of red appeared on Aalam's wrist, just above where the knife had been, blood welling up in beads that caught the light like rubies. The cut was small, barely more than a scratch, really, a warning rather than a wound, but a little lower and it would have been so much worse.

Gul shrieked, the sound tore from her throat without permission, the first real vocalisation she had made in weeks. It wasn't a word, wasn't even close to a word, but it was sound, and it was hers, and it was born from the purest terror she had ever felt.

Hamza looked at her over Aalam's shoulder, his hazel eyes meeting hers with an expression that said, I told you so, I'm not playing games, and do you believe me now?

"Main mazaak nahi kar raha."

I'm not joking.

Aalam saw that Gul was shocked and frozen beside him, but he kept his voice steady as he spoke.

"Gul." He reached for her hand with his uninjured one, squeezing gently. "Beta, jao. Please. Tumhari safety ke liye."

Gul. Child, go. Please. For your safety.

"Na-" The word almost formed on her lips, almost made it past the barrier, but it dissolved into another whimper before it could take shape.

"Sun meri baat." Aalam's eyes were wet now, tears he was trying very hard not to let fall. "Jao abhi. Tum wapas aa sakti ho. Permission ke saath. Lekin abhi, is waqt, tumhe jaana hoga."

Listen to me. Go now. You can come back. With permission. But right now, in this moment, you have to go.

Her fingers released his one by one, each small surrender feeling like a piece of her heart being torn away. She looked at the blood on his wrist, at the knife still in Hamza's hand, at the reality of her situation crashing down around her like walls collapsing.

She had no power here, no voice or choice.

Hamza's hand closed around her arm, not gentle but not bruising either, and he pulled her toward the door with steps that left no room for argument. She stumbled after him, her feet dragging on the floor as her eyes fixed on Aalam's face until the doorway swallowed her and she couldn't see him anymore.

The motorcycle waited outside, dark and gleaming in the fading light; it appeared new, her brow scrunched. He had never had a vehicle before, and reality struck her right there; it had been given to him by Rehman. For his loyalty? for being a puppet to that monster?

Hamza swung his leg over and looked back at her, one eyebrow raised in silent command. Get on.

She stood there for a moment, frozen between the shop behind her and the vehicle in front of her, the last of her resistance crumbling into dust. Then, slowly, she climbed onto the bike behind him, her hands finding his waist because there was nowhere else to hold.

He didn't say anything.

Just kicked the engine to life and pulled away from the curb, the bike roaring beneath them as they merged into the calmness of the night.

The wind caught her hair and lifted it behind her like a dark flag, tangling it into knots she would have to work out later, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She rested her forehead against Hamza's shoulder blade, not because she wanted to, not because she trusted him anymore. No, she shook her head slowly. Did she trust him? aftter all this? But why is her heart screaming for her to hold on and say yes as if he is worthy of her trust? She sighed to herself, realising she was holding on to him now because she was so tired and the wind was so cold, and she didn't have the strength to hold herself upright.

He felt solid beneath her, but everything she had believed about him felt like ash in her mouth.

The streets of Lyari blurred past them, familiar and foreign all at once, and she watched them go with eyes that had stopped seeing. She was going back to the monster's house. Back to the woman who called her daughter. Back to the cage made of silk and flowers and the desperate love of people who didn't know her at all.

But something had changed.

She had seen what Rehman really was beneath the gentle smiles and patient silence. Had seen the blood on his hands and the emptiness in his eyes as he swung that pipe over and over and over.

She would go back because she had no choice. But she would never forget. And she would never, ever trust them again.

The wind stung her eyes, pulling tears she didn't have the energy to cry, and she pressed her face harder against Hamza's shoulder and let the numbness take her. Her heart was as torn as her mind. And neither one knew how to heal.

Somewhere between one street and the next, her hands moved.

They slid from the safe grip on his waist, her small, cold fingers travelling upward along the fabric of his kurta until they found the centre of his chest, where the buttons were left undone, where the heat of his skin met the night air, where her frozen palms pressed flat against the warmth she found there.

Hamza shivered, not from cold, the night was mild enough, the wind more gentle than biting, but from something else entirely, something that shot through his body like electricity when her icy fingers made contact with his bare skin. His head turned slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye, and what he saw made his chest tighten in ways he didn't want to examine.

She was lying against his shoulder with no motion at all, her face pressed into the fabric of his, her eyes closed or maybe just unfocused; he couldn't tell from this angle. But her palm stayed right there in the centre of his chest, right over the place where his heart was beating faster than it should be, like she was searching for something beneath the surface.

Like she was trying to find the real him in this world of lies.

Stop.

He told himself firmly, his jaw tightening as he forced his eyes back to the road ahead.

Stop thinking, stop feeling. Stop whatever this is before it becomes something you can't control.

He wasn't doing this because he cared about her. That wasn't what this was. He had his own plans, his own mission, his own reasons for being in Rehman Dakait's world that had nothing to do with a voiceless girl who looked at him like he was the only light in her darkness.

Bringing her back was just a task. A job, a stepping stone that would take him closer to Rehman than he had ever been before, that would earn him trust and access and all the things he needed to accomplish what he had come here to do.

That was all.

That was the only reason he had spent the whole day with his heart in his throat, searching through streets and alleys and every corner of Lyari with a desperation he refused to name. The only reason he had prayed, actually prayed, something he hadn't done in years, was to find her safe and whole and unharmed.

You were just protecting the mission, he told himself as the bike raced through the silent road. Rehman would have burned the city down in search of her. You needed to find her first. That's all.

That's all.

That's all.

He wasn't scared when he realised she was gone. Wasn't terrified when hours passed, and no one could find her. Wasn't sick with worry imagining all the terrible things that could happen to a girl with no voice and no memory wandering alone through streets that ate people like her for breakfast.

No.

He didn't care.

He cared about getting in Rehman's good books. Cared about climbing the ladder and about achieving the mission he had spent years building toward.

That was what mattered, not her. Never her.

Then her grip loosened, her fingers went slack against his chest as her palm slid sideways, and he felt the weight of her body shift behind him, not holding on anymore, not clinging to him the way she had been, but drooping and slipping away.

His heart dropped. The sensation was so sudden that it stole his breath, his whole body reacting before his mind could catch up. She was falling, the cold had gotten to her, or the exhaustion, or the trauma of everything she had witnessed and experienced today, and now she was sliding off the back of his bike, and he was going to lose her and-

No.

His hand moved without permission. He reached back with his left arm while his right stayed steady on the handlebars, his fingers finding her small, cold hand where it had fallen from his chest and pulling it forward again. But that wasn't enough; she was still slipping, so he shifted his grip to her wrist and tugged her whole body closer until she was pressed firmly against his back with no space left between them.

She didn't wake.

Just made a small sound in her sleep, something between a sigh and a whimper, and let herself be rearranged like a doll with no will of its own. Her head found his shoulder blade again, her breath warm against the back of his neck, her body moulding to his as it belonged there.

And for one millisecond, just one, barely a heartbeat, not long enough to mean anything, his fingers moved across her knuckles in something that felt dangerously close to a caress. Her skin was so soft beneath his rough fingertips, so delicate, so different from everything else in his world of violence and lies and calculated moves.

He traced the ridges of her bones, the valleys between her fingers, the warmth that was slowly returning to her frozen hands.

Then he caught himself.

What are you doing?

His jaw clenched, and he pulled her hand forward, placing it flat against his kurta right over his heart, and her fingers curled into the fabric instinctively, clutching tight even in sleep, holding onto him like he was the only solid thing in her drowning world.

He put his hand back on the handlebars and stared straight ahead at the road as he tried to ignore the way his heart was pounding beneath her palm, loud enough that she could probably feel it if she was awake, loud enough to betray every lie he was telling himself.

You're just bringing her back.

The thought came sharp and deliberate, a correction to whatever had just happened.

You're just bringing this girl back to where she belongs. Safely. Without a scratch. Because that's what Rehman needs. Because that's what the mission requires.

That's the only reason you pulled her closer.

That's the only reason you touched her hand.

That's the only reason your chest feels tight, and your throat feels dry, and your heart won't stop racing even though nothing happened, nothing at all, nothing that matters.

He nodded to himself, a small, sharp motion that settled the matter.

That's what's right.

That's what's true.

That's the story, and you're sticking to it.

Behind him, Gul slept on, her fingers tangled in his kurta, her body warm against his back, her breath soft and steady against his neck. She had no idea what was happening inside his head. No idea that the man she had trusted enough to fall asleep against was fighting a war with himself that he couldn't afford to lose.

The lights of Rehman's house appeared in the distance, growing larger with every second, and Hamza pushed the throttle harder.

The sooner he delivered her, the sooner he could get away from this feeling.

The sooner he could go back to being the man he needed to be.

The man who didn't care.

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 8

The days blurred into each other, each one indistinguishable from the last, marked only by the small moments when she caught glimpses of hazel eyes across crowded rooms or through dusty windows.

Hamza was always there but never close.

She would hear his voice sometimes, drifting up from the courtyard below or echoing through hallways she was still too afraid to explore alone, and her whole body would strain toward the sound like a flower turning toward sunlight. Her feet would carry her to the nearest window before her mind could catch up, her hands pressing against the glass, her eyes searching desperately through the chaos of men and vehicles and activity that seemed to never stop in this house.

"Hamza, gadi ready hai. Rehman Bhai wait kar rahe hain."

Hamza, the car is ready. Rehman Bhai is waiting.

