Song of the chapter is
Agony and Ecstasy by Millions

-44-
-Kartik Malhotra-
-Present-

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Malhotra Mansion
2 December, 2030
4:56 pm

The clock ticked ominously in the dimly lit living room, casting eerie shadows on the faces of my friends who were gathered around. The atmosphere was thick with tension, and an unsettling silence hung in the air. We had all been on edge ever since the killer's threat had been revealed, and now, sitting together in my living room, the weight of the situation was palpable.

I glanced at Himanshu who sat hunched over on the edge of the couch, his usually hopeful face etched with worry. He absentmindedly tapped his fingers against his knee, a nervous habit that betrayed his unease. Next to him, Veronica fidgeted with her necklace, the delicate chain slipping through her fingers repeatedly, a clear sign of her anxiousness. And then there was Zoya, normally the joker of the group, her playful demeanor nowhere to be seen. She stared intently at the floor, her jaw clenched tightly.

Sitting in my favorite armchair, I struggled to maintain a facade of calmness. My heart pounded in my chest, threatening to break free from its confines. I stole a glance at the clock again, the minutes crawling by agonizingly slow. Each tick felt like a countdown to an impending disaster. I cleared my throat, attempting to break the suffocating silence that had engulfed us.

"So, what do we do now?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. The words hung in the air, their weight sinking deeper into our troubled souls.

Himanshu looked up, his eyes meeting mine. "I don't know, Kartik. This whole situation is insane. Who could've imagined something like this?"

Saina nodded, her voice barely audible. "It's like we're trapped in a nightmare. I can't shake off this feeling of impending doom."

Veronica finally lifted her gaze from the floor, her voice laced with bitterness. "We can't just sit here and wait for him to strike. We need to do something, take some kind of action."

"But what action, Veronica?" Siya questioned, desperation creeping into her voice. "We're not detectives. We're just ordinary people caught up in something we don't understand. We're not equipped to deal with this."

Veronica stood up abruptly, her eyes filled with determination. "Maybe we're not detectives, but we're not helpless either. We can't let fear paralyze us. We need to think, strategize, and find a way to protect ourselves."

Himanshu leaned forward, his voice tinged with urgency. "Ronnie's right. We can't just wait around, hoping that this nightmare will end. We need to gather all the information we have, think logically, and work together."

As their words sank in, a glimmer of hope flickered within me. Maybe, just maybe, we could find a way out of this dark abyss.

"I have something to confess." I said, looking at the rest and then at my wife, who stood in one lone corner of the room. "Actually, we do."

Siya gave me a worried look as she took a step towards me. I nodded, reassuring her that it was the right thing to do.

I took a deep breath as I looked around the room, the gang assembled before me, their faces filled with anticipation. This was it—the moment I had been waiting for. I cleared my throat and began, my voice steady but tinged with excitement.

"Siya and I.....we um..." I began, my eyes flickering from one member to another. They leaned in closer, their curiosity piqued.

Siya, stood beside me, her support evident in her encouraging smile. I drew strength from her presence as I continued, "Three years ago, we were involved in a hit and run case."

Gasps echoed through the room, and I could see the skepticism and surprise etched on their faces. Zoya crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "What? What do you mean?"

I took a deep breath, steadying myself before delving into the details. As the story of that fateful night unfolded in front of my friends, I could sense the discomfort growing by the minute. Siya's head hung in shame as she stood, silently weeping beside me. I squeezed her hand softly as I finished and then looked at the rest.

"I know it wasn't our best moment, but.....we really are sorry for what we did." I said, as a sort of a justification for our deeds. But God knew, there was no actual sentence we could utter that would wash our sins away. "I did what I had to do to protect Siya. Even if that meant...... destroying someone else's life."

An uncomfortable silence followed as a result. The clock's ticking was the only sound that could be heard for the longest time before Veronica interrupted it.

"But..why are you telling us all of this now?"

I looked at her for a moment before speaking, "There are some things that I found out about the case....from a close friend a few days ago. And somehow.... it's all.... linking to Detective Gomez."

"Detective Gomez?" Saina asked. "What does he have to do with your case?"

