Back with another part! Hope you enjoy it!

I wonder how it is back in India. Do they think I am alive, or do they think I died in the explosion? I try to imagine the pain they must be going through. My mother had always been skeptical about sending me to the army. I know, she must be regretting, for ever agreeing to my decision. My father had supported me in my plans, so he must be berating himself. I know they consider themselves faulty and I feel terrible for the self loathing they are going through.

I wonder if the other doctors with me back in the camp were also taken besides me. Are they somewhere like me, where they will become a sex slave? Or, be smuggled for organs. The very thought brings tears to my eyes.

All those sleepless nights of for this day?

To divert my mind, I take the time to look around now that he's gone. The walls are plain beige, blending with the white marbled floor. The walls are bare except for a wall clock indicating the day's almost over. Five more hours for this day to come to an end. I notice a circular dining table with two wooden chairs tucked in and two sofa chairs one on either side of a tea table are the only furniture in this room. I help myself from the floor, my back aching, I place myself in one of the sofa chairs. I pull my knees to my chest, hugging them, trying to find comfort. I vaguely wonder about his parting words.

'Tonight, you will see a lot more of me.'

I wonder what his words meant. Did he mean he would force himself on me? Somehow, that strikes a blow at my pride. My pride is the only thing I have in this foreign land. My uniform that I had once spent hours admiring, is rotting somewhere in a corner.

They can take away your uniform, not your pride. My mind whispers.

A part of me wants to rebel, spew insults on their face, call them out for what they are, cold blooded murders. Every year, every occasion there's always a fear for another attack after 26/11 that killed so many tourists and so many Indian soldiers.

A weird sinking feeling settles in the pit of my stomach as I realise, how they lay out their lives for our land versus how I am a coward acting meek and silent.

Why can I not relate to their protocols of bravery?

You are not a coward. You are smart. A part of me whispers. I fervently hope its true. I don't want to be a coward.

Killing yourself here after rebelling, would get you medals on your coffin, if only your body is ever found.

I try to think of something else other than 'if I am a coward or not', My mind vaguely wonders about his parting words.

Is he going to force me?

What if he does?

Are you going to submit to a terrorist? A part of me asks, bristling with hatred.

Never! I scream internally.

I try to divert my mind from him. But my curiosity keeps nagging me to venture out. I suppress it as snooping around isn't the way to earn his trust.

Better yet, my eyes wander as I notice there are two sets of doors opening into this room, one on my right side and the other in my left side. The door to the right is slightly ajar and the smell of curry seems to be coming from there. A kitchen probably. A set of stairs wind around a central white post to the second floor through a square opening. I find the spiral staircase fascinating.

Certainly 'House' not 'Home'. My mind whispers taking in the bare contours of the room.

A woman wearing the hijab wound loosely around her head and a pink salwar kameez stops by bringing me fruits.

She's young, unlike Fatima.

Maybe, around my age?

Is she. . . brought here too? Like me?

But she doesn't even look me in the eyes as she places my food and scurries back into the kitchen without even a word.

Maybe because I am a prisoner?

I devour the fruits moaning at their sweetness. My starved condition makes them taste even better. I moan further liking how the juice trickles down my throat soothing it.

A throat clearing brings me back from my state of euphoria.

"Come with me." He orders.

So he's back. I sigh, stuffing as many fruits as I can, before I get up and follow him, my lips twitching slightly amused as to how often he says 'Come with me' as if that's the only thing he knows.

What if he says come for me? Shut up! I yell at myself. I wonder am I suffering from a weird symptom of stress that makes my mind wander off to unknown territories.

How can I even think of that?

For God's sake Nehali, he is your enemy!

To say I was embarrassed at myself for the way certain parts of me react to him and my thoughts go wary will be underrated. He feels like that ice cream that makes my mouth water at the first sight but I can't have it obvious reasons. But instead of my mouth watering. . . something else waters.

We climb the stairs to the second floor. My eyes scan this floor to only find three doors lined up on one side and three other on another side. We walk up to the door at the far right end. It's a study room but not bare unlike the rest of the house. It smells of old books and naphthalene. The window opens outside, the scenery outside is fascinating as the night is only illuminated by the street lights and the stars above. The streets underneath are eerily empty. I shift my eyes away from the window, sweeping it through the room. There's a bookshelf stacked with medical books and books on the economy.

