A surge of anger coursed through his veins as he looked over her lifeless body. It wasn’t for himself or Yusuf or Huma or the court or even the law of his country. Saad was angry at Kubra.

Why would she do this to herself, to Huma or to Him? What gave her that right? Did she trust him so little that she preferred to die than wait? Was it that easy to drive that blade on her veins? Didn’t she know how much he loved her? Didn’t he make it clear enough that he would die before her?

And if she did have that courage, why not do it properly? At least he would’ve known what he was doing next. A rope around neck, a blade on the wrist, overdose of drugs, a car crash ___ every single one would’ve ensured that he wouldn’t live in the world without her.

But now he didn’t know if she was gonna make it through the night or not. He just wanted to carry out any of the above options and be done with it. He wouldn’t go through this pain.

But what if she did make it and he wasn’t there for her? Imagine the pain she would be in. He could never in a million years do that to her.

But why was it this easy for her to do that to him?

He saw Huma from the corner of his eye, sitting on the floor, pulling out her hair as the team of doctors tried to restart her heart.

It was the second time this night her heart had stopped. Second time she had slapped him on the face, telling him that she could leave him any time she pleases and he can’t do any fucking thing about it!

“Pulse check!” The doctor running the code said and the other stopped the compressions to check her pulse.

“We have a pulse. Weak but it’ll have to do.”

And he went soft in his knees, falling on the ground, eyes rolling back in his head and vision clouding as all senses evaded him. The last voice he heard was Huma’s in the distance as she shouted, “Bhai!”

*~*

Huma turned another page and smiled through her tears. So Kubra did remember the time when Huma had eaten her chocolates without telling her and blamed her dog. What beautiful days they were when they were just seven. Now look what they had come to.

The girl who loved life had committed suicide and the girl who hated crying didn’t knew anything else now.

She hugged the sketchbook and closed her eyes, a cry of pain leaving her lips. A hand on her shoulder had her looking up and she found the people she knew the blame lied in. They were the reason she was pushed to this extreme. If they hadn’t left and been here for her, hadn’t made her feel unwanted, she would’ve been okay and so would have his brother been! A brother who was currently unconscious before her eyes with IV bores pushing fluids into him!

“Huma, please tell me my baby is okay.” Sonia Shahbaz pleaded her.

“Your…..baby? Right.....Kubra. Yes. The one you guys left. Of course.” She wanted to say a lot of things that were far more hurtful but she didn’t want to do that to her best friend’s parents.

“Huma, I know you’re hurting but I will not tolerate such behavior towards my wife,” she used to admire Shahbaz Baig for the love he had for his partner but when she realized that the same love wasn’t for his daughter, he lost all the respect she had for him.

She smiled bitterly. “Of course, uncle. I’m sorry, auntie.”

“It’s okay, beta. Please tell me how she it.”

“Doctors aren’t able to say much, and I’m not brave enough to go and see for myself. Not anymore. I’ve seen her die and be pulled back and restrained into this life two times already. I’ll join the list of patients in this hospital like my brother if I have to watch her leave the third time.”

Sonia put her hand on her mouth and sobbed. “I’ll go check on my baby girl.”

She could’ve just let her go without punching her in the stomach. But why should she suffer alone?

“She needed you both. On the visitor’s day. She needed you both to be there for her. Look her in the eye and give her hope that she was gonna be okay. She needed you to tell her that you guys trusted her and loved her and wanted her to be strong.” She looked at Shahbaz. “Uncle, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen her crumble before my eyes. But it definitely was the first time her parents were the reason.”

She held her brother’s hand and didn’t spare another glance at them. Be hell to them! They should join the party too rather than watching from the sidelines!

*~*

Kubra knew where she was at once without even opening her eyes. She could feel pain around her arms and aches all over her body. She was alive. Thank God! She hadn’t wanted to die. She wanted the suffering to end and that seemed the only option available but she didn’t want to die. She loved life and she had so many reasons to live. There were people who loved her and wanted her to be okay. There were people she wanted to hug again and touch again and meet again. She wanted to roam the streets of her city again without people following her with cruel eyes.

