Posted: July 28th, 2020

Randeep

2.52 Shadows of Past

          Jhanvi informs walking up to me from behind, "She'll only talk to you."

My mother sits on the other side of this door, but I have no interest in hearing the lies she has prepared for me. "I have nothing to do with her."

Just minutes after she had stopped that guy from doing anything ill-towards Jhanvi, the royal guard had surrounded the rebels, forcing them to give up their arms. Aarush had them rounded up in one corner while moving her to a different room, undoubtedly having questions for her. We hadn't heard from Eva yet and have no idea where they all are.

"Randeep, I asked you before too to talk to her, but you didn't..."

I scoff, interrupting her spiel, "Good thing I didn't."

She takes my elbow and forces me to face her. "Okay, cut the attitude and just go listen to what she has to say. This may sound heartless, but it's not about your hurt emotions right now. Why are you even hurt? Hadn't you already decided before all of this that your parents were somehow involved? Now that it's confirmed, how about you help out? We need to know where Shyam has Aarav, Annie and Arshiya and she might know something! You don't even have to talk to her if you don't want to, but you do have to listen."

Well. When she puts it like that. I don't want it on my conscious that I could have done something to bring them back, and I didn't because of my parental issues.

So, without a word to her, I walk through the door where Aarush is waiting along with my mother. She tries to reach me, looking so hopeful, but I hold up my hand stopping her from moving into my personal space and touching me. "Start talking."

That hope in her eyes dies rather quickly. Holding back on whatever emotions she may be capable of, she steps back. Her voice returns to speak formally, and I bite back my spite - she has always been good at compartmentalizing. Playing a long game. Putting up a pretense and never letting anyone know just what goes on underneath the surface.

"At first, I felt it was all harmless. Just an elite group that we had joined to mark our royalty and preserve it. Then, by the time we realize it's real, we're in too deep over our heads. If at the time we had known what we were getting ourselves into, I swear to you, we would've never stepped foot there."

I didn't much care of knowing where her regrets where. Right now, it mattered for very little. I want her to get to the point. "When did you realize what the group was doing?"

Still, she remains stubborn in her wish of wanting to give all the gory, unnecessarily details - as if it could redeem her in my graces when she wasn't high up there to begin with. "At first, it was all just the thrill of secret meetings, parties with other royal leaders who had slipped their way into politics, and such. Your father thought it would be a good way for him to establish himself in the field and for your grandfather to take him seriously. Change his mind that he was ready to be in the family business. But then that one day, just a few days before the... tragedy, I was visiting the palace where I saw Charu. Normally, I would have ignored it, but she looked frantic. Scared, almost. And everyone knew that Aarush was still at camp and wasn't due back for another day or two. So, I thought something must be wrong for her to be visiting the palace when she'd known Aarush wasn't there. I took her outside to the gardens, had her sit, and calmed her down before getting her to tell me. She was reluctant at first. Careful. In retrospect, I get it considering what she was about to tell me. I knew what would happen if anyone else found out. So, I took her to the hospital to see a gynecologist I trusted. He had been my doctor when I was pregnant with you, and when bhabhi sa was pregnant with Aarush and Barkha. I made arrangements to get her blood tested secretly. After the appointment, I even got this IT guy to erase the footage. I thought everything was fine."

Well, one mystery down on who was responsible for getting the footage scrubbed.

She pauses momentarily before speaking to Aarush briefly, "By the time her results would have come back, you would have been back too. Everything was supposed to be okay. So when everything played out the way it did... it was too much. I had never imagined something like this could happen. By the time we pieced together what had happened, why it had happened, it was too late. And then, we only had one option left. From what we knew, you were dead, and that meant," she speaks to me again, "we had to protect you."

"It might be true, Randeep, that our marriage was a political move in a way. We didn't love each other. For the longest time after marriage, we resented each other for being compelled to marry simply because of our lineage and outdated rules of royalty only being allowed to marry other royals to preserve our blood-lines. But as years passed and we started to talk to each other rather than turning away from each other and living our lives together but separately, we realized we were mad at the wrong people. What had to happen, had already happened. It didn't mean we couldn't do anything to change how things could be in the future. As cold as it might sound to you, we worked our alliance to our advantage. I don't know if it would mean anything to you now, but we are sorry that you felt you weren't loved in your own home. We did love you. We just didn't know how to express it - too caught up in our dejections for the society."

Do I fall for her words? I don't want to. I want to tell myself that I should know better. That I shouldn't be an emotional fool. But, there is something in her eyes that I don't think I have seen before. A sort of yearning for me to believe her. For me to know that maybe for the first time, she is dropping her guard and being sincere. There is no other angle that she is playing here other than opening herself to me. And, for the first time, I see her as a parent and not just someone who's given birth to me but then had never bothered to raise me.

