They obey. Numbers with the wings of birds flit through the alleys. That way! they call to Yashvi. And there! And meander! And swerve! And this and that and this!
She trains herself to their whims, those flocks of integers visible only to her—and she's sprinting ahead of Prisha now, the goonda's footfalls gone distant. Everything ahead is black as coal and everything behind too, and there are no sounds in the night except the girls' huffing breaths and slapping sandals.
Still Yashvi sees in the dark, not just numbers twirling by her, but also symbols she learned from her math textbook. Division signs split the neighborhoods, asterisks annotate warnings of dead ends, and it could all be the stuff of intuition or it could be that God's language was numbers all along.
But we want up most! Yashvi thinks, she and Prisha pattering toward the sky on the steps of the courtyard. Up this parabola of stone! Up it, up, and pray it never leads down!
She categorizes the symbols that parade around her and plugs them into formulas of direction. She crests stairways, hops fences, ducks under beams, turns corners abruptly, and swivels, skids, and zigzags as Prisha stumbles after her: the girl with numbers in her legs.
Soon both runaways find themselves in some miraculous street high on a hill. Below them, their old chamber sits white as an empty snail shell amidst the grid of alleys. At least ten goondas trudge about down there, slamming the chamber's door, then flinging it agape once again as if its inhabitants will magically reappear inside upon a second opening.
The Labyrinth looks so prehistoric, a catacomb, from above. Yashvi turns from it, her eyes gritting shut with dust accumulated in their lashes while she fled. Their lids peel apart like wet meat after she rubs them.
"Now we've done it." Blood trails down Prisha's arm from her palm, which the razorblade tore thoroughly. "There's no returning." She chokes back a snivel. "They'll kill us if we do."
"I'm sorry." Yashvi ventures ahead along the murky street. "I just . . . things just happened so fast, and . . . now we'll die."
"I didn't want to live anyway, you moron." Prisha follows, wrapping her injured hand in the bottom of her shirt and pressing it against her belly. An island of blood quickly saturates the fabric.
"I didn't either." Yashvi turns partly back, but does not stop moving. "You convinced me to live and now you want to die. You don't get to do that. It's not fair."
"You sound so selfish."
"Sometimes you gotta be a little selfish."
The street declines gradually, opening out to the fringes of the city, nearly all buildings lightless, only neon signs and streetlamps still burning, sidewalks like chalk lines in the asphalt. A rickshaw clatters past the girls, its wheels creaking, a muscular, bearded runner tugging the cart along with machinelike endurance.
Yashvi and Prisha pick a sidewalk and adhere to it, walking in a meek, wary sequence of tips and taps. Yashvi does not tremble. She refuses to tremble. If she indeed dies tonight, she will not die trembling.
Her vision flashes red for an instant, and the red travels in a little bright dot down to her chest. She watches the dot of the sniper and knows what it is. Prisha has noticed it too, and both she and Yashvi stand perfectly still as the red dot darts from one girl to another and back.
A gruff voice calls Yashvi by name. "Come, Yashvi. You don't want to run any longer. Come and let's go home."
Omnipresent Prithviraj.
YOU ARE READING
Integers, Parabolas, and Jivika
General FictionA girl in Delhi has a brilliant mind and secrets darker than the nights that won't let her eyes close. She lives in the Labyrinth, a place that always seems dim, even in the middle of the day. There, customers flock in their dozens, and there, th...