The voice floated up from below, and she pressed closer to the glass, her breath fogging the surface, her heart hammering as she searched for that familiar figure among the crowd. And there he was, walking toward one of the multiple cars parked, looking like he belonged there, as he had always belonged there, looking like the man who had held her hands and promised her he would be here was nothing but a dream she had conjured in her loneliness.  But he never looked up at her window, not even once.

The car horns became her signal; every time one sounded in the courtyard below, her heart would leap into her throat, and her body would move without permission, carrying her to whatever window or doorway was closest. Sometimes Faizel would find her pressed against the glass.

"Pari? Kya dekh rahi ho?"

Pari? What are you looking at?

He tugged at her sleeve with those curious eyes that reminded her too much of innocence she no longer possessed, his small face scrunched up in confusion as he tried to follow her gaze. She didn't answer him because she couldn't.

"Woh log boring hain," he continued, unbothered by her silence, the way adults never were. "Abbu ke kaam ke log. They just talk, talk, talk about boring things. Come, I show you something better."

Those people are boring. Father's work people.

And before she could resist, he was dragging her away from the window, chattering enough for both of them about things she only half understood. He took her to the terrace.

"Come, come, you will like it, I promise."

She let him pull her through hallways she had never seen, up stairs she didn't know existed, his small hand warm in hers, his voice filling the silence with chatter about school and friends and a video game he wanted, but Ammi said no.

"Naieem had it, though," he said as they climbed. "He let me play sometimes when Ammi wasn't looking. Don't tell her, ok? It's secret."

He pushed through a door at the top of the stairs, and brightness poured over them so suddenly it made her eyes water.

The terrace looked so beautiful, the open air and blue sky, and the sunlight that poured down on her skin like warm honey, making her feel, for one dizzying moment, like she could breathe again. The wind caught her hair, lifted it away from her face, and carried with it the sounds of the city beyond these walls.

"Nice, yes?" Faizel was grinning at her, proud of himself. "I come here when I am sad. The sun makes it better. Naieem bhai said when everything feels too heavy, you come up here and let the sky take some of the weight."

She wanted to tell him he was right, wanted to tell him this was the closest she had felt to herself since waking up in this nightmare, but the words wouldn't come, so she just nodded once and turned her face back toward the sky.

"See? I knew you would like it." He plopped down on the ground beside her, pulling his knees up to his chest. "You can come here whenever you want. I don't mind sharing. Naieem always said sharing is good."

His voice wobbled slightly on his brother's name, but he pushed through it, and something in her chest ached for this small boy who was trying so hard to be brave.

Something was missing, though. She noticed it that first day on the terrace and every day after, an absence that nagged at her like a splinter buried too deep to remove. The air here smelled like dust and exhaust and the faint spice of food cooking somewhere below, but underneath all of that, there was supposed to be something else, something sweet and heady and familiar.

Jasmine, the word surfaced in her broken mind like a bubble rising through dark water, carrying with it fragments of sensation that didn't connect to any memory she could name. She found herself wandering the terrace, lifting her face to every breeze, searching.

"Kya dhundh rahi ho?" Faizel asked one afternoon, watching her move from corner to corner with a puzzled expression.

What are you looking for?

She couldn't explain it to him, couldn't find a way to make him understand that she was searching for a smell that lived more vividly in her broken memory than her own name. So she just shook her head and kept searching, kept hoping that one day the wind would carry that familiar sweetness and something would click into place.

"If you tell me, I can help," he offered. "I know this house better than anyone. Even better than Ammi. I know all the secret places."

But how could she tell him she was looking for something she couldn't name, something that might not even exist outside the fog that filled the space where her past should be?

She couldn't.

So she kept her silence, kept searching, and kept wondering where the jasmine had gone.

Slowly, the same terrace became her refuge.

Every day, she would climb those stairs and push through that door and stand in the sunlight with her face turned toward the sky. From up here, she could see the whole courtyard, could track the comings and goings of Rehman's men, could watch for hazel eyes that rarely appeared.

"Tum phir se yahan ho."

You're here again.

Faizel's voice came from behind her, and she turned to find him climbing through the door with two glasses of something cold and sweet-smelling.

"Ammi said you need to drink more. You're too thin." He handed her one of the glasses and plopped down beside her, following her gaze to the courtyard below. "Who are you looking for?"

She didn't answer.

"Is it Hamza?" He took a sip of his drink, watching her face carefully. "I see you watching when he comes. Your face changes."

Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away.

"He's nice," Faizel continued, oblivious to her embarrassment. "He tried to save i; he carried him all the way to the hospital. That's why Abbu trusts him now and me too."

She turned back to him, something sharp twisting in her chest at the mention of that night.

"I was there," Faizel said quietly. "Hamza was covered in blood. Naieem bhai's blood. He tried so hard to save him."

His eyes were wet now, but he didn't cry, just blinked rapidly and took another sip of his drink.

"I'm glad he's here now. Hamza. He feels safe, like Naieem used to feel."

She reached out without thinking and put her hand over his small one, the only comfort she could offer, and he looked up at her with a wobbly smile.

"You feel safe, too, Pari. Different but safe. I'm glad you came."

She watched Hamza from the terrace that afternoon, watched him climb into a black car beside Rehman, watched the vehicle pull away and disappear through the gates.

"Woh roz jaata hai," Faizel said from beside her. "Abbu ke saath kaam ke liye."

He goes every day. With father for work.

She wanted to run after him, wanted to dash down those stairs and through those hallways and grab onto him before he could leave, wanted to beg him with her eyes the way she had that day in her room.

But the memory of his hands on her shoulders kept her rooted in place.

No Aalam. No chai shop. Nothing.

Ok? Ok.

He had his mission, she had her cage, until today.

Today, something broke inside her. It started at breakfast when Rehman sat across from her, watching her with that hungry hope that made her skin crawl, when she finally made to come out of that room, and out into the open.

"Pari, aaj hum saath mein garden mein walk karein? Fresh air milegi."

Pari, shall we take a walk in the garden together today? You'll get fresh air.

She stared at her plate, her appetite vanishing.

"Ulfat bhi aayegi," he added quickly, like that would make it better. "Family walk, Hum sab saath mein."

Ulfat will come too. Family walk, all of us together.

She couldn't do it anymore, couldn't sit here pretending to be their daughter, couldn't eat their food and wear their clothes and let them call her by a name that wasn't hers.

She pushed back from the table and fled before anyone could stop her, ignoring Ulfat's worried "Pari? Pari, kya hua?" that followed her up the stairs.

Pari? What happened?

She stayed on the terrace for just an hour, and from there her eyes moved towards the sound as she watched the chaos unfold below.

Men shouting orders as they load vehicles and prepare for some mission she didn't understand. Rehman emerged from the house with Ulfat at his side, their heads bent together in conversation.

"Tum fikar mat karo," she heard him say, his voice carried up on the wind. "Main jaldi wapas aaunga. Woh theek ho jayegi. Bus time chahiye."

Don't worry. I'll be back soon, she'll be fine. She just needs time.

And there, among the chaos, she saw him.

Hamza.

Standing beside one of the cars, listening to instructions from another man, his hazel eyes focused on something she couldn't see. He was leaving again, going wherever Rehman's work took them, and she would be left behind in this beautiful prison with nothing but her silence and her loneliness for company.

Something snapped. If he wasn't going to help her, then she would help herself.

Her heart pounded as she slipped through the kitchen door into the courtyard, no one noticed her. The servants were busy with their tasks, the men were focused on their preparations, and Rehman was still murmuring reassurances to Ulfat near the main entrance.

One of the cars sat with its trunk open, waiting.

She moved toward it like a ghost, her eyes fixed on that dark space that promised freedom. Her hands were shaking as she reached it, her whole body trembling with fear and adrenaline.

"Sab ready hai?" someone shouted nearby. "Chalo, Rehman bhai wait nahi karenge."

Everything ready? Let's go, Rehman bhai won't wait.

Now or never, as she twisted the handle and slipped inside, folding her body into the small dark space, pulling the lid down over herself just as footsteps approached.

"Yeh trunk check kiya?" a voice asked, so close she could hear the man's breathing.

Did you check this trunk?

Her heart stopped.

"Haan haan, sab theek hai. Chalo jaldi."

Yes, yes, everything's fine. Let's go quickly.

And the footsteps moved away. She pressed her hand against her mouth to muffle her breathing, pressed her body flat against the floor, pressed her eyes closed as the engine rumbled to life and the car began to move.

She was doing this, she was actually doing this.

The gates creaked open somewhere ahead, and the car picked up speed, carrying her away from the house, away from the cage, away from the strangers who loved a ghost and couldn't see the real girl right in front of them.

I'm going to be free, or I'm going to die trying. That's the last thought she had while she left the place she never wanted to return.

She wasn't sure how long she had been lying there in the darkness.

Time had lost meaning somewhere between the rumble of the engine and the pounding of her own heart, each minute stretching into eternity as the car bumped and swayed over roads she couldn't see. But then the car had stopped, and the voices, along with the sound of the engine, all faded.

Minutes passed, or maybe more. The voices faded completely, replaced by other sounds, distant voices, the general chaos of a place filled with more people than she had heard in weeks. She pressed her ear against the trunk floor and listened, trying to gauge whether it was safe, whether she could risk it, whether this tiny sliver of courage she had gathered would be enough.

Now or never.

Her trembling hands found the trunk release and pushed, praying that no one was watching, praying that whatever gods existed in this broken world would give her just this one small mercy and lifted the lid.