But she couldn’t do that. And patience wasn’t her strongest pursuit.

The stench of medicines and the steady beeping of the monitor told her that she was in hospital. She wasn’t behind bars. There were people who would check up on her and there would be her favorite people in the same room as her without the annoying glass!

The realization had her eyes opening at once.

She narrowed her eyes to adjust to the lighting in the room even if it was dim. It was night time. She knew that from the windows. She looked to her side and saw no one in the grey room. It wasn’t the best of rooms too. The paint was chipping away and the floor wasn’t that clean. She had been taken to one of the lowly hospitals paid for by the government. Figures since she was a convicted murderer.

She tried to sit up but shrieked when some metal pressed into the stiches on her wrists and prevented her from doing so. She looked down and almost started to cry. How wishful it was of her that she would enjoy the fleeting freedom outside of her cell without the handcuffs around her hands.

What else could she do except wait for someone to come inside and know that she was awake?

The next time she came to her senses, there was someone holding her hand. She didn’t open her eyes in hopes that it might be a dream and she didn’t want it to end. Oh! The warmth of someone’s hand seeping into yours. The feel of skin on skin was something she thought she’d never feel. A tear leaked from her closed eyes.

Then she heard the clogged voice of her best friend.

“I’ve run out of people to blame, Kubra. Myself, Yusuf, Bhai…..your parents. I’ve blamed all of them for the condition you’re in but none of that seems true. This one is on you. It was your decision to leave us. And I’m telling you I’m SO angry at you right now! But I want to be angry with an alive person, not shell of a being you are right now. So please come back to us. I beg of you.”

Huma removed her hand. She opened her eyes. Huma’s widened.

“I’m sorry.” She opened her palm, wanting the contact back. Huma gripped her hand in both of hers.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I promise. You’re gonna be fine! Thank God!”

“I know I hurt you but please don’t be angry at me. I’m sorry.”

Huma shook her head and sniffed. “Don’t think too much. It’s okay. I’ll call the doctor.”

“No, please. They’ll take me behind bars again. Don’t. Please.” Her heart rate was racing, making the machine go wild.

“Shhhh. Don’t worry. Listen to me. They won’t. Not until you’re okay and you’re not.”

“Please don’t go. Please.” She shut her eyes tight and increased the grip on Huma’s hand as much as she could even when the pain shot up from his wrist to her entire arm.

The nurses rushed in hearing the loud beeping of her heart monitor. Noticing her, she began thrashing, pulling at her handcuffs. “No! Don’t come near me! Go Away! Huma! Ask her to go away!”

A policewoman came in as well on the nurse’s call. She held her down making Huma leave her hand. Huma stood to the side with her hand covering her mouth, every inch of her body concerned for her best friend.

The stitches on her wrist tore and bloodied her white bandages but she was busy cowering away from KB who was standing by her bed, looking down at her with the meanest smirk.

“I told you, didn’t I? They don’t want you here. You are useless!”

She shrieked loudly. “No! You’re wrong! Huma! Don’t go. Please.” The nurse injected sleep drugs in her drip and she started to calm down. KB started to flicker. “They would never leave me. Saad would never.”

The dark engulfed her again.

*~*

“She hasn’t woken up yet?” Saad asked, standing at a distance from her bed with her sister. No one was allowed in the room. Not even her parents. The rules had only been bent because Saad was friends with the on-duty police officer and by the way Huma was cross with Mr. and Mrs. Shahbaz, she wasn’t going to favor them. He rubbed the bandage on the back of his hand where his drip had been injected.

“She did. Panicked I was gonna leave her. Yelled and shouted so they made her sleep again.” He could feel her gaze on him but he kept looking at Kubra. “But she’s okay now. Scared and scarred, but okay.”

Scared and scarred….