I took a deep breath before explaining, "Yesterday, when Detective Gomez took Veronica for questioning, I noticed his erratic behavior. It was almost like.....he was trying to pin everything on Veronica. At the time, I didn't think much of it, considering it's his second nature to play gotcha over nothing.....but later on, when I thought about it more.....it just.....seemed suspicious to me."

Himanshu gave me a quizzical look. "Okay....but all of this still doesn't hold any connection to your case."

I nodded, "You're right, Himanshu. It doesn't. But something else does."

The rest looked at me with anticipation.

"A few days ago....Siya started having nightmares regarding the whole incident because the killer sent us a text....indicating that he knew about the cover up. I knew I had to do something.....so I dug around little regarding the victim and his current status and found out that the only person who's been visiting him went by the initials D.G."

"D. G?" Himanshu furrowed his brows before realisation dawned on him. "Detective Gomez?"

"Well, we only refer to him as Detective Gomez. I'm not sure if that's his actual name." Saina argued.

"Holy shit." Zoya cursed under her breath as we all looked at her. Her eyes panned over to meet mine. "His actual name's David. David Gomez."

An eerie silence filled the room as her words lingered in the air. The others exchanged glances, contemplating the possibility. Himanshu, always the analytical one, furrowed his brow. "But Kartik, it's a big leap to accuse Detective Gomez based on initials alone. Do you have anything else?"

"Not yet, but.... it's not a far fetched theory." I stated.

A moment later, Zoya spoke up again,

"Himanshu, do you remember about the theory you told me and V on the day we found the dead girl in the church?"

Veronica looked up at her, her eyebrows furrowed. "The sin theory?"

"Wait...what sin theory?" Siya asked.

Veronica shook her head. "It's just a theory we came up with.... trying to find some kind of a pattern between the killings."

"Basically, we eluded that all of the victims until now had some sort of a similiarity between them. They were either accused or charged with a crime in the past. Point is....the killer's messages have also been kind eluding to this whole....sinner thing." Himanshu explained. "So we deduced that...maybe the killer's doing this because..."

"He wants to 'rid the world off of sinners'." Veronica completed.

I raised an eyebrow. "So what, you think the killer's acting like a vigilante now?"

"Seems likely, doesn't it?" Zoya said. "Whoever's doing this is obviously way more cray-cray than Yash. So it wouldn't be too far-fetched to assume that this person could very well be attempting to play Batman."

I sighed exhaustively, rubbing my forehead.

"One is an accident, two is a coincidence, but three is definitely a pattern." Himanshu added.

"Except we don't exactly know what crime the third victim was involved in." Veronica argued, looking at him. "I mean...the girl in the church could easily be an anomaly to this pattern."

"True." 

Siya crossed her arms in front of her chest. "So what do we do? How do we figure out what her crime is?"

"I'll do a bit of a digging later on to figure that out." Himanshu answered. "But first....we need to be honest with each other."

I gave him a puzzled look.

"If we hold on whatever secrets we have  from each other, then that gives the killer more leverage on us. He'll try to use it against us,....just like he did with Ronnie yesterday." He continued, exchanging a look with Veronica. She looked down at her palms instinctively.

"He's been threatening us as well." I nodded, understanding his point. "Himanshu's right, guys. If we don't come clean to each other, the killer just gets more ammunition against us.And the last thing we want is for this fucker to get more power over us. So....I think it's time that we are honest with each other."

The room was filled with a mixture of uncertainty and determination.

"There's a secret that I have hidden from Gautam for the past two years. And if it ever came out,....I think he might...actually kill me." Saina began, as the rest of us focused our attention on her. "Two years ago, I found out that I was pregnant with his baby. It had only been a year since our wedding and it's not like we were trying for a baby or anything but.....I knew that Gautam always wanted to have a family."

She inhaled deeply as she went on.

"But I wasn't ready for a kid yet. I was terrified of even the thought taking care of another person. I was just....too scared to fuck up....like my parents did."

I frowned as I looked at her. The once full of life Saina had transformed into this hollow shell that I didn't recognise anymore. She was so close to me and yet felt the farthest.

"And so I.....did the unthinkable. I purposefully orchestrated an accident to happen....so I would miscarry the baby."

As the weight of that line hung desperately in the air, no words came out at all.

"Gautam believed it was an accident, but I knew the truth. And it has been eating me alive since that very day. The guilt of it all makes me wanna....punish myself. I don't know,....maybe that's why I continued to stay with Gautam even after knowing how he was. Because I thought that it was....karma...for what I did to him."