Daylight poured in, blinding her after so long in the dark, and she squinted against the brightness as she pulled herself up and out of the trunk on shaking legs. Her body protested every movement, stiff and sore from being cramped for so long, but she forced herself to stand, to look around, to figure out where she was.

A market, she was standing in a narrow alley behind what looked like a row of shops, the sounds flooding her ears from somewhere just around the corner. People talking, vendors calling out their wares, the clatter of carts and the honking of horns, all of it mixing together into a wall of noise that made her head spin.

Where was she?

Her mind raced, trying to piece together fragments of memory that wouldn't fit. If she could just try herself, just find something familiar, maybe she could find her way back to the chai shop, back to Aalam, back to the only place that had ever felt like home.

Aalam.

The name surfaced in her mind like a lifeline thrown to a drowning person. Yes, she needed to find Aalam. He would help her. He would know what to do. He would keep her safe from the strangers who called her by the wrong name and loved a ghost she could never become.

She opened her mouth, trying to form the word, trying to push sound past the barrier that had locked her voice away for so long.

"A... Aa..."

Nothing.

Just breath and silence and the familiar frustration of a throat that refused to cooperate, no matter how desperately she needed it to. She pressed her hand against her neck, as if she could physically push the words out, but it was useless. Her voice was gone, stolen by whatever trauma had broken her mind, and no amount of wanting would bring it back.

Fine then.

She would find him without speaking. Would let her instincts guide her, would trust the fragments of memory that still flickered in the fog, would walk until she saw something familiar.

She stepped out of the alley and into the chaos of the market.

The noise was overwhelming.

Bodies pressed in from all sides, she tried to make herself small, tried to move through the crowd without drawing attention, but her simple kameez, bare feet, and wild eyes must have marked her as out of place, because people kept looking.

Kept staring, and then came the sounds.

"Arre, dekho yeh toh maal hai!"

Hey, look at this one!

The voice came from somewhere to her left, followed by a sharp whistling sound that cut through the noise of the market. She turned, confused, and saw a group of men leaning against a shop front, their eyes fixed on her with expressions she couldn't read.

One of them made the sound again, a high-pitched whistle, like a bird calling to its mate.

Birds?

She looked around, searching for the source, searching for the birds these men seemed to be communicating with. Were there birds nearby? Could these men actually talk to them? The thought sparked something like wonder in her chest, a brief flash of amazement at this strange and magical world she had found herself in.

"Kahan ja rahi ho, gori?" another man called, making that same whistling sound. "Akeli ho? Saath mein chalein?"

Where are you going, fair one? Are you alone? Shall we go together?

She smiled at them without meaning to, still caught up in the marvel of men who could speak to birds, still too lost in her own confusion to understand what was actually happening. One of the men elbowed another, and they laughed at something she didn't catch, their eyes travelling over her in ways that should have made her uncomfortable but didn't register through the fog of her innocence.

"Pagal hai kya?" one of them muttered.

Is she crazy?

She didn't stay to hear more; she just shook her head at them, a gesture that might have been goodbye or nothing at all, and continued walking, her eyes scanning each shop she passed for something, anything, that looked familiar.

She was close; she could feel it in her bones. The streets were starting to look familiar, the arrangement of shops triggering fragments of memory that flickered just out of reach. 

Aalam, the chai shop.

I'm almost there.

Her heart beat faster with something that felt like hope, her feet moving quicker over the dusty ground. Just a little further. Just around the next corner. 

She heard the commotion before she saw it.

A crowd had gathered ahead, blocking the narrow street as people craned their necks to see something she couldn't make out.  She should turn around and find another way, listen to the alarm bells ringing in her head that said danger, danger, get away from here.

But something pulled her forward instead, some terrible curiosity she couldn't name, and she found herself pushing through the crowd until she reached the front.

And then she saw him.

Rehman.

The same man whose house she had fled from just hours ago. The same man who looked at her with kindness in his eyes, called her his daughter, and promised she was safe. The same man who had tried so hard to earn her trust, who kept his distance when she flinched, who spoke softly and moved carefully like he was handling something precious.

He stood in the centre of a cleared space, his face twisted into an expression she had never seen before. Gone was the gentle father who watched her from doorways. Gone was the patient man who accepted her fear without complaint.

This was someone else entirely; this was a monster.

There lay a man on top of a vegetable cart, or what was left of one. The figure's legs writhed on the ground, hands raised in a futile attempt at protection, voice cracking as he begged for mercy in words that tumbled over each other too fast to understand.

"Rehman, please,  I am your father, please, please, please"

Rehman didn't respond, didn't even seem to hear.

He just stood there with something heavy in his hands, something that looked like a weight, she couldn't tell through distance, and looked down at the begging man with eyes that held nothing human at all.

"You thought you could touch my son?"

"Rehman, that was a mistake"

And just like that, the weight in his hands came down with the sound that would live in her nightmares forever.

That wet, cracking thud as metal met skull, the way the man's words cut off mid-sentence, the spray of red that arced through the air and spattered across the faces of those standing too close. The crowd gasped as one, a collective intake of breath that seemed to suck all the air out of the narrow street.

But Rehman didn't stop.

He raised the weight and brought it down again. And again. And again. Each blow landed with a sickening crunch, each one turning the man's face into something less recognisable, something that barely looked human anymore.

"Yeh hai," Rehman said between swings, his voice still eerily calm, "unka anjaam jo meri family ko touch karne ki sochte hain."

This is the fate of those who think of touching my family.

Blood pooled beneath the body; it was a body now, not a man. The writhing had stopped somewhere between the third and fourth blow, spreading across the dusty ground in a dark stain that crept toward the feet of the watching crowd. People stepped back, horrified, but no one ran. No one tried to stop him. No one did anything except watch as Rehman Dakait beat a man to death in broad daylight.

And Gul watched too.

Frozen in place, her eyes locked on the horror unfolding before her, unable to look away even as every part of her screamed to run. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears, a desperate rhythm that drowned out everything else. Her hands shook at her sides, trembling so violently she couldn't have controlled them if she tried.

No. No no no no no.

What is happening?

What is he doing?

What-

Rehman straightened, chest heaving, blood dripping from the weight in his hands, the kurta on his body and the face that had looked at her with such gentleness just that morning. He turned to scan the crowd, his dark eyes moving from face to face, and Gul's entire body went cold with terror.

Don't see me.

Please don't see me.

Please, please, please.

His gaze swept past her.

Didn't stop, didn't recognise the girl from his dreams standing among the witnesses to his violence. But it didn't matter; she had seen enough.

Her legs moved backwards first, stumbling away from the crowd, away from the body, away from the monster who wore a father's face and spoke with a father's voice and killed with hands that had promised to keep her safe. She didn't know where she was going and didn't care.

Just ran, away from the blood and the screaming and the wet crack of weight against skull that echoed in her ears as it would never stop. Away from the man who had called her his daughter and meant it,  who had looked at her with love in his eyes while his hands were capable of that.

Her lungs burned, and her feet ached.

Tears she didn't remember crying streamed down her face, blurring her vision, making her stumble over uneven ground she couldn't see.

Monster.

He's a monster.

They're all monsters.

The whole house is built on blood and death, and I was sleeping there, eating there, letting them touch me and call me their daughter and all this time-

She crashed into a wall and slid down it, her legs finally giving out, her body crumpling into a heap of trembling limbs and heaving breaths. The alley around her was empty, quiet, a small pocket of stillness in a city that suddenly felt like it was made of nothing but violence and fear.

She pressed her hands over her ears, closed her eyes, and tried to block out the memory that was already burning itself into her brain, searing into the place where her other memories should be.

The blood, the cracking sound. The way Rehman's face had looked as he swung that weight over and over and over.

Monster.

Monster.

Monster.

She didn't know how long she sat there. Her body shook with sobs that made no sound, her throat locked tight around screams that couldn't escape.

I'm never going back.

The thought crystallised in her mind very sharply.

Never.

I'll sleep on the streets. I'll starve. I'll die in an alley where no one knows my name.

But I will never go back to that house.

I will never let that monster call me his daughter again.

Never.

Never.

NEVER.

She pressed her forehead against her knees and let the tears come, silent and endless, mourning something she couldn't name.

Maybe she was mourning the illusion of safety she had started to build, maybe she was mourning the kindness she had almost come to believe was real. Or maybe she was just mourning herself, the lost girl with no memory and no voice, trapped in a world of monsters who wore human faces and killed in broad daylight and thought they had the right to love her.

The sun began to set somewhere beyond the walls of her alley, casting long shadows across the ground. And Gul stayed where she was, curled into a ball, shaking, waiting for the darkness to swallow her whole.

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 7

Every muscle in his body locked into place the moment he felt the collision against his back, the moment small fingers threaded through his palm and held on like he was the last solid thing in a drowning world. His training screamed at him to react, but something else told him to stay perfectly still. Then he heard it, small whimpers, escaped from behind him, muffled against the fabric of his kurta. Her unspoken lips emitted something that bypassed language entirely and spoke straight to the part of him he had spent years learning to ignore.

He turned his head slowly. And there she was.

Gul.

Pressed against his back like she was trying to disappear into him, her face half-hidden against his upper back, her whole body trembling with a force that had nothing to do with cold. She looked smaller than he remembered, also thinner; there are carved hollows beneath her cheekbones and shadows beneath her eyes that hadn't been there before.

But it was those eyes that stopped his breath.

She looked up at him very slowly and hesitantly, like she was afraid of what she might find, and he saw everything. Every fear she couldn't name. Every confusion she couldn't voice. Every desperate, aching plea for someone, anyone, to make sense of the nightmare she had woken up in.

