Gemini

Chapter 8

The safe warmth Gem wove around me last night vanished when I received the call this morning. After a night of healing, I had fallen asleep and when I woke up, suddenly everything was aligned in my universe.

I woke up in my crush's bed, had him serve me my breakfast and I even had my kind boss who gave me another day off. And just like any other girl, I had been over the moon, thanking all the Gods and the Goddesses I knew.

But I should have known better. When had things ever gone the way I wanted them to?

Just when I finished the toast, I received a call from Kriti. And when I took the call thinking that the girls might have missed me.

But what I heard would be something I would never forget.

Kriti and Moni were screaming while a man just said I had to come to Laukris if I wanted to see them alive.

Why were they kidnapped? If by logic... no villain would ever kidnap the hero's friends. They would kidnap the hero's lover and Gem was absolutely fine beside me. They would take the hero's family, but seeing that half were dead and the other half wanted me dead, they could do nothing there.

Not that I was claiming myself to be the hero. Which protagonist fainted due to excessive work and end up in their boss' bed? Me. Which does not qualify me to be a hero.

Gem took the phone from my grasp gingerly and took his phone out. Then he made a call. "I want them found, Dakshi."

I did not know what Dakshi replied on the other side, but Gem returned my phone back to me. "I will find your friends as soon as possible." My trust in Dakshi finding my friends was higher than me going and rescuing them.

I raised my eyes and when I locked into his sincere ones, my lips quivered. "Who took them? Where the hell is this Laukris?"

Gem held my hand in his and knelt down as if he was going to propose. Had it not been for the call a few seconds ago, I might have searched his pockets for a ring.

"I said that I have been keeping things from you, right?" he said.

This was the time to talk about this? I took my hand from his grasp. "Not now, Gem."

He shook his head and said, "It is because of this that I have to tell you."

How did my friends' kidnapping do with Gem keeping things from me? How could they be related?

He then sat on the floor and held my hand again. "I thought that you could be free for a few more years, but then again it is my fault. I should have told you earlier so that you would have been prepared."

Prepared for what? Entrance exams? That was the only thing in India that people prepared for years.

"Laukris is indeed a continent," he said and when I was about to open my mouth, he held a finger to my lips. "Listen Riga. I will tell you all later."

I gulped and nodded. If as he said Laukris was a continent, it was sure a place I had never seen in any of my flight destinations. I had to depend upon him. And to be honest this did not seem to be a place imagined by some people who were high. Else, how could everyone talk about the same thing the same way?

"It is a continent," he said. "A place hidden from other seven continents. It is so because... that place not only has humans but also vampires, witches and... werewolves."

I just stared at him. After a second, I flicked his forehead and when he winced lightly, I knew I was not dreaming and that he was telling me the truth.

Imagining a place is not good. It was a sign that he needed a check-up.

But there was that word. Witches. In my memory as well as from last night's nightmare, this was the third time I heard it. Was I a witch?