Eastern Zilla, Chandragarh
It took Mriga a few seconds to take in the frozen tableau in front of her. A few seconds later, she recovered and reacted to Vidyut's warning, but found herself stuck in the dilemma of whether to leave him alone or not. As her training kicked in, the rational part of her brain told her that she was no help to him in this manner. There was no way that she would be able to overpower the burly men.
So, she pivoted and ran as if her life depended upon it. Turning once to see whether she was being followed or not, she didn't know whether to feel relieved or worried that nobody had followed her out.
She remembered that the orphanage was nearby and that's where she went to get help. Reaching the place, she didn't stop at the gate or the entrance door but went straight inside the long corridor, looking for some sort of office where she could find the head of the place.
The security guard was already giving her the chase inside the building. Finally, she saw the door marked as 'Administator' and barged in without ceremony.
"A group of thugs... Vidyut... hurry", she tried to form the sentence but the words tumbled out incoherently.
Pulling herself together, she told the woman sitting there about what she had seen few minutes ago. Thankfully, the woman didn't ask her anything else but rang the gong which was hanging by the window.
A few girls and boys older than her came running to the door.
"Our Vaidya is in trouble. Let's go rescue him," she said to them.
Mriga followed them out of the door.
At the woman's questioning look, she said resolutely, "I am coming with you."
There was no time to dither or argue. One of them passed a long wooden stick to Mriga.
"Aim for the crotch or the nose. Don't waste time on anything else," the girl advised while running beside Mriga.
Despite the tricky circumstances, both of them shared a grin. By the time they reached Vidyut's clinic, there was no sign of those people but Vidyut was on the ground, bloodied and unconscious. Dropping the sticks collectively on the floor, all the girls from the group dropped next to him and started fretting.
"Get away from him. Let us carry him out. Stupid besotted fools," one of the boys muttered the last bit.
Vidyut's face had been badly bashed up, and his arm dangled by his side, precariously. Even Mriga who hardly knew him, felt an uneasy twinge in her heart, looking at his terrible condition. By the time they arranged a carriage to carry him to a big medical facility, it was late in the evening. The administrator of the orphanage told Mriga to go back. She told her the address of the place where he was being taken and that she could visit him later. Mriga nodded and bowed before leaving.
Midnight, Forest
"Guruji, I feel like a failure. Had I stood there and fought those people, maybe the guy wouldn't have been hurt so badly," Mriga had just finished narrating the incident to Ramanujam.
At the concern and guilt in her voice, Abhirath scowled but didn't say anything. A part of him wanted to shout out that everyone's wellbeing was not her problem. The guy was alive, wasn't he? As it is, he hadn't recovered from her stunt at the brothel from a couple of days ago and now she was embroiled in some gang fight. What was up with this girl?
In their first meeting itself, he knew that the guy was way too slick. He must have been involved with unsavory characters to land himself into such a predicament.
"There are a couple of mantras which should be followed to lead a satisfactory life. One, only enter a fight if you know you can win, else escape. There is zero value addition if you are dead. Two, help yourself before you help others, else you will become a liability on them. Had you stayed there, the guy would have been bound to try and protect you and probably receive more injuries in the process. Your getting injured would have made him forego the care of his own and tend to yours. Instead, what you did, not only helped get him the fastest aid possible, it tested your reaction time and skills, helping you become stronger," Ramanujam spoke in a neutral tone.
Mriga stayed quiet and internalized his words. Slowly, but surely, her rose tinted glasses had begun to come off. She needed to train her emotions to listen to reason.
Saptsindhu
"What are you still waiting for? Why haven't you sent out the information to your superiors back in Chandragarh yet about the guy's death? You need to claim the credit for it quickly," the handler chided Ratansingh.
"Senior, I think there is something off about the whole scenario. I am not fully convinced that he is dead," Ratansingh replied with a slight hesitation in his voice.
The handler's nostrils flared up in irritation.
"Just to satisfy your 'conspiracy theory', I have two of my men on a twenty-four-hour duty on that damn hill for the past couple of days. But not even a dog had ventured out there, forget a human which means that there are only two possible scenarios. One, that he clung onto something and waited to climb back up which hasn't happened yet. I don't think that anyone can hold onto a damn tree and survive without water or food for forty-eight hours. The other option is that he fell and survived the fall. Now, unless he transformed into a bird and flew away, I don't think even a man made out of iron could have walked away that fall, alive. So, stop wasting my time and do as I tell you," he scolded Ratansingh.