Her eyes said everything her voice couldn't.

Help me. Please.

Please don't leave me here alone.

His jaw tightened, this is dangerous; he was supposed to be here now as Rehman's man, building trust, gathering intelligence, working his way deeper into an operation that had taken years to infiltrate. He wasn't supposed to be standing in a hallway with a voiceless girl clinging to his hand like he was her lifeline.

He wasn't supposed to care.

But he did.

That was the problem. Had been the problem since the first moment he saw her, looking at him with those eyes that held too many secrets. Had been the problem when he found her hiding in the van and chose to say nothing. Had been the problem every time their gazes met across crowded spaces, and something passed between them that he couldn't name and didn't want to examine. He cared, and caring is a weakness he couldn't afford.

His eyes swept the hallway, left, then right, checking for servants, for guards, for anyone who might see this and ask questions he couldn't answer. Luckily, the corridor was empty, for now. But that could change at any moment. This house was full of eyes, full of ears, full of people who reported everything to Rehman without being asked.

If someone saw them like this... If someone told Rehman that his new daughter was clinging to the hired help, as if he were the only person in the world who mattered. It wouldn't end well. For either of them.

He needed to move and needed to get her back to wherever she was supposed to be before anyone noticed she was gone. Needed to put distance between them, to remember his place, to remember the mission, to remember everything that mattered more than the warmth of her fingers wrapped around his.

But he couldn't make himself pull away.

Not yet.

"Chalo." (Come.)

The word came out softer than he intended, like a command wrapped in gentleness that surprised him even as it left his lips.

She looked up at him again, those eyes searching his face for something, reassurance, maybe, or permission to keep holding on. He gave her neither, cause he couldn't give her anything except the slight pressure of his fingers around hers, answering her grip without words.

Then he turned and led her back down the hallway, but she didn't resist.

That surprised him more than anything else. This girl, who had been fighting everything since the moment she arrived, fighting the food they brought her, fighting the name they called her, fighting the love they tried to give her, followed him without a single hesitation.

With each step, her hand stayed locked in his, trembling slightly, like a bird that had finally found a branch to rest on and was terrified it might disappear.

She trusted him.

The realisation settled into his chest with a weight he wasn't prepared for.

In this house full of people who wanted to love her or at least act like it, who would give her anything she asked for, she trusted him. The quiet man from the juice shop, who had never spoken more than a handful of words to her. The stranger with the hazel eyes who watched too much and said too little.

Him.

Not Ulfat with her gentle hands and patient silence, or Faizel with his bright eyes and desperate need for a sister, nor even Rehman, who would burn the world down to keep her safe. But him.

They reached the door to her room.

Hamza stopped, and she stopped with him, her grip tightening like she knew what was coming and was already preparing to fight it. He could feel her pulse jumping against his palm, fast, frightened, a rabbit's heart beating against his skin.

She didn't want to go back in there. Of course, she didn't.

That room was a cage, it's beautiful, yes, also comfortable, but still a cage. A place where she was expected to become someone she wasn't, to answer to a name that didn't belong to her, to love people she had never met before waking up in their hospital.

He understood why she had run. But he couldn't let her keep running.

"Andar." (Inside.)

His voice was still soft, but there was no room for argument in it as he turned to face her, gently trying to extract his hand from hers, harder than it should have been, his fingers reluctant to release what they had been holding, and gesturing toward the open door.

She stared at him.

Those eyes again, pleading without words. Asking him to change his mind, to take her somewhere else, anywhere else, to be her escape route instead of her jailer. He couldn't.

Not because he didn't want to. Not because he didn't feel the pull of her desperation like a physical force against his chest. But because this was the only safe place for her right now. Because Rehman Dakait had claimed her as his daughter, and in Lyari, that meant she was untouchable. Because the world outside this room, outside this house, was full of dangers she couldn't even imagine, men like Babu Dakait who had looked at her with hungry eyes, streets where girls with no voice and no memory disappeared without a trace, a city that would chew her up and spit out her bones without a second thought.

Here, she was protected; no one could touch her. Here, she could survive long enough to figure out who she was and where she belonged. Even if she hated every second of it.

She didn't move.

Just stood there in the doorway, her small frame blocking the entrance, her eyes locked on his face like she was trying to memorise it. Like she was afraid that if she looked away, he would vanish and she would be alone again.

He exhaled slowly; this was the part he was supposed to be good at. The cold detachment, the ability to walk away from anything, anyone, without looking back. He had been trained for it, had practised it until it became second nature, had convinced himself that he was made of stone and nothing could crack him.

But she was looking at him, and he couldn't look away as he gently held her hand again and tugged her in, and she went in without releasing his hand.

His other hand reached for the door handle to close and let go, but her fingers stayed locked around his, a chain made of desperation and warmth that refused to break. She is inside, and he is outside. A map drawn between them, a boundary that said this is where you belong, and this is where I belong, and never shall the two meet.

But her eyes, once again. Those eyes looked up at him through the gap in the door like they were physically pulling at something inside his chest. Big and aching and full of things she couldn't say, things she maybe didn't even have words for in any language. They tugged at him and dragged at him. Made him feel like he was standing at the edge of a cliff, with her asking him to jump.

Its Dangerous, but Hamza had never been scared of danger.

He sighed, the sound escaped him before he could stop it, heavy and tired and full of all the things he wasn't supposed to feel. His eyes swept the hallway one more time. Still empty, but someone would come eventually, so he should leave.

He should pull his hand free and walk away and forget the warmth of her fingers and the ache in her eyes and everything else that was making him stupid. He should, but he didn't; instead, he stepped forward into the room. Into dangerous territory. Into whatever this was that he couldn't name and didn't want to examine too closely.

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

She was still holding his hand and looking up at him like he was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth. 

Gently, more gently than he knew he was capable of, he led her across the room. His face gave nothing away. But his grip on her hand was careful, almost tender, guiding her like she might shatter if he moved too fast.

He brought her to the bed and eased her down onto the edge of it, her small frame sinking into the silk sheets she had been fighting against for days. She sat where he put her, obedient in a way she hadn't been with anyone else in this house, but her eyes never left his face.

Not for a second. Like if she looked away, he might disappear.

He crouched down in front of her.

Bringing himself to her level. Meeting those sea-green eyes that held too much, always too much, more than any person should have to carry.

"Yahan raho." (Stay here.)

His voice was low and quiet, the kind that comes from years of learning to speak without being overheard.

"Aaram karo." (Rest.)

She understood.

He could see it in the way her face changed, the flicker of recognition, the processing of sounds into meaning. With anyone else in this house, she seemed lost in a fog of unfamiliar words. But with him, something clicked. Maybe because he spoke simply and because he spoke slowly, or because she wanted so badly to understand him that her broken brain worked harder to make sense of what he was saying.

Or maybe it was something else entirely. Something neither of them was ready to name.

She shook her head.

Not a small shake or a hesitant one, it was frantic and desperate. Her dark hair swinging around her face, her eyes growing wider, and her grip on his hand tightening until her knuckles went white.

No, she didn't want to stay here. Didn't want to rest or want any of the things he was offering.

Her free hand came up and pointed front, towards the door. The gesture was clumsy but clear.

Take me back. Take me away from here. Take me to Aalam.

Hamza watched her hand move through the air as her eyes pleaded with him, her whole body leaning toward the door like she could will herself through it if she just wanted it badly enough.

She wanted to go home.

Back to the juice shop, to the small room with the cracked ceiling, to the old man who had named her Gul, taught her gestures, and made her feel, for the first time since waking up in this nightmare, like she might actually be safe.

She wanted Hamza to take her there.

He sighed again.

Deeper this time and heavier. The sound of a man being asked for something he couldn't give, no matter how much he might want to.

And he did want to.

That was the worst part. Looking at her sitting there on that bed, small and scared and desperate to escape, he wanted to do exactly what she was asking. Wanted to take her hand and lead her out of this house and back to Aalam's shop, where she could drink chai and learn gestures and slowly, slowly piece herself back together without the weight of a dead woman's dreams pressing down on her shoulders.

But he couldn't.

She didn't understand. Couldn't understand. She had no idea what kind of man Rehman Dakait was. What kind of power did he hold? What kind of destruction he was capable of when something he loved was threatened.

If Hamza took her out of this house... If Rehman discovered that someone had stolen his daughter, his miracle, his Pari. It wouldn't just be Hamza who paid the price.

It would be Aalam, the shop, everyone who had ever looked at her or spoken to her or breathed the same air as her. Rehman would hunt them down one by one, methodically, mercilessly, until there was nothing left but ashes and bones and the echo of screams. He would burn the world to get her back.

And then he would burn it again, just to make sure nothing survived.

Hamza shook his head, and her face crumpled.

Not into tears. But her expression collapsed inward, hope draining out of it like water through sand, leaving nothing but hollow devastation behind.

She understood that, too.

Understood it perfectly.

No.

He wasn't going to help her escape.

He wasn't going to take her back to the only place that had ever felt like home.

He was going to leave her here, in this beautiful prison, with people who loved a ghost and couldn't see the real girl standing in front of them.

Her hand fell back to her lap.

The one that had been pointing toward freedom, toward Aalam and everything she wanted and couldn't have.

It lay there now, limp and defeated, all the fight drained out of it.

"Gul."

The name slipped out before he could stop it.

Not Pari. Not the fairy tale name they had given her, the name she flinched away from every time someone spoke it. But Gul. The name Aalam had chosen meant 'flower'. The name she had started to recognise as her own, even if she wasn't sure it really was.