Surely he wouldn't stock up erotica as you do. Right?

A large wall clock on the opposite wall shows it's about eight in the evening. He left me for an hour then.

He closes the door behind me.

"Take a seat," he says as he gets into his seat on the opposite side.

As I place myself on the chair he speaks up, "What is your name?"

"Nehali Singh," I answer to which he nods.

He then draws open a drawer, takes up a set of papers stapled together and puts on a pair of black rimmed round glasses. The glasses add a new definition to his face, that I badly don't want to notice. And I can't help but lean forward, while the blood flow to my face increases making it feel hot against the coolness of my palm.

Seriously?

You are blushing? Oh, come on!

Hormones!

I hate them.

They don't listen to me! I whine internally throwing up my hands in frustration.

"Well, you see I have your details here." He says, jingling the papers in his hands and then throwing them on the desk. The desk is mostly empty except the pages containing my information and the desktop computer.

"There is a hospital here. You will start working, starting tomorrow," Basheer states as he leans back on his chair, clasping his hands together on the desk.

Why am I surprised?

"Whom will I be treating?" Although I know the answer to that. How can he expect me to save those lives that kill my own?

"Patients." Is his short, clipped reply.

I gulp as he insinuates I have nothing to do with their profession. But I have! Tears threaten my eyes as I press my lips together in tight line to prevent betraying any emotion. They kill mine and you think I will save them? I will stitch their wounds without anesthetic and no pain killers. I smirk internally as I imagine their guttural cries. My imagination somehow brings back my composure as I meet his eyes in renewed challenge. I know I can never be the model doctor and I would rather not be. Humanity is dead, if it is awakened it will awaken as a zombie.

"If we receive a single complaint from patients, the consequences will not be good." He says, leaning forward, eyes narrowing and jaw clenching.

Well, there goes my plan down the drain.

I immediately cross my arms across my chest as if I wasn't just planning something sinister.

"Where will I live?" I ask, contemplating what he said earlier today.

If I have to stay with him in his room, I might just kill him.

And then die yourself?

"With me."

Not the answer I wanted.

Act! You are slipping up. A voice whispers.

"Okay," I state, gulping and suppressing the need to probe further but my eyes betray my boiling rage.

"Just okay?" He says quirking up an eyebrow.

"Can I know your name ?" I ask curious to know his full name.

"Muhammad-Basheer-Sheikh," he replies looking down breaking down our eye contact.

" I will show you, your room. Let's go."

We reach my supposed room and he speaks up, "My room is just beside yours." He says, pointing at a closed door.

So? Should I be happy? I bare my teeth internally like a wolverine.

I nod, but before I can get in, he suddenly extends his right hand curling it around my waist, thus pulling me towards him such that our chests are touching. The proximity fills my nostrils with his musky aura with a hint of jasmine. His left-hand grips my shoulder before he dips into the crook of my shoulder and whispers, "You will be safe as long as you play along," and then he directs his steely grey eyes at me, " And breathe or you'll die before they kill you." I hadn't realised I had stopped breathing at some point. But before his words can register, his arms leave me as he departs, leaving me gasping as if I had been drowning.

Did I just see a smirk on his face? I was only breathless out of fear.

Huh! That treacherous cock sucker!

He gets into his room without so much as a backward look.

My heart beats a hundred miles per hour as if I am left in the midst of a heavy make-out session. Not that I have any experience to compare to.

Tachycardia?

Must be it! Can't be him. Can it?

We are just acting. It's okay.

I hang on there pursing my lips, until my normal breathing restores grinding my teeth as I glare at the closed door. How can I go from hating the guy to breathing heavily in minutes? He should be behind the bars for having this power. Couldn't he have said that without invading my private space?

I make my way to bed. Tomorrow I will start working in the hospital and tomorrow I will execute my first plan.

I close my eyes and before I know it, the exhaustion takes over me, lulling me into sleep. And I see myself pressed up against the door by a certain grey-eyed man.

But, this time ravaging my mouth.

And surprisingly, I cling onto him as if he's my last breath.

Hey Readers!

Fact:

Tachycardia: Heart rate> 100

Physiological cause: exercise, excitement, etc.
Pathological cause: fever, thyrotoxicosis, etc.
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26/11 : The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11) were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an extremist Islamist terrorist organisation based in Pakistan, carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai, India.

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