As the last words slipped out of her lips, Zoya got up from her seat and went over and hugged her and cuddled close to her on the couch. A half smile graced my lips as I looked at the two.

"It's really brave of you to say that, Saina. And we are all very proud of you for coming clean." Veronica assured. Saina simply smiled weakly and huddled closer to Zoya.

A long moment passed before I spoke, "Zoya?"

She gave me a nervous look before sitting straight on the couch. "I um....have a work thing."

"Go ahead." 

She chewed the bottom of her lips. "Uh...there was this promotion thing at work and one of my colleagues, Radhika and I were sort of competing for the same post. Um...so in that quest, I may have...sort of...sabotaged her chance....so that I could win."

"Well....that doesn't sound...that bad." Siya voiced my exact relief.

"That is until you hear what I did to sabotage her." Zoya responded.

A moment passed before I asked, "What did you do?"

She licked her lips as she sunk back on the couch. "I framed her...for altering records in the company. I did it on purpose so that she wouldn't get the post but....our boss kicked her out of the company."

My eyes widened in disbelief.

"Zoya..."

"I know, I know, I'm a terrible person!" She yelled in self depreciation and huddled closer to Saina.

"We all are....in some way or the other, Zoya." Siya said and as if a silent agreement was shared amongst the rest of us.

"What about you, Himanshu?" I asked as I looked at him.

He glanced at me once before dwelling into deep thought. "I.... can't think of anything."

"Oh come on, goody two shoes! No one is that much of a saint." Zoya mocked.

"No, Zoya.... I swear." Himanshu spoke, slowly, as if coming to a realisation. "As problematic as the rest of your secrets are,..... I can't really think of anything like that that he could really use against me."

I pondered over his words for a moment.

"It does make sense." Veronica pointed out and the rest of us looked at her for further explanation.

"Compared to the rest of us....Moose hasn't really got many texts except for the ones we all recieved together." She explained. "Even during the reunion, he was exempted from the suspicion because he came alone in his own car. The killer hasn't targeted him alone. Yet."

I furrowed my brows.

"Well doesn't that make him suspicious?" Zoya pointed out and I gave her a look of disbelief. "What? I'm just pointing out the facts."

"No, she's right. It is suspicious." Siya added.

"Siya come on..." I gave her a look and she instinctively looked away.

"Look....I understand their worries, Kartik. I'd be paranoid as well if I were you guys." Himanshu spoke slowly. "But I assure you.... I would never....in my wildest dreams....ever think of hurting any of you."

A moment of silence passed before I said, "We know, Himanshu. And we trust you."

"Yeah, Moose...." Veronica agreed, looking at him.

"Whoever's doing all of this....wants us to suspect each other, guys." I said, looking at each of them. "Just like last time. They want to divide us. That's how they get power over us."

"So what we do now?" Zoya sighed, frustrated.

"We'll tell Officer Ravi about the threat as for now." I replied, my voice filled with determination. "After what happened yesterday with Veronica along with the connection of Siya's case, I can't trust Detective Gomez to do anything to help us."

"Yeah, he could very well be double timing us, while working for the killer." Himanshu agreed.

"Wait....so you think Detective Gomez isn't the killer?" Saina questioned.

"Have you seen the man, Saina? He looks like he's two years away from knitting sweaters at an old age asylum." Zoya commented. "I highly doubt he's the person running behind a mask, while killing a bunch of people."

"Yeah, plus...the night I was attacked, I felt the strength of that person. Whoever it was.... wasn't ready to back down. They were out for blood." Veronica pointed out.

"Yeah and...it would actually make sense for Detective Gomez to be involved with the killer.... considering he's in charge of the case now, he can easily tamper with evidence and hide any bit of traces for the killer." I finished.

A chilling silence settled over the room, shattered only a second later by the glowing screen of our phones. I glanced at the rest before reading the notification.

Once again, a taunting message from the killer, a sinister reminder that we were locked in a relentless pursuit against an adversary who reveled in our frustration stared back at us.

"You may chase, but I'll forever stay one step ahead—this game is far from over."

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ooo do we have any theories of our own, my loves? tell me in the comment down below!

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love,
Bosedisha