Her head snapped up.

Eyes wide with surprise. Like she hadn't expected to hear that name in this place, from this person, in this moment when everything felt like it was falling apart.

He held her gaze as he whispered, "No."

One word, so soft but immovable, like a wall she couldn't climb, no matter how hard she tried.

She stared at him and then, slowly, her eyes began to plead.

Her lips moved like she is speaking, but no sound came out, only whimpering sounds escaping from somewhere deep in her throat, small and broken and so full of desperation that they barely sounded human.

Please.

Please.

Take me to Aalam.

Take me to the chai shop.

Take me anywhere but here.

Please, Hamza.

Please.

Her fingers dug into his arm, tugging and trying to drag him toward the door, as she could physically force him to save her if she just held on tight enough. Her eyes burned into his, wet with tears that wouldn't fall, pleading with everything she had left as her heart ached. Ached so badly she thought it might crack open and spill all over this silk floor and stain these expensive carpets with everything she couldn't say.

Please.

Please.

I can't stay here.

I'll die here.

Please—

That's when Hamza snapped, but not with words, at least not at first. But with movement, sudden and sharp, and so unexpected that it stole the breath from her lungs as his hands found her shoulders and gripped them. Not hard enough to bruise or be violent. But it is firm, the kind of grip that said stop without needing to speak.

That grip made her freeze. Her whole body went rigid under his hands, every muscle locking into place, her desperate tugging dying mid-motion like someone had flipped a switch inside her. She stared up at him with wide eyes, her chest heaving, her fingers still curled around his arm but no longer pulling.

Because his face had changed. The calm was gone, the softness she had glimpsed in those hazel eyes, the gentleness he had shown when he led her to the bed, when he crouched down to meet her gaze, when he said her name like it was something worth saying, all of it had vanished.

What remained was a stone-cold and hard gaze. His eyes looked down at her, and there was no warmth in them anymore or tenderness. Just a flat, dangerous emptiness that made her blood run cold.

"I said no." He quietly said, but it cut through the air like a blade.

"Sit. Down."

Her body obeyed immediately. She sat on the edge of the bed, small and trembling, looking up at the man she had trusted with eyes that didn't understand what had just happened. Why had he changed? Where had the softness gone? Why was he looking at her like she was a problem to be solved instead of a person to be saved?

Hamza's hands stayed on her shoulders for a moment longer, making sure she wouldn't move again, and she understood.

Then he released her and stepped back, his eyes flicking toward the door, checking, always checking, making sure no one had heard, no one was coming, no one would find them like this.

He turned back to her.

Crouched down again, bringing himself to her level, but this time there was nothing gentle about the way he moved. This time, he was all sharp and controlled intensity, a man delivering a message he needed her to understand, even if it broke something in the process.

"You listen here."

His eyes locked onto hers.

"And you listen good."

She couldn't look away or blink, nor barely breathe.

"You stay here."

Each word landed like a stone dropped into still water.

"No Aalam."

Her heart cracked.

"No chai shop."

Another crack.

"Nothing."

The word echoed in the space between them, hollow and final.

"Ok?"

She stared at him as her eyes started to burn. Everything inside her was screaming no, no, please, no, but her body wouldn't move, and her voice wouldn't work. 

He wasn't done when he spoke again, stating, "No, Hamza."

This one hit her like a physical blow.

No Hamza.

No Hamza.

No.

She shook her head before she could stop herself. 

No.

Not that.

Anything but that.

She could survive this house. Could survive the woman who called herself Ammi and the man whose presence made her skin crawl, and also survive the silk sheets, the flowers, and the name that didn't belong to her. Even she could survive all of it, maybe, somehow, if she knew that somewhere in this nightmare there was one person who saw her. One person who knew her real name. One person who looked at her like she is Gul instead of Pari.

But if he was gone too...If he disappeared like everything else, as if she were truly, completely alone.

Her hand reached for him again, fingers stretching toward his arm like she could hold him in place, keep him here, stop him from leaving her behind in this beautiful prison, but he caught her wrist before she could touch him.

"Ok?"

He asked again, or more like demanded again. His eyes boring into hers, waiting for an answer he wasn't going to accept anything but yes to.

She couldn't nod or agree to lose the only thing that made this bearable. But she couldn't fight anymore either.

Her hand fell limp in his grip as Hamza watched her surrender.

Something flickered behind his eyes, there and gone before she could name it

"Ok."

He answered for her, for both of them, and he slowly released her wrist and stood up, putting distance between them, becoming the stranger again. The person who had no business being in Rehman Dakait's daughter's bedroom in the middle of the day.

He looked down at her one last time, and she looked back up at him.

Two people on opposite sides of a line that had just been drawn. A line that said, "This is where we stop, and this is as far as I can go. I'm sorry, but I have to leave you here alone."

Her eyes were still pleading, and his were already closing off.

"Rest." He whispered one final word back at her.

But before he could turn or his feet could carry him toward the door and away from her and back into the safety of distance, her hands moved fastly, finding the collar of his kurta and gripping the fabric as her fingers twisted into the neckline, dragging him closer until his face was inches from hers and she could feel his breath fan across her skin. It was warm, also unsteady, not as controlled as he wanted her to believe.

She looked up at him with her eyes that were finally wet, asking.

No Hamza?

The question lived in her eyes even though her lips couldn't form the words.

Did you mean it?

No Hamza?

You'll leave me here alone with nothing?

With no one?

Truly?

He caught it, all of the things she asked through her eyes, that tiny ache he thought he submerged, that hairline crack in his own armour that he hadn't known existed until this girl reached up and pressed her fingers right against it.

Something flickered across his face, and it was gone too fast for anyone else to notice. But she was watching him so closely, memorising every shift in his expression like her life depended on it, and she saw it.

She saw something soften, just for a second.

He had been harsh, he knew that, and he had meant to be. Sometimes, harsh was the only language people understood, the only thing that cut through panic and desperation and made them listen. He had learned that lesson young, and he had learned it well, and he had never once regretted the walls he built or the coldness he carried.

But looking at her now, at those wet eyes and trembling lips and small fingers twisted into his collar like he was her last hope in a hopeless world, something shifted.

Something he didn't want to examine or definitely shouldn't feel. Something that made his chest tight and his throat dry, and his carefully constructed walls feel suddenly, dangerously thin.

When did he start caring?

He wasn't supposed to care.

Caring was a weakness, a liability. Caring was how people got killed in his line of work, how missions failed, and covers got blown, and good men ended up in shallow graves with no one to mourn them.

He wasn't supposed to care about anyone.

Especially not her.

But she was looking at him, and her hands were warm against his chest. He exhaled deeply.

The sound came from somewhere deep inside him, heavy with things he couldn't name and didn't want to. His breath fanned across her face again, close, too close, closer than they had any right to be, and he watched her eyes widen at the intimacy of it as his hands came up, his large and rough hands, calloused from years of training and fighting and doing things he would never tell her about. They covered hers where they gripped his collar, engulfing her small fingers completely, making her look even more fragile than she already was.

Gently, he pried her grip loose, easing her fingers away from the fabric, one by one, until her hands were free and resting in his palms instead of clutching at his clothes. And slowly his thumbs moved. Tracing across her palms in a caress so light she might have imagined it. The rough pads of his fingers against her soft skin, drawing patterns that meant nothing and everything at once, made her shiver.

"Ok."

His voice was different now.

"Hamza will be here."

Her breath caught.

"Ok?"

She stared at him, processing, trying to understand whether this was real or if she was imagining things, conjuring comfort where none existed because she was so desperate for something, anything, to hold onto.

But his hands were still cradling hers, and his thumbs were still tracing those soft patterns across her palm. And his eyes, those hazel eyes that had been so cold just moments ago, were looking at her with something that might have been tenderness if she were brave enough to name it.

Hamza will be here.

He'll be here.

She won't be alone.

Just then, his lips tugged, very slightly, right at the corner. The ghost of a smile that was there and gone before she could be sure she'd seen it.

Maybe she imagined it, or she didn't. But it settled something inside her anyway. Eased the knot of panic in her chest. Made the silence feel less like drowning and more like breathing.

He patted her palms lightly. The way you might comfort a child. The way you might say it's ok without using words.

Then he released her and pulled away from her as he stepped back.

Just turned and walked toward the door with those silent, measured steps that gave nothing away. Like nothing had happened, or like he hadn't just held her hands, traced patterns on her palms, and promised her something that felt like hope.

She was alone again, but this time, the silence didn't crush her, nor did it settle around her like a blanket instead of a weight as she sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at her palms. At the lines crossing her skin, the places where his fingers had touched, where his thumbs had traced those meaningless patterns that somehow meant everything, and it made her palms tingle.

Hamza will be here.

He'll be here.

She curled her fingers into a fist, protecting the warmth, holding onto the memory of his touch as if it were precious. Outside her window, the sun was beginning to set, painting the room in colours that almost made it look beautiful instead of suffocating. Slowly, she lay back on the silk pillows, pulling her knees up to her chest. And for the first time since arriving in this place, she closed her eyes without feeling like she was falling into darkness.

Hamza will be here.

She wasn't alone.

Not completely.

Her palms still tingled with his touch as sleep finally, mercifully, found her.

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Let me know if you want to be added or remove from the taglist.

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[nidhi-writes]

The Lotus and the Lie - A Dhurandhar fanfic

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CHAPTER - 6

She woke to something soft. That was the first thing she registered, the impossible softness. It was wrong. All wrong. The bed she knew was narrow and hard, the sheets rough cotton that scratched her skin, the pillow thin and flat from years of use.