"We had failed as parents, but that night, seeing everything... we knew that we couldn't fail again. You saw your father as making a power grab after the incident, but he did what he had to so that you wouldn't get caught in the cross-fire in the future. He loves you so much, Randeep, that he was okay with you hating him if it meant you'd stay alive. He's worked tirelessly to rise in the rank and earning trust just so he could get to the people calling the shots. To turn our customs around so that when it was your time, you could be coronated without inheriting all the enemies and when you were ready, to marry who you wanted, not whom they dictated was appropriate for you. So yes, maybe we are partly to blame for what has happened, but we didn't do this to ourselves, Randeep. I'm not saying we didn't play our roles, but I am saying that our hearts were never in the wrong place. Our actions may have been misguided where it concerned you, but in what has happened, our intentions never were. You have to believe that."

I don't want to break her heart, but I am not going to start lying now either. "I don't know what to believe right now." I needed time to process everything - but time, we did not have right now. Intentions or not, it doesn't change what has already happened.

She swallows, nodding. "Fair enough."

Aarush asks. "Where is he right now?"

She looks at him, "He went after Narayan." While the two of us share a look, wondering who was going to break this news to Jhanvi and also, how we were going to find the two of them, she adds. "Aarush, I'm so sorry for what you must have gone through all these years knowing you lost Charu and your baby."

That is when both of us look at her confused. Aarush informs, "Kaki sa, I... didn't know until Randeep told me a few days ago."

She stares between us in shock. "B-but... what? No. I told bhabhi sa. She'd said she would get word to you. I figured that's why you came back a day early."

Aarush slowly shakes his head from right to left. "No... mom knew?"

She confirms, "She did," and then tries to explain it, "Maybe she didn't get a chance to, and then when you were back early, she might have figured Charu already would have told you?"

His voice lacks conviction as he says, "Maybe."

We will never know.

I take that moment to point out, "Narayan also assumed you knew."

"What?" Aarush turns to me for clarification.

"That day when you were interrogating him, he said you must be seeing similarities with Jhanvi."

Aarush's eyes clear with realization. "That is why you pulled us out of there."

I confirmed, "Before you could have accidently said something that'd let him know he'd slipped."

Mom holds out her phone, "This tracking app should lead you straight to them."

Taking the phone, Aarush checks the screen before looking up and informing, "It's inside the palace."

Without wasting another second, we take off. It'll take a long time for me to forgive the two of them, but tonight, it looks like I'll be saving my father.

. . . ∞ . ∞ . ∞ . ∞. . .

          I turn a corner as we follow the tracker. I wonder if it's even working given it keeps turning us in circles. Until it strikes. "They're in the tunnels."

Aarush points out, "They are sealed off."

I correct, "Not all of them." He would not know this, but it's something I had learned after he had left - letting us all think he had died in the massacre. I had stumbled upon the entrance to the gardens purely by accident. Since then, I had wandered through the darkness a couple of times just to see all the different places it would take me to.

"Lead the way," he says. I give him the tracker as backup while I make way to the only entrance I know. One entrance. Multiple exits.

Once inside, I lead as best as I can from memory while occasionally looking to the tracker for guidance. "This way," I have a gut feeling that we were close.

It is followed by echoing sounds - but how far those sounds come from can be deceiving given the narrow tunnels.

Before we turn another corner, he grabs my wrist to stop me and turns us to stand against the wall, hiding. He has a better hearing sense. He must have sensed movement coming towards us. The rebels above ground, in the palace, may have been caught, but we have no idea how many might be underground with Narayan to protect him.

He instructs, "Go. I'll hold them off."

I try my best to argue, "No, we'll fight them off together."

He scolds in a quiet whisper to not draw attention to us, least our voices carry over and betray us. "You've had your way tonight with your stupidity, Randeep. Now listen to me and go. Kaku sa needs you right now more than I do."

Realizing he is right and that now is not the correct time for being either stubborn or difficult, I take the tracker from him and leave, following the echoes of a conversation to find my father.

"It's over, Narayan." I hear his voice.

Narayan snarls back, "It isn't over until I am seated on that throne! Your son! He thwarted all my plans. He'll pay for this."

My dad laughs, "Don't you see, Narayan? It's now time for you to pay."

I carefully approach them from the right and glance around the corner to where Narayan is standing over my father with a pistol in his hand. My heart leaps in my throat. I may have resented him for as long as I can remember, but I don't want him dead!

Narayan clicks the safety and I realize it's now or never. He could end my father's life in a heartbeat if I didn't take action. That fear of losing him - ironic given I believed my entire life that I had an absent father in the first place - pushes me to stand forward in the open, pointing my own gun at Narayan. "Don't do it."

My father chooses this moment to scold me, "Randeep, what are you doing? Don't be foolish. Get out of here."

Foolish? I beg to differ. He is the foolish one for thinking of luring Narayan away to deal with him himself. "No, you aren't getting out of this so easily." Like I said, it's going to take me time to forgive him. I damn well am going to give him hell.

It's what we kids do.

Narayan smugly looks at me, "Good, you're here. You saved me the trouble of having to find you. I was going to kill him and then you, but for the betrayal he gave me, I think I will let him watch as I end you and then end his pathetic life. Nice plan, isn't it?"

"There's no way out of here, Narayan. Just give up while you still can."

"Give up?" He raises his voice in anger. "I have played far too long a game to give up now! No. I will get everything I deserved since the start."