What scary words….

Standing in that same position, only difference being the absence of Huma, the dusk prevailed the day. He didn’t move when she stirred in her sleep and he didn’t make any attempt to go near her when she opened her eyes, got confused for a moment or two, and then met his eyes.

An apology was in order and she realized that the second she noticed the pain in his eyes.

“Saad, I-”

“Enough!” his single word stopped any regret that she may have words for to stop. “Do not say you’re sorry.” He unfolded his arms and took a few steps forward towards the foot of the bed. He gripped the rod on the edge and his allowed his body to melt, all weight going to his arms. “You’ll apologize and I’ll forgive you again.” He shook his head. “But this time, I don’t want to.”

“Please, I-”

“Tch- I don’t want to hear it. I thought it was an unspoken rule between us that we’ll never hurt each other but here you are.” He looked up, asking for support to whoever was listening. “If you had wanted me dead, you’d only needed to say a word. I would have ripped my heart out and presented it to you on a silver platter. But when did you get so cruel so as to skin me alive?”

He went and sat on her bed. Taking a key from his pocket, he began to unlock the handcuffs from her wrists, the very sight of them making him feel useless. Her tears fell on his hands and he barely refrained himself from hugging her. He was supposed to be mad at her.

Throwing the metal away as if it burned him, he lightly ran his fingers over the white gauze, feeling the sting of her cuts on his own. He looked up and into the eyes which were pleading him. Her bottom lip was sticking out as she tried to keep in her sobs and her face was flushed.

Who leapt first? One couldn’t tell. But the next moment, their arms were around each other, competing that could hold each other tighter. He hid his face in her neck, finally holding the woman he loved in his arms after many months.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I swear I regretted it as soon as I did it. I didn’t want to leave you. Please. I’m sorry.”

He broke away and cupped her face tenderly. “I am one step closer in finding the real killer. Please trust me, KB. I can’t endure this again. Seeing you like this, I almost killed myself,” she shook her head and opened her mouth to say something but he continued, “I didn’t want to live. But I thought what if she lived? I didn’t want to do what you did to me.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked down, unable to meet his eyes, and bit her lip.

“You should be. So long as it means you would never think of leaving me again, you damn should be. I’ve had enough of you choosing other people over me. First that good for nothing bastard and now yourself. I want you to choose me now, please. Stay alive for me. I’ll teach you to live again and we’ll do that together but please, don’t ever think of leaving me again.”

She sniffed and nodded. “I can do that.”

They embraced each other again.

Letting her go the second time was even harder than the last. He hadn’t known it was possible. But every day tested his limit for pain endurance. Every second challenged him to give up.

But he wouldn’t. Not when he had realized the loophole in the murder scene.

*~*

“I’ve had enough!”

Huma barged into his room and slapped her hands on the desk. Saad raised his eyes, asking her to elaborate.

“I don’t care that I don’t have a degree yet. I want to assist you. Just let me do something!”

“It’s a great thing you came here. Because I need you to reassure me that I’m right about this.” The shock was evident on Huma’s face because Saad never needed to know he was right. He knew he always was. “Come on. Have a look at this.”

Huma stepped behind his chair and looked over his shoulder at the laptop screen he was showing. The CCTV of the day of their ruination was playing. The disheveled Kubra held the bloody knife in her hand, breathing heavily, shocked at the blood seeping out of his bicep. Wali, in anger, grabbed her arms and Kubra raised her hand to attack again but right there, the video blanked out.

“I’ve seen it countless times, Bhai. What are we looking for here?”

“I know you know the tape is tampered there. But why it wasn’t so looked deep into was because we found the murder weapon that was in Kubra’s hands.” He explained, turning to look at her.

“O-kay?’

“But what if it wasn’t the murder weapon? What if a knife of the same type was used to kill him in that time span where the footage is missing? All this time, I was looking for the lost footage, trying to prove that there might be someone else who hit Kubra on her head, making her faint and then killed him with the same knife. But what if the murder weapon was altogether different?”

She looked at him dubiously. “I don’t know, Bhai. That sounds pretty far-fetched.”

“Not if you read these files on the house search.” He gave her a file, pointing a certain section in it. “Here. See? There were two same kitchen knives’ sets and the knife other than the murder weapon was lost.”

“And it also says here that it was lost two weeks before the murder.” It sounded like just a wishful thinking.

“I know! But what if the murder was planned? It would make sense!”

“But then why would they frame Kubra? It’s not like she was a threat to anyone.”

“You don’t believe me.” It was a statement that made him feel dejected.

“I do, Bhai. But I don’t want to waste any more time if it’s just a hypothesis.”

“I know this angle is right! Besides, we don’t have any other lead. Any defense we had, Yusuf crushed it with his excellent reasoning. He filled all the loopholes with mere coincidence and the fucking jury believed it! I have to find solid evidence this time.”

“So…. we look for the real murderer and the one who wanted to frame Kubra. A pin in the haystack. Wonderful!”

“We better take out our magnifiers then.”

It was an almost impossible task. But the Mirza siblings were together now. Two geniuses working to get the most important person in their life out.

Who knew it would be four years before they could see it happen? Who knew by that time, there would be no one left to save?

*~*

Assalam o alaikum everyone!👋

How are you all?😊

Did you guys like the chapter?👉👈

Yes, you guessed it right. The time lapse is happening in the next chapter. Your girl is finally getting her best friend out. I can’t promise if it would be Kubra they free though…..🙈

If you don’t like Saad till now, I suggest you keep that information to yourself. Because anyone who says Saad isn’t their fav, they would be breaking my heart and I don’t think I can handle that after the emotional rollercoaster I’ve made him ride.🥺

Anyway, please vote⭐, comment🖋️, share💌 and follow.💟

Now I’m gonna rant here cuz I didn’t know where and how to express these thoughts without sounding miserable, and so here I am. So anyone who doesn’t want to listen, I promise there isn’t going to be any important information regarding the story here. I probably would delete it once I start doubting that I’ve shared too much. But anyway…..

I recently lost my Grandmother. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi ra’jioon. May Allah bless her with highest rank in Jannah. I had read about death countless times. I had written death a number of times. And I thought though obviously it’s not the same but I thought I had felt like a quarter of how i would really feel through those written emotions because I have a vivid imagination. But boy was I wrong! I wasn’t close to my grandmother that much, not gonna lie. But it hurt so much. Seeing the most strongest people in my family so desolated and broken was…..idk how to describe it. I’m not that eloquent in my speech. My grandfather was barely holding on and why wouldn’t he be? It was a support of more than 60 years. But he was trying to look okay, and that made all of us feel terrible. We should’ve been giving him support, not the other way around. My father and youngest uncle….the way they came and apologized to my Dada….i swear I had never experienced a harder blow on my heart. They both were carrying the burden of what if? What if they had maybe taken her to another hospital and what not? Though every single one of us knows, her time had just come and they both had left no stone unturned but it was…..man! And still, though it’s been more than a week, none of us are back there mentally. Time is the best healer, I know. But still going to my grandma’s house and not seeing her there, seeing my grandfather so frail and weak, seeing my father so out of his zone…..that image is something that is forever gonna be imprinted in my mind.

And so I couldn’t focus on writing. I know you guys don’t deserve to be left in the dark about the story after the support you’ve given me. But I just couldn’t do it. I know someone would think that because I was so sad, I could use it to describe the misery of my characters but it’s not like that. Your mind is just blank. So I hope you can forgive me. I can’t promise you speedy updates because I’m honestly not there yet and I don’t want to be unfair to my characters who have been living in my head for more than 2 years and to you guys.

I know you all would support me and if you get tired of waiting, then no hard feelings, that I can promise.

I love you all. ♥️♥️♥️
Yours truly,
Javeria.