This wasn't her bed.

Her eyes flew open.

The ceiling above her was white. Not the water-stained, cracked white of Aalam's building, but white. Very smooth and perfect. Her heart started pounding.

She turned her head slowly, afraid of what she might find, and saw a room that didn't make sense. It was huge, bigger than anywhere she had been since waking up in this nightmare. This wasn't Aalam's building.

This wasn't anywhere she knew.

The panic hit her like a wave, sudden and overwhelming, crashing through her chest and stealing all the air from her lungs. She sat up too fast, and the room tilted sideways, her vision going spotty at the edges, her hands grabbing at the silk sheets like they could anchor her to reality.

Where am I? How did I get here? Where is Aalam?

The last thing she remembered was what? Sound. Terrible sound. Gunfire and screaming and chaos, colours splattered with red, her mind erupting with images that didn't belong to her. A wedding. She had been at a wedding with Aalam, and then everything went wrong, and she screamed, she remembered screaming, her voice tearing through her throat after weeks of silence, and then, nothing but darkness. And now this.

She pressed her palm against her chest, trying to slow her breathing, trying to think. But thinking was impossible when everything was wrong, and she didn't know where she was or how she got here or who had brought her to this place that looked like it belonged to someone important, someone rich, someone... just then, a voice cut her thoughts.

"You woke up!"

She whipped her head around so fast her neck cracked.

A woman sitting in a chair beside the bed, close enough to touch, staring at her with eyes that were red-rimmed from crying but shining with a light that made no sense. She was beautiful in a worn sort of way, dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, face lined with the kind of exhaustion that came from grief, dressed in a simple white kurta that somehow still looked elegant.

But it was her expression that made Gul's blood run cold.

She was looking at her like she knew her. Like she had been waiting for her. Like she loved her.

"Meri beti," the woman breathed, reaching out with trembling hands. "Meri Pari. Tum aa gayi. Tum sach mein aa gayi."

My daughter. My Pari. You came. You really came.

Gul didn't understand most of the words. But she understood enough. She understood the way the woman's hands reached for her face, the tears streaming down her cheeks, the raw, desperate love in her voice, like being drowned in honey.

She scrambled backwards on the bed, her spine hitting the headboard with a painful thud.

No. Don't touch me. I don't know you. I don't know you, I don't know this place, I don't know anything...

The woman's face crumpled like paper in the rain.

"Beti, darr mat." Her voice was soft now, careful, like she was approaching a wounded animal. "Main tumhari Ammi hoon. Tumhe yaad nahi? Sapno mein? Hum dono ne-"

Don't be scared. I'm your mother. Don't you remember? In dreams? We both-

The words washed over Gul without meaning. Just sounds and syllables strung together in a language her broken brain refused to hold onto. But she understood the tone. Understood that this woman believed something that wasn't true, was looking at her with a certainty that made her skin crawl.

She wasn't this woman's anything. She wasn't anyone's anything.

She was no one. Nothing. A girl without a name or a past or a single memory she could trust.

Her eyes darted around the room, searching for an exit. The door was to her right, but it looked locked; the windows were large enough to climb through if she could get past the curtains. She just needed to move. Needed to run. Needed to get back to Aalam, back to the juice shop, back to the only place that had started to feel even slightly safe.

She threw the silk covers off her legs and tried to stand, but her body had other plans.

The moment her feet touched the cold floor, her knees buckled. She went down hard, catching herself on her palms, the impact striking through her bones. Everything was spinning. How long had she been unconscious? How long since she had eaten or drunk anything? Her vision is swimming in and out of focus.

"Arre!" The woman was beside her in an instant, hands fluttering around her shoulders without quite touching. "Kya kar rahi ho? Tum abhi kamzor ho. Abhi utho mat, please. Let me help-"

She flinched away from those hands like they were made of fire.

The woman froze.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. The woman on her knees beside the bed, arms still outstretched, tears still falling. Gul on the floor, pressed against the bedframe, making herself as small as possible, her whole body trembling with fear she couldn't control.

Please don't touch me.

Please let me go.

I want Aalam. I want chai. I want the small room with the cracked ceiling, the thin mattress, and the sound of the street outside.

I want to go home.

But she didn't have a home. Didn't have anywhere. Just empty space where memories should be, and a stranger looking at her like she was the answer to her prayers.

The woman slowly lowered her hands.

"Theek hai," she said softly. "Theek hai. Main tumhe touch nahi karungi. Bas... bas yahan raho. Safe ho tum. Koi tumhe hurt nahi karega."

Okay. Okay. I won't touch you. Just stay here. You're safe. No one will hurt you.

Safe.

The word bounced around in Gul's hollow chest without landing anywhere.

She didn't feel safe. She felt trapped. Caged in silk and flowers, and the desperate love of a woman she had never seen before in her life.

Suddenly, a boy appeared in the doorway without warning.

One second, Gul was staring at the strange woman, trying to figure out how to escape, and the next, a small figure stood in the open door, watching them both with curious eyes.

He was young, maybe ten or eleven, with a round face and hair that stuck up in about fifteen different directions as he had just woken from sleep, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and excitement.

"Ammi?" His voice was high and uncertain. "Woh jaag gayi? Pari jaag gayi?"

She woke up? Pari woke up?

Pari.

There was that name again. The woman had called her that, too.

It wasn't her name. She didn't know her name, but she knew it wasn't that. Knew it in the same wordless way she knew the sun was hot and water was wet, a truth that lived in her bones even when everything else had been stripped away.

The woman, Ammi, the boy had called her mother, quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand and tried to compose herself.

"Haan, Faizel. Woh jaag gayi. Lekin abhi weak hai, aur scared bhi. Zyada close mat aana, theek hai? Usse time chahiye."

Yes, Faizel. She woke up. But she's weak right now, and scared too. Don't come too close, okay? She needs time.

The boy, Faizel, nodded seriously, like he had been given an important mission. But his eyes never left Gul's face, filled with a wonder that made her want to disappear into the floor.

"Pari..." he whispered her name, switching to broken English that surprised her. "Is she really looking like the one from your stories, Ammi? The dream one?"

The woman's breath caught.

"Faizel"

"Abbu said she would come one day." The boy took a small step into the room, his bare feet slapping softly against the cold floor. "He said dreams don't lie. He said she was real somewhere and we just had to wait."

Gul pressed herself harder against the bedframe.

What are they talking about?

Dreams? Stories? Someone they've been waiting for?

I'm not that person. I'm not anyone's dream. I'm just... I'm just...

She didn't know what she was.

The woman stood slowly, putting herself between Gul and the boy. Not threatening but protective. Like she was shielding them both from something neither could see.

"Faizel, beta. Go tell Donga to bring some food. Soup, roti, something soft. And water. Lots of water. Can you do that for Ammi?"

The boy hesitated, clearly wanting to stay, wanting to stare at this strange girl who had appeared in their house like something out of a fairy tale. But eventually he nodded and turned toward the door.

Before he left, he looked back over his shoulder.

"Welcome home, Pari," he said and then he was gone, his footsteps fading down a hallway she couldn't see.

Home.

He had called this place home. Like she belonged here. Like she had always belonged here and was just now finding her way back.

But she didn't belong here.

She belonged with Aalam. With the juice shop and the chai and the small room where she had started to learn how to breathe again. She belonged in a place where no one looked at her like she was a miracle, where no one called her by names that weren't hers, where no one expected her to be someone she wasn't.

Tears burned at the back of her eyes.

She wouldn't cry. Couldn't cry. Crying meant feeling, and feeling meant breaking, and if she broke now, she might never put herself back together.

The woman, Ulfat, she would learn later, though the name meant nothing to her now, settled back into the chair beside the bed. Far enough away that she wasn't looming, close enough that she could watch. Her hands folded in her lap like she was physically restraining herself from reaching out.

"I know you don't understand. Not the words. Maybe not anything,"  she said quietly.

Her voice cracked on the last word.

"Lekin ek din samjhogi. And until that day, I will wait. I have been waiting eighteen years already, meri jaan. I can wait a little longer."

Gul didn't respond. Couldn't respond even if she wanted to.

She just sat there on the cold floor, her back against the bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, and stared at the woman who claimed to be her mother.

I'm not your daughter.

I'm not anyone's daughter.

I'm nothing.

They tried to get her back into bed.

The woman spoke in soft, coaxing tones, gesturing toward the silk sheets and the mountain of pillows as if they were gifts offered to a queen. A servant appeared at some point, an older woman with kind eyes, carrying a tray of food that smelled like heaven, making Gul's empty stomach clench with desperate hunger.

But she couldn't eat.

Couldn't move.

Couldn't do anything except sit on that cold floor and shake.

Eventually, when it became clear that she wouldn't cooperate, Ulfat did something unexpected.

She stopped trying.

She just... sat back down in her chair, pulled a shawl around her shoulders, and settled in to wait. Not pushing or demanding. Just being there, a constant presence at the edge of Gul's vision, watching over her like a guardian angel who had forgotten how to fly.

The servant left the food on a small table within reach.

The boy, Faizel, peeked in a few more times, curious eyes appearing around the doorframe before disappearing again.

The light from the windows shifted from bright afternoon to golden evening to the deep blue of approaching night.