While his attention is on me, dad manages to sneakily slide up just enough to have the strength needed to kick Narayan so he falls forward. Then, in a rush, he kicks the gun out of his hand. I move in closer to aim my gun at him to keep him from making any sudden moves. Dad gets on his feet and bends over clutching his stomach. I spare him a quick glance to spot red in the fabric of his clothes.

That bastard. I didn't get here soon enough after all.

As if reading my mind, he says, "I'm fine," but he's not. He'll bleed out from this gunshot wound.

I click the safety of my gun, that temptation of the devil on my shoulders, whispering in my ear to pull the trigger and give Narayan everything he deserves.

End this chapter of our lives. It is only with this end that a new beginning can emerge.

My index finger hovers over the trigger. Feeling it. My blood pounding in my ear. One twitch of a muscle. That's all it'll take.

"Don't."

The daze clears from my head upon hearing an unexpected voice. What is Arshiya doing here?

Out of breath, she manages to repeat, "Don't... do... it."

How did she manage to find us here? Who even let her in here? Wait... if she is here, then it means Eva must have found her after all and saved her and Annie from wherever they were.

That's one good thing.

However, it's not enough to look away from Narayan and change my mind. That image of my relatives' blood spilling out of their guts is forever burned in my memory. I see it every time I close my eyes at night. In this moment I may be a hypocrite for wanting to do that which I was stopping Aarush bhai sa from doing mere days ago, but I don't seem to care about the label it'll give me if I go through this.

That is, until I catch Arshiya in my peripheral vision, hunch over before she falls on her knees, wheezing for air.

Her words echo in the back of my head.

"You are not a killer."

She had said that to me in these very tunnels when I had tried to scare her by giving the impression that I was one of the radicals. She had said that so confidently.

"I don't run."

Even when a crowd was after us in a riot, she refused to run owing what it would do to her health.

Yet, here she was. Running in. And, why? So I wouldn't turn into something I am not. I don't know how she figured what I was going to do. Even before the coronation rituals when she'd visited me in my room, she had known I was up to no good and planning things behind Aarush's back. She hadn't snitched on me, but she had also warned me to be careful.

Blinking away from Narayan, I scold her reckless actions, "You are stupid, you know that?"

"Some... would call me... a... genius," She speaks between rasps of breaths, closing her eyes.

Lowering my weapon, I crouch down next to her, "Arshiya?" I call her, but she doesn't answer. "Hey, no, open your eyes. If anything happens to you, your brother will surely kill me this time." I pat her cheek in a foolish attempt to wake her up even though it's obvious she's slipping in and out of consciousness - her lungs having worked on an overdrive. I had no idea the effect would be this drastic, but she must have known.

Why in the world would she run? Just to get here? For what? My soul isn't worth her life.

I look past her when Dmitri and Annie run in - they must have been running after Arshiya - followed by Aarav. Pushing past the two of them, he reaches Arshiya and at once has an arm around her shoulder, bringing her head to his chest and calling her name. His eyes find mine, holding them with a hard glare and so full of blame, "You are always getting her in trouble."

Me?! I was not the one who called her here!

Arshiya's hand curls around his shirt to get his attention. He frowns for a second, as if understanding some silent gesture the two of them share, before he rubs her back gently, asking her to just breathe.

In the chaos of everyone coming in and my attention shifting to Arshiya, I tend to forget about Narayan for a split second - but that is all he seems to need to get his bearings. Thankfully, his gun was still too far off, but that did not mean he didn't have a backup weapon.

Annie warns, "Watch out!" and I whirl around.

I miss the knife just nearly as it plunges into my side rather than any vital organs. It's hard to tell if he aimed it at me or at Aarav - for I am sure he hates the both of us, perhaps Aarav more than me.

It knocks the breath out of me and my fingers curls around the hilt to pull it out. At the same time, someone from behind me pulls a trigger, the sound resonating throughout the tunnels. I turn around to an unfamiliar face. Foreign looking. With Dmitri standing behind the man.

The stranger responds in his defense, "What? My promise of not killing anyone tonight went as far as Shyam. I said nothing about him."

Now who the hell is Shyam?

His gaze turns to Aarav, "Tell your father my debt to him is paid. He saved my daughter and in return, I have saved his."

Despite the blood sticking to my palm as I cover the wound, I make one connection even if I am lost on other matters, staring at the lifeless body in front of me. A life that ended too quickly. A death that didn't bring enough suffering that he deserved.

The guy who just saved my life happens to be Annie's father, the head of the Italian mafia.

He might have repaid his debt to Aarav and Arshiya's parents, but I have a feeling this debt I now owe him is going to come back to haunt me one day.

. . . ∞ . ∞ . ∞ . ∞. . .

∞ author note ∞

You probably saw it coming the whole time that it was Narayan...? I hope you liked this chapter from Randeep's POV! Let me know your thoughts and if you're back to reading this book after a long time (because I didn't update it in the longest), please be sure to read the last two chapters updated within the last week :)

QOTC: How do you feel about Nicolas being the one to kill Narayan? I wanted to go the idealistic way where he gets arrested and is put on trial, but then I told myself, be realistic :P