Song of the chapter is
Forever by Jessica Sutta

-40-
-Zoya Afreen-
-Present-

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Delmore Local Area
27 November, 2030
7:30 pm

The supermarket door whooshed as I stepped inside.

The chilling temperature due to the centralised AC was in stark contrast to the humid air outside. I adjusted my baseball cap and grabbed a trolley from the nearby aisle.

Pushing it forward, I scanned through the shelves of snacks, picking one or two to check the prices. Since we were all freeloading off of Kartik's house supplies for the past few days, I felt that the least I could do was some food shopping for the rest.

Throwing in a few of the snacks in my trolley's basket, I walked to the next aisle when my eyes suddenly fell on a familiar figure standing by the fruit aisle.

I cocked my head to the side, focusing my attention to the back of his head.

A minute later, turning quarterly, half of his face came into view and surely, I was spot on.

It was young officer Ravi.

Well, not so young officer Ravi now.

A smile blossomed on my lips as I strode towards his direction. His gaze was trained on the peach in his hand, his eyebrows furrowed.

"That peach does look like a butt."

He turned towards me in a swift, his face surprised. Then a moment later, a familiar expression graced his features.

"Zoya..."

"Hi." I smiled like a schoolgirl. "Fancy running into you here. Are you here to collect food for the wife and kid at home?"

He chuckled softly, but his smile didn't meet his eyes. "Unfortunately no,.... it's just me I'm providing for at the moment."

"Aw, bummer."

"Yeah..." He trailed off, his smile lessening further. "So what brings you here?"

"Same as you. Except I have five kids at home to provide for." I answered. He nodded slowly, looking away. I could sense something was bothering him, so I went ahead and asked,

"Are you alright?"

He looked back at me. "Yeah....why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know, let's see, your hair is all dishevelled which means it was a rough day, your eyes look like they've seen....things and your smile is missing." I noted. "So to sum it up, I think I can say that you are bullshitting me."

A sad smile graced his features as he looked down.

"It's nothing.... it's just...." He spoke ever so softly, it was barely audible to the naked ear. "It's work."

"What happened? Another murder?" I asked, my concerns visible in my voice.

"No..um..." He looked away. "I have been removed from the case."

"What?"

"Yeah....the senior officials were pissed because we still haven't been able to catch whoever is behind all of this. And it is definitely not helping that we have no suspects at all as well." He responded.

"But that's not your fault. You're trying your best." I defended.

"Yeah well...." He trailed off, looking at me. "They don't think I am."

I scoffed slightly at the absurdity of the situation.

"So what now? Who's gonna handle the case?"

"Detective Gomez." He replied.

I racked my brain hard and then a minute later, it hit me.

"David Gomez?" I asked, bewildered. "The man who was in charge of Alishka's case?"

He nodded.

This time I scoffed louder, drawing a bit of attention.

"Didn't he retire?" I asked.

Ravi nodded. "He did, and he hasn't been in the field for around 7 years, but one of the senior officials suggested we invite him to lead the case."

"Yeah cause he did such a great job last time!" I said sarcastically. "This is ridiculous."

"I know. But apparently, they think that we got lucky last time. He has everyone convinced that if it wasn't for your tip to me, he would've solved the case quite soon." Ravi answered.

"Yeah sure. And I am Mother Teresa."

A little smile appeared on his face but it quickly evanesced.

"Anyways, it doesn't really matter. They won't listen to me or my team. The senior officials are hell bent on packing up this case as soon as possible. By the looks of it, they'll throw the first person that they suspect in jail."

"Which is something Detective Gomez specialises in." I stated, recalling the amount of mental torture that man had made me and my parents endure after Alishka's death, with the endless questions and subtle threats. "Perfect."

A prolonged, angry silence prevailed right after.

I sighed exhaustively and looked at Ravi, who stood in his position, completely dejected and forlorn. I needed to do something to cheer him up.

"Hey..." I began, my mind going through several different thoughts at once. Whatever was about to come out of my mouth next was probably going to be either utterly outlandish or corny.