And still, Gul sat on the floor.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that. Hours, maybe. Long enough for her legs to go numb, her back to ache, and her eyes to grow so heavy she could barely keep them open. The fear was still there, a constant hum beneath her skin, but exhaustion was starting to win. Her body was shutting down whether she wanted it to or not, demanding rest, demanding surrender.

At some point, without meaning to, she let her head drop back against the mattress.

Just for a moment, she told herself. Just close your eyes for a moment.

When she opened them again, she was in bed.

Someone had lifted her, gently, without waking her, and placed her on the silk sheets she had been fighting so hard to escape. A blanket had been tucked around her shoulders. A glass of water sat on the nightstand beside her.

And the woman is still there.

Still sitting in that chair, watching and waiting.

But she is asleep now, her head tilted at an uncomfortable angle as her chest rises and falls with the slow rhythm of exhaustion finally winning its battle. She looked smaller somehow in sleep. Softer. Less like a stranger claiming impossible things and more like what she actually was.

A mother.

Grieving and hoping and holding onto something she didn't understand.

Gul stared at her for a long moment.

Who are you?

Why do you think I'm yours?

What happened to make you look at me like I'm the answer to everything?

She didn't have answers. Might never have answers. Her mind was still a wasteland of empty space and fragmented images that refused to make sense.

But lying there in that silk bed, watching this strange woman sleep, Gul felt something shift in her chest.

Not trust or acceptance. Nothing that simple or clean, but just... exhaustion.

She was so tired of being afraid.

So tired of running from things she couldn't outrun and so tired of being lost in a world that made no sense.

Maybe it was okay to stop fighting. Just for tonight. Just for a few hours. Maybe it was okay to let herself sink into this impossible softness and pretend, just for a little while, that someone wanted her.

Even if it wasn't real. Even if none of it made sense.

She closed her eyes and welcomed that comfortable sleep ahead.

Rehman arrived home long after midnight.

The house was quiet when he walked through the doors. The funeral had drained him. The meetings that followed drained him further. He had spent hours talking to men who feared him, accepting condolences he didn't want, and making plans for revenge he wasn't ready to carry out.

His son was dead.

And somehow, impossibly, his daughter had appeared.

He walked through the silent hallways toward the guest room where they had put her. The door was open a crack. He pushed it wider and stepped inside.

Ulfat was asleep in the chair, her neck bent at an angle that would hurt tomorrow. He should wake her, tell her to go to bed, but he knew she wouldn't leave. Hadn't left since bringing the girl home from the hospital. Had barely eaten, barely slept, barely done anything except sit beside that bed and wait.

And there, in the bed itself, was the girl.

Rehman moved closer and made sure his footsteps were as silent as possible against the floor.

She was curled on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, dark hair spread across the pillow exactly like he had seen it a thousand times before. In dreams. In that impossible garden where he had watched her grow from a baby to a woman over the course of eighteen years of sleep.

She looked more fragile. There were shadows beneath her eyes and hollows in her cheeks that spoke of hunger and fear and things he couldn't fix with money or power.

But her face.

Her face was exactly the same.

He sank into a crouch beside the bed, bringing himself level with her sleeping form. Close enough to see the flutter of her eyelashes, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing, the tiny furrow between her brows that appeared even in sleep.

"Pari."

The name came out as barely a whisper.

"Meri beti."

She didn't stir. Didn't hear him. Just kept sleeping, lost in whatever dreams had claimed her.

He reached out, carefully, and let his fingers hover over her hair without quite touching. The same hair he had stroked in dreams. The same face he had kissed goodnight a thousand times in a world that shouldn't exist.

"I don't know how you're here," he murmured. "I don't know why. I don't know what it means or what I'm supposed to do."

His voice cracked.

"But I know you're mine. I've known it for eighteen years. And I swear to you, I swear on your brother's grave, no one will ever hurt you. Not while I'm alive. Not while I have breath in my body."

He stayed like that for a long time, crouched beside the bed, watching his impossible daughter sleep.

Outside, the city of Karachi hummed with its usual nighttime chaos, sirens and shouts and the distant rumble of traffic that never stopped. Inside, the house was silent except for the soft breathing of two women lost in dreams and one man who had forgotten how to dream of anything except her.

Eventually, Rehman stood.

He bent down and pressed a kiss to Ulfat's forehead, then adjusted the shawl around her shoulders. She stirred slightly, murmuring something that might have been his name, but didn't wake.

He took one last look at the girl in the bed.

Pari.

The daughter from their dreams.

Finally, impossibly, home.

Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open just a crack.

Just in case she needed him in the night.

***

Days gone by, or weeks she is not sure, but days of silk sheets and strange faces and a name that wasn't hers, no matter how many times they said it.

Pari.

They kept calling her Pari. The woman who called herself Ammi. The little boy with the messy hair. The servants who brought food and fresh clothes and looked at her like she was something precious, something fragile, something that might shatter if they breathed too hard in her direction.

Pari. Pari. Pari.

The name bounced off her like water off stone. It didn't stick. Didn't settle. Didn't feel like anything except sounds strung together by people who wanted her to be someone she wasn't.

Gul.

That was the name that lived in her chest. The name Aalam had given her, sitting across from her with chai in his hands and kindness in his eyes. Flower. Something waiting to bloom. She didn't know if it was her real name, didn't know if she even had a real name anymore, but it felt like hers in a way that Pari never would.

I am Gul, she thought to herself in the quiet hours when no one was watching. Not Pari. Gul.

But she couldn't say it out loud.

Couldn't say anything at all.

The silence had become her armour.

She hadn't spoken a single word since waking up in this place. Not to the woman who sat by her bed every day with hopeful eyes and trembling hands. Not to the servants who came and went with trays of food she barely touched. Not to anyone.

What was there to say? She didn't know these people. Didn't understand why they looked at her the way they did, with love she hadn't earned and recognition she couldn't return. They wanted something from her, a daughter, a miracle, a fairy tale come to life, and she had nothing to give.

So she stayed silent.

And she stayed in the room.

Even all these days after she hadn't set foot outside that door. Hadn't even tried. The world outside is full of things she couldn't predict or control. At least in here, she knew the shape of the space. Knew where the bed was, where the chair was, where the window was that let in light but showed her nothing except a courtyard she didn't recognise. At least in here, she could pretend she was safe. 

The hunger came back on the third day.

She had tried to ignore it at first. Tried to refuse the food they brought, partly because eating felt like accepting something she didn't want to accept, and partly because the knot of fear in her stomach left no room for anything else.

But hunger was patient. Hunger was persistent. Hunger didn't care about fear or pride or the desperate need to maintain some small piece of control over a situation that had spun completely out of her hands.

On the third day, when Ulfat set a bowl of warm food on the table beside her bed, Gul's stomach cramped so violently she nearly doubled over.

She waited until Ulfat left the room.

Then she ate.

Not because she wanted to. Not because she had given up fighting. Just because her body had made the decision for her, reaching for the food before her mind could object, shovelling it into her mouth with a desperation that embarrassed her even though no one was watching.

After that, she ate whatever they brought.

It was easier than starving.

Ulfat came every day. She would knock softly on the door, always knocking, always waiting, never barging in like she owned the place, even though she obviously did, and then slip inside with that same hopeful expression that made Gul want to scream.

"Subah ho gayi, meri jaan," she would say. (Morning has come, my love.") Or "Maine tumhare liye chai banayi hai." (I made chai for you.) Or "The weather is nice today. Maybe you want to sit by the window?"

Always gentle and careful. Always leaving space for Gul to respond, even though she never did.

At first, Gul had pressed herself against the headboard whenever Ulfat entered, making herself as small as possible and putting as much distance between them as the bed allowed. But Ulfat never pushed. Never tried to touch her without permission. Never did anything except sit in that chair by the bed and talk in a soft voice about nothing in particular.

Slowly, painfully, Gul had started to relax.

Not trust. Never trust. But something adjacent to it, a kind of exhausted acceptance that this woman wasn't going to hurt her, at least not physically. Whatever she wanted, whatever she thought Gul was, she wasn't a threat in the way Gul had learned to recognise threats.

By the fifth day, Ulfat had graduated from the chair to the edge of the bed.

She sat there now, close enough that Gul could smell the jasmine oil in her hair, her hands folded carefully in her lap like she was restraining herself from reaching out. She talked about small things, the weather, the food, a bird she had seen in the courtyard that morning, and Gul listened without responding, letting the words wash over her like background noise.

"Main jaanti hoon tum Ammi nahi bulana chahti," Ulfat said suddenly, her voice softer than usual. (I know you don't want to call me Ammi). "That's okay. You don't have to. Not until you're ready. Not until it feels true."

Gul looked at her.

Something flickered across Ulfat's face, pain, quickly hidden behind a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"I'll wait," she said.

Gul understood the tone. The patience and willingness to sit in this uncomfortable silence for as long as it took.

She still didn't trust her.

But she was starting to believe that Ulfat wouldn't disappear if she didn't play the role of loving daughter.

That was something.

The boy came too.

Faizel.

He was different from his mother, louder, messier, less careful with his words and his movements. He would burst into the room without knocking, full of energy that seemed too big for his small body, and launch into stories about things Gul didn't understand.

"Pari! Pari, do you want to play carrom? I'm very good. I can teach you. Naieem taught me, he was the best, he always won, but he let me win sometimes because he said younger brothers need confidence-"

He would stop mid-sentence sometimes. The name Naieem catching in his throat like a fish bone, his bright eyes going dim for just a moment before he shook it off and started talking about something else.

Gul noticed.

She always noticed.

Naieem.

