KATHA

11 KATHA - RAJAS

A familiar yet unsettling feeling gripped my heart as I stood frozen on my porch, my eyes fixated on the cardboard box that lay by the door before me. Disbelief and uncertainty intertwined within me, clawing at the edges of my nerves like ghostly fingers. An odd blend of apprehension and resignation.

The box was leaking blood.

The weight of the busy day was still clinging to me and I sighed. I wasn't a stranger to blood. Hell, I'd cut fourteen men and bathed in their blood while it was still warm. It had lost it's tug on me long before but yet this unexpected object had cut through the normalcy like a blade. My mind raced through a thousand possibilities, each more unnerving than the last.

But there was a deeper current thrumming and pounding my head than the crawling tendrils of disbelief.

Anger.

Fury.

I always made sure blood never touched my house, my sanctuary. It was a bizarre kind of rage that assaulted my insides as I bent down to take the lid off.

I didn't scream when it happened.

I didn't scream when I saw two arms lying there.

They were chopped from the elbows.

Two arms covered in blood.

And swirls of dotted tattoos.

Rahul Kashyap.

And there was a note attached to the side of the box, held by a small vintage dagger pierced through it. The tiny, dark, blade seemed to carry his whispers. A gnawing feeling coiled around me like a serpent. That fury. The unwanted unsettling slap of reality. He was toying with me, I was sure he was watching from the shadows as I stood there.

I took out the dagger and picked the note up.

Kashyap was always a man of limited days. Touching you was the last strike. As for Madhav Sen ? