Conflagration

Chapter 19: The Dropoff

Aryan regarded her carefully the wheels in his head turning. He was still upset with her but she had a point. If she hadn't been there, this operation would have been a bust. Her quick thinking had saved the day and his mission.

"Deal, only on one condition we are partners only till the end of this mission" he said not extending his hand but nodding at her.

Imlie beamed, her megavolt smile sending Aryan's breath tripping in his throat.

"We need to get going. I need to be there in 30 mins" he said swinging his eyes away from her face to his watch and then standing up. Patting his pockets he frowned, "Where's my phone?"

Imlie smirked reaching into her pocket and bringing his phone out. "It must have fallen out when you lost consciousness. I found it and kept."

"There is no point in looking for directions" she added as he took it and looked at the maps. "There is no signal here" she explained "I checked."

Aryan grumbled "How do we get to the delivery address now? We are in the middle of nowhere."

"Dhruv tara (North Star)"

"What?" Aryan asked astounded

"You city people don't know how to get anywhere without maps when you can just follow the stars" she clarified.

"We veered off the road towards the south, stands to reason if we can identify the north star and go in the same direction we should be back on the main road."

"That's impressive Ms Mishra, what other miracles are you  going to perform tonight" he asked crossing his arms and regarding her with her a raised eyebrow.

"Don't mock me, akkhadbagge"

"Akkhad..what?"

"Akkhadbagga.. do you want me to spell it out for you?"

"For someone who is in serious trouble, you certainly got a mouth on you. You do realize that this partnership ends when this mission ends and you are going to jail, right?"

As Imlie opened her mouth to respond he continued "how did you know about this mission? Have you been tailing me?"

"What? Of course not! I took of a photo on my phone of the printout you had in your office with the details of this mission. My plan was to get some good photos of the bust and write an article that would be published on the front page of Bhaskar Times."

"I distinctly remember telling you not to write anything about this Ms Mishra" annoyed, he dropped his arms and took two steps closer to her, wanting to shake some sense into her.

"You told me not to write about Jhankar Dance Bar, you didn't tell me not to write about this bust" Imlie said without backing down, glaring up at him, hands on her hips.

They both stared at each other, locked in a silent battle of wills. "I am forbidding you from writing anything about this operation in your newspaper" Aryan ordered.

Imlie nodded, surprising him and he blinked breaking the intense stare off. "Lets make a deal, I will not write anything until you catch the ring leader, but after that you will not stop me from making the report. We are friends, we can compromise."

"I am not your friend Ms Mishra."

"Imlie, my name is Imlie and if we are going to be partners it would be better if you call me by my name than Ms Mishra."

"And you get to call me whatever you want?" Aryan quirked his eyebrow up sardonically while being pleased that she was starting to see common sense.