Song of the chapter is Madness by Ruelle

-18-
-Saina Bahl-
-Present-

___________

Delmore Inn
15 November, 2030
10:05 am

"Gautam, listen-"

I began for the unteempth time, trying to get him to stop barking at the phone and listen to what I wanted to say. But the efforts were in vain. He just didn't want to listen.

"I don't wanna hear it, Saina!" He scowled, getting louder by the minute. "When I call you, you must answer god damnit! Taking me for granted isn't gonna do you any fucking favours alright!"

"I wasn't.... I didn't take you for granted, Gautam." I tried explaining. "I told you..... I have a situation going on in here."

"Do I sound like I fucking care?" He belligerently enunciated. "You promised you'd get your ass back at home within today! You can't just spring that you can't come upon me now!"

"Gautam, I-" I stammered, stopping my pace. "I'm in real trouble right now, okay? It's a lot complicated.... I can't explain it to you....over phone. Please try to understand."

"For god's sake, Saina, why are you so selfish? You always paint yourself to be the victim, when in reality, you're not one at all!"

It took my everything not to throw my phone across the floor and break it into shards.

"You know how important the upcoming meetings are for me! And now when I need you the fucking most, you decide to abandon me! And for what? Having a jolly time with your so called 'friends'?" He bellowed.

Yeah, jolly time indeed.

"Are you even listening to me? I told you..... I am in trouble. There has been an incident at the reunion. Four people were murdered." I chose to give in. There was no way I could give him the full details, but in order to steer this conversation somewhere else, I needed to feed him with something.

"What's that got to do with you?"

Ofcourse, what had I expected really? Concern? Sympathy? Pity?

I was so stupid to have even thought that he could be concerned about anyone other than himself.

"Gautam,..... there's a killer on the loose. And every one in town is a suspect. No one can leave town until the killer is caught."

I heard an exasperated sigh on the other end.

"See this is why you should've listened to me when I had told you not to go."

I pursued my lips.

"No one knew this was gonna happen, Gautam."

"But your little town seems to have a filthy past of these kind of things."

"You're saying like it's an annual thing." I deadpanned.

"No but you should've had better judgement, knowing what you have already endured."

I rolled my eyes. God, dealing with the killer was less stressful than this.

"I have several meetings scheduled for next week, but I'll see if I can book a flight to Goa next weekend." He uttered. "I'll see what I can do to get you out of there."

"No, Gautam, you don't need to-"

"Would it hurt you to take your husband's help, seriously? I told you I'll handle it!"

But I knew better than anyone else why I didn't want him to come here. We still had no idea how this new killer worked, which meant that that was a threat on everyone around us.

"Keep your fucking phone by your side, so I can get to you when I want to." He scolded. "And please... just don't cause any more trouble till I get there."

And then the line on the other end disconnected. No 'stay safe Saina' or 'be careful, Saina'. 'Just don't cause any more problems for me', that's all he could say.

An exhausted sigh left my lips as I kept my phone down on the small apothecary table beside the shade lamp in the lounge.

When I turned around, Zoya and Veronica were no longer standing there. I wondered how long had I spent trying to convince Gautam.

I put my phone in the back pocket of my jeans and decided to go to my room, since there was nothing much to do anyways.

The elevator dinged as it reached my floor and I stepped into the hallway. The hallway was deserted with not one person in the view. My room was on the floor above Zoya and Kartik's room, seperating me from the rest of the gang.

Even though it was broad daylight right now, the top floor hallway didn't have access to any source of sunlight, resulting in a dark space. I walked fast towards my room and was about to unlock the door when I heard a shrill cry from the room next to me. I looked to the side and found the door opening slowly, the hinges cackling with impact.

My heart was beating rapidly across my chest.

Without a second thought, my feet instinctively started taking steps towards the room. I held the door and opened it wider to have a look inside.

What I found surprised me.

A small child, probably about the age of four or five, sat on the floor, crying in overalls. It was his cries that I had heard previously. My eyelids fluttered as I took slow and steady steps, entering the room.

"Hey buddy....." I said, immediately feeling stupid. "Are....you okay?"

The child just kept bawling. I removed a strand of my hair behind my ear as I crouched down to his level. His little button eyes glanced at me, but his tear ducts kept rolling.

"Hey....shush...shush." I cooed softly, patting his back. "It's okay.... it's okay....shush."

But he didn't stop. His shrill cries were never-ending. I looked around the room for any idea of where his parents might be, but to no avail.

I don't know how a parent could just leave a defenceless child alone at a time when a killer was on the loose.

"Hey...do you know....where your parents are?" I asked him softly, still caressing his back, when my eyes suddenly spotted a small splotch of red on his overalls.

My body froze.

I leaned closer to him to inspect it, grazing my finger over it when I realised that this was not ketchup.

It was blood.

A gasp left my lips as I instinctively moved back. The child started crying even more.

I stood up immediately and looked around the room frantically and paused when my eyes fell on the closet at the very end of the room. The door to it was slightly ajar.

My breath hitched in my throat.

Swallowing the lump forming in my throat and ignoring the thump of my heart against my chest, I took two steps and reached out to open it further.

As I did, a lifeless body of a woman fell out of the closet.

I shrieked, staggering back instinctively. The baby's cries grew even louder.

She must be his mother.

The woman....had stab marks on her neck and back, the blood still gushing out of the wounds. Her lifeless eyes stared wide at me.

Tears pricked my eyes as I felt myself gasping for air. I turned my head to look around the room for any signs of the killer still being here, but found none. As I looked back at the body, bile rose up my throat.

I felt like throwing up.

A small sticky note was stuck to her head. With shaky hands, I slowly extracted it and turned it around to read the words that I knew the killer had left for me.

'See what happens to bad mothers, Saina?"

___________

ooo do we smell a different mystery brewing over here?

maybe.
maybe not.

this time, it's not just gonna be a hunt for lives, but also a hunt for the real sins that had unfortunately been committed by our lovely group.

you know as they say,
no one's secrets are safe
when they are being hunted.

stay tuned for more!

and don't forget to vote, comment and share the book!

love,
Bosedisha