The name kept coming up. In Faizel's rambling stories. In the sad silences that fell over Ulfat's face when she thought no one was looking. In the way the servants spoke in hushed tones when they passed in the hallway, their voices dropping to whispers whenever they mentioned the young master who was gone.

She pieced it together slowly, like assembling a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

Naieem was Faizel's older brother.

Naieem was dead.

Naieem had died at the wedding. The same wedding where Gul had screamed for the first time and then collapsed into darkness.

Her mind kept replaying that night in fragments again and again. Gunfire, chaos, screaming, and hands covered in blood, someone shouting orders she couldn't understand.

And Hamza.

Hamza flying through the crowd like a shadow given form. Hamza's arms around someone, carrying them, trying to save them. Hamza's face, usually so blank and unreadable, cracked open with something that looked like desperation.

Was that Naieem?

Was the boy Hamza had been trying to save the same boy Faizel kept talking about with that mix of love and grief that made his young voice crack?

She thought so.

She couldn't be sure; her memory of that night was more feeling than fact, more impression than image, but she thought so.

And if it was true.  If Hamza had tried to save Naeem and failed... Then he was carrying something heavy. Something broken. Something that might look like guilt if you knew how to recognise it.

She understood guilt. She didn't know why, didn't have specific memories to attach the feeling to, but she understood it the way she understood breathing. Guilt was a weight you carried even when you didn't deserve to carry it. Guilt was the voice in your head that said you should have done more, even when there was nothing more to do.

Hamza had tried to save a dying boy.

And now that the boy's little brother sat on her bed, asked her to play carrom, and talked about his big brother in a voice that still expected him to walk through the door at any moment.

Gul wanted to say something. Wanted to reach out and touch Faizel's hand and tell him she understood, she knew what it was like to lose something you couldn't get back, even if she couldn't remember what she had lost.

But the words wouldn't come. They never came.

Out of everyone, Rehman was different. He scared her.

She didn't know why, exactly. He never raised his voice around her, never moved too fast, never did anything that should have triggered the alarm bells ringing constantly in her head. He was careful with her, even more careful than Ulfat, keeping his distance, speaking softly, treating her like she was made of glass.

But something about him made her skin crawl.

Maybe it was his size, the broad shoulders, the hands that looked like they could crush bone without effort. Maybe it was his eyes, dark and deep and holding secrets she couldn't begin to guess. Maybe it was the way the whole house seemed to hold its breath when he walked through it, servants scurrying out of his path, voices dropping to whispers, everyone orbiting around him like planets around a sun that could burn them if they got too close.

He was dangerous.

She knew it the way animals knew predators. Not because of anything he did, but because of what he was. The air around him hummed with a kind of power that made her want to run and hide and never come out.

And the worst part was the way he looked at her.

With love and longing. With a desperate, hungry hope that felt like being suffocated in honey.

In his dreams, those dreams she kept hearing about, the ones that made no sense, she apparently looked at him with pride and adoration. Daughter to father. Pari to Abbu. All the warmth and trust that came from a lifetime of being loved and protected.

But that wasn't her.

That wasn't how she felt.

When she looked at Rehman, all she saw was a stranger. A large, powerful stranger who could hurt her if he wanted to, who could do anything he wanted because this was his house and these were his people and she was nothing but a voiceless girl with no memory and no way to defend herself.

She tried to hide her fear. She really did. But every time he entered the room, her body betrayed her, muscles tensing and breath catching. Her hands curling into fists beneath the blankets.

And sometimes, when he came too close or spoke too suddenly, she would do worse.

She would flinch and pull back. Curl into herself with her hands pressed over her ears, blocking out his voice, blocking out everything, making herself as small as possible until he went away.

She couldn't help it.

Her body remembered threats even when her mind couldn't.

And it didn't go unnoticed by Rehman.

Of course, he noticed.

She saw it in the way his jaw tightened whenever she recoiled from him. The way his hands clenched at his sides, knuckles going white with the effort of not reaching for her. The way his eyes darkened with something that might have been hurt but looked more like anger barely held in check.

He was frustrated. No, he was furious.

She could see it simmering beneath the surface of his careful control. The gangster, the king of Lyari, the man who had built an empire on blood and fear, he wasn't used to being denied. Wasn't used to wanting something he couldn't have. Wasn't used to loving someone who flinched away from his touch like he was a monster.

But he didn't yell or hit, nor do any of the things her body seemed to expect when it cowered away from him.

He just stood there, breathing hard, fighting to keep his composure while the daughter from his dreams looked at him like he was something to be survived rather than loved.

"Theek hai," he would say eventually, his voice strained. "I'll... I'll come back later."

And then he would leave, closing the door softly behind him, and Gul would hear his footsteps retreating down the hallway, slow at first, then faster, like he was running from something he couldn't outpace.

She didn't feel bad for him. She couldn't afford to feel bad for anyone except herself right now.

But sometimes, in the quiet moments after he left, she wondered about the look in his eyes, which carried hurt. IS it because of her? Because of her reaction? Maybe...

That had to hurt him really.

She understood, hurt too.

***

One day, after many days of her being in this room and with these people and the ache of her wanting to leave for Aaalm and to the tea shop, one day everything changed.

She was sitting on the bed, legs pulled up to her chest, staring at the wall the way she had been staring at walls for nearly a week, when she heard it.

A voice.

Coming from somewhere outside her room, somewhere in the vast, terrifying house she had refused to explore.

"Hamza, yahan se-"

Her heart stopped.

Hamza.

Someone had said Hamza.

She held her breath, straining to hear more, but the voice faded into the distance. 

Hamza.

He's here.

He's here in this house.

The realisation hit her like a wave, washing away the fog of fear and exhaustion that had been weighing her down for days. Hamza is here. Hazel eyes, Hamza. Juice shop Hamza. The man who had seen her hiding in the van and said nothing. The man who had looked at her across crowded rooms as if he were trying to see something no one else could see.

He is here.

And if he is here, maybe... Maybe he could take her back.

Back to Aalam. Back to the shop. Back to her small room and back to a life that made sense, even when nothing else did.

Hope bloomed in her chest for the first time in days. Wild and desperate and probably foolish, but she couldn't stop it. Couldn't control it. It was there, burning through her veins, demanding she do something, anything, to reach the one person in this nightmare who felt like he might understand.

She threw back the covers.

Her legs shook as she stood, weak from days of lying in bed, but she forced them to hold her weight. Forced herself to take one step, then another, then another, until she was standing in front of the door she hadn't touched since they brought her here.

Her hand trembled on the handle.

What if he's gone?

What if I can't find him?

What if the house is too big and I get lost and they find me wandering and they think I'm trying to escape and-

She pushed the thoughts away as she opened the door and stepped out into the unknown.

The world beyond her room was even bigger than she had imagined, but she kept moving.

One foot in front of the other with desperate hope that if she just kept walking, she would find what she was looking for. Ignored everything that scared her except the pull in her chest that said keep going, keep going, he's here somewhere, just keep going.

She turned a corner, then another and another.

And there he is.

Hamza.

Standing at the end of a hallway with his back to her, talking to someone she couldn't see. His voice was low, words she couldn't make out, but it didn't matter. She would recognise the shape of him anywhere. The broad shoulders. The long dark hair. The way he held himself was like he was always ready for something, always coiled tight, always watching even when he seemed relaxed.

The other person said something and then walked away, disappearing around a corner, leaving Hamza alone.

He still hadn't turned around.

Didn't know she is there.

Move, she told herself. Move before he leaves. Move before you lose him. MOVE.

Her body obeyed before her mind could catch up, and she ran.

She didn't care. Didn't care about anything except reaching him, touching him, making sure he was real and solid and not just another dream in a life that had become nothing but dreams and nightmares.

He must have heard her footsteps because he started to turn, but she was faster.

She crashed into his back, and her hands found his, fingers looping through his palm and holding on like he was the only solid thing in a world made of water. Her forehead pressed against his back, his hard upper back. Her whole body trembled with the effort of standing, of moving, of finally, finally reaching the one person who felt like safety in a house full of strangers.

Hamza went completely still.

She could feel the tension in him, the surprise, the moment where he processed what was happening and who was holding onto him as her life depended on it.

Then, slowly, his fingers curled around hers, but not pulling away or pushing her back.

Just... holding on.

She didn't cry, couldn't cry.

But something in her chest cracked open anyway, spilling warmth into the cold places that had been frozen for so long.

You're here.

You're real.

Please don't let go.

Please don't let go.

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[tere-naal-nachna]

OMG OMG LOOK WHO IS POSTING DHURANDHAR FIC HERE !! @nidhi-writes

You all remember everytime when someone asked me about fic recs on wattpad, one book was always constant in recommendations and that was 'The Lotus and the Lie' ??

SHE IS THE WRITER GUYS! JUST GO AND READ THAT FIC!!!

I personally love love loveeeee that one 😭❤️

[nidhi-writes]

Aww thank you!! Wait you've been recommending my fic to people?? Voluntarily?? Without me threatening or emotionally manipulating my readers to recommend 🫣🤭🤐? That's... that's suspicious behavior but I'll allow it.

Thank you for reading and recommending, I am so grateful for it ☺️❤️🙏

[tere-naal-nachna]

Suspicious behaviour ?? 😭😂

Aap likhte hi itna achha ho and the plot twist of it in latest chapter was so good that I couldn't stop recommending it to my readers 🥹♥️

[nidhi-writes]

Hehe, I was just kidding... I owe that plot twist to the auto ride along with the Vishwaroopam BGM, that alone triggered my brain to produce this stuff 🤭☺️☺️