"Do you wanna get some ice-cream with me?"

___________

"Butterscotch?"

His question landed in front of me. I wrapped the tissue around the icecream cone and looked at him questioningly.

"What?" My voice came out all squeaky.

He chuckled softly as he licked his own  double scoop chocolate chip icecream.

"You're the last person on earth I would've guessed to like butterscotch flavoured icecream." He said, as we fell into step together.

Amber Cove was a small beach on Figure Six, the upper class northside of Delmore county where the richest of the rich lived. The area was mostly filled with contractors and businessmen. I remembered Kartik telling me how his mom had been hellbent upon living in Figure Six when they were kids, but since his father had grown up and built his empire in South Delmore, he had decided not to leave the place.

The posh buildings on this side of the town reminded me of the big cities like Pune and Mumbai. For some reason, this area didn't feel like Delmore.

It felt alien.

As we walked side by side along the shore barefoot, our feet trudging softly against the wet sand underneath, I caught myself smiling.

"I feel very judged right now." I said, stealing a glance.

He turned his head to look at me. "No, I just.... butterscotch is definitely not your flavour."

I stopped in my tracks and with a growing smirk on my lips, I asked, "Uh-huh? Then what's my flavour?"

He gave me a sweetened smile. "You're more of a...."

I cocked my head to the side.

"Rocky Road."

"Rocky road?" I asked.

He nodded like a child.

"And why may I ask?"

"Well, see..." He began, as he walked ahead. A second later I fell into step with him. "When someone meets you for the first time, they are greeted by this outer layer of yours that is usually very hard to crack. Or figure out. But once that breaks down, you are pretty much the softest person to exist."

I stared at him for a moment as a creeping blush swept my face.

"Similar to Rocky Road."

My eyebrows lifted as I shook my head softly. "You really think that?"

"I do." He responded. "If being in duty for all these years has taught me one thing, it's that....most people pretend to be tough or unbreakable because they know that....truly, they are the most vulnerable people to exist. They make others believe that nothing bothers them, but in reality, everything does."

My eyelids flickered as he stopped in his tracks. My heart was beating fiercely against the cages of chest.

What were we doing?

"Zoya..." He began softly, his eyes still trained on me.

"Yeah..."

"Your icecream is melting."

"Huh?"

"Your icecream..." He said, pointing to the melting icecream in my hand. Snapping back to my senses, I felt the sticky liquid make its way down my fingers.

"Oh. Shit."

He chuckled as I cursed, trying to wipe the thing off.

"Are you usually this messy?"

I gave him a poker face. "No, I don't specialise in spilling icecreams."

He grinned walking ahead.

As we reached the end of the shore in a while, I turned to him and said, "Listen... I don't care what your seniors think. I think you did a very good job trying to protect me and my friends fro whatever's lurking in the shadows. You tried your best."

He gave me a small smile before looking down. I cleared my throat.

"And for the record, I think you're a great police chief." I said, smiling proudly. "So no other opinion matters anyway."

A slow yet fulfilling chuckle ricocheted off of his lips and this time it met his eyes. And just like a chain reaction, I started laughing too.

"You have a weird way of cheering people up, Zoya." He commented, tracing his steps back.

"What can I say?" I said, after a moment. "I'm one of a kind."

He laughed even more. "Come on, I'll drop you home."

I gave him a hearty smile as I followed after him. As we got to his police jeep, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out, thinking it was probably V asking about my whereabouts.

But instead, I was met with another cryptic message.

‘Don't do the crime,
If you can't do time ;)’

And with that message, an attachment stared back at me. As I clicked on it, my body froze in it's place.

It was a picture of me and one of my old coworkers, Radhika, taken almost two years ago.

Except there were devil horns drawn on top of mine.

And at the bottom of the picture was written,

“Zoya Afreen :
Backstabbing Bitch Of The Year.”

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i know you all are going 'heh?' at the moment, but you'll get to know the truth very soon! so stay patient and tuned :)

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love,
Bosedisha