Under the moonlight

• 𝐀 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲

Since that day, there were a lot of moments when Vyom and I saw each other, even had eye contacts but didnt even greet each other.

Today I saw him while jogging in the park. He sat next to me on the bench tying the lace of his shoe. There was a moment of awkward silence before both of us plugged in our respective earphones and decided not to even register each other's presence.

I knew this was not the right way.

I knew we were acting immature.

At night I was studying polity, it was raining again heavily, almost like a thunderstorm and I decided to take a break and make myself a cup of hot coffee but to my utter dismay the coffee jar was empty.

I tried connecting with blinkit but due to the bad weather, I lost the network. Hence I decided to take my car and buy a coffee bottle myself (maggi too).

Dont judge! I am obsessed with coffee.
I do 'saste-nashe' of coffee.

I took an umbrella and rushed towards my car. The tiny stores in my area were all closed due to the weather so I had to drive a few metres ahead to find another local shop.

The raindrops were pittering-pattering on my car's window and I just tried to spot any open store through the misty and hazy windows.

I felt I saw something. Someone. Some 50 metres away I saw 2-3 people, what they were doing was still unclear to me due to the rising fog.
But it still gave me an eerie feeling to spot them, when most of the people were packed inside their homes.

I could tell whatever it was, it didnt seem normal. I was determined to stay put in my place and observe them, maybe even follow them.

The lightening cracked loudly and in that split second of light, I saw something that had shivers run down in my spine. Goosebumps arose all over my body and I gasped in horror when I realised, it was a girl they held as a hostage.

Shit Shit Shit.

Without anyother thought I rushed towards them, risking my own safety and pulled out the hockey stick I always had in the backseat of my car. They were all startled to see me, and two of them even came close to me.

They were furiously looking at me, expecting me to run away when I smacked their foreheads. Another came towards me and pulled my hair sharply, I groaned but punched his neck.

There was a lot of fighting for the next few minutes. I got punched, slapped and kicked, I did the same assault with them, actually even worse. But they didnt budge off.
Slyly, I pretended to be defeated and went to the other side of my car as quickly as possible before they could grope me, then I called Haseena two times, I didnt wait for her to pick up her calls and moved out of the car again.

One glance at the girl's face and I noticed she was fighting the goons with the same energy. Her face was bruised her hair were messed up and her energy seemed to be fading away but she didnt quit. I was impressed by her.

Both of us fearlessly fought the goons until one of them pushed her and she fell on the ground fainting.

I picked her up and in the meantime Haseena, who had already tracked my location, came to rescue us. I placed the girl safely in my car and drove to the nearest hospital, while Haseena took control of the situation.

An hour already passed by but the girl was not gaining consciousness. The doctors were trying their best. A nurse told us that she would gain consciousness in a few hours.

When she did, Haseena asked her name.

"Santosh Sharma" she said.

"your parents live here?"

"No maddam"

"You are new here?"

"Yes maddam"

"Santosh if you are okay, can you please tell what those guys did? I am S.H.O Haseena Malik, I'll try my best to get justice delivered to you"

"Sure maddam, those guys were highly drunk and were doing something that seemed illegal. I tried to follow them but they caught me and tried to hit me to shut me down"

That girl seemed pretty confident and we were so impressed with her.

"Santosh did they..." I was about to enquire her when she said "No maddam, they didnt harass me, but they did try to molest me. However your timing spoiled their plan"

She said and we took a note of it.

"uh ma'am, did Cheetah come?"

"Cheetah??"

"My boyfriend maddam, we were here to meet our friend who is now in the army, but we forgot our luggage at the airport and cheetah went back to fetch it. He must be worried about me and so will be our friend. Can you give me my phone?"

"Santosh your phone is damaged. But you can use mine. What is the name of your friend in the army?"

"Vyom Singh"

Haseena and I stood wide eyed. She was related to Vyom. I recalled one of our meetings at the terrace when he told me he had three friends back in Lucknow and they were Santu Cheetah and Rajveer.

"You know Vyom?"

"Hanji, wait you know him too?"
Before either of us could reply she yelled

"Oh my God are you Karishma Singh?"

"Yes.. you know me?"

"Ofcourse!! Vyom talks a lot about you. He is really fond of you and he keeps mentioning your name whenever we call him, mostly its unintentional.. It looks like he is affectionate about you"

I grew uncomfortable at the sudden beam of information.

At the same moment Santosh witnessed a wave of pain in her head and we asked her to sleep a little.

When we came out from the room, we decided to call Vyom and inform him but Vyom instead called Haseena himself.

I picked up his phone while Haseena was busy with the doctor.
"Hello Haseena.. Can you please register a complaint my friend came to Delhi but she went missing" I felt the impatience in his voice.

"Vyom its me Karishma.. We found your friend Santosh.. She is alright.. She was injured so we brought her to the hospital, but now we are coming home with her."

It was as if I could feel him stiffening up listening to my voice. "Okay" he replied curtly and cut down the call.

We reached home, Vyom was waiting for us impatiently at his doorstep. As soon as he saw our car coming he immediately stepped out with an umbrella to shield Santosh from the rain and motioned Haseena and me to wait in our car only.

We were highly confused why he stopped us but we understood it when he came back, opened the door of Haseena's jeep and asked her to move out shielding her with the umbrella, and did the same with me.

This guy wanted to protect us from the rain with just one umbrella he had hence asked us to move out one by one! Cute.

As soon as we went inside, we noticed a guy standing next to Santosh, hugging her tightly. We deciphered it was Cheetah.

"Santu, yeh sab kaise hua" Vyom asked her.

"Wo sab mai baad me bataungi, sabse pehle Thankyou Karishma if you werent there on time, I dont know what would have they done with me. And Haseena ji, thankyou to you too"

"Call me Haseena, without 'ji' " Haseena said with a smile, dimples forming on her cheeks.

Vyom looked at me, and whispered a
Thankyou.

No need. I replied softly.

Hey all, this might be a boring chapter I know but I wanted to make Santu and Cheetah's entry. Dont worry, the upcoming chapters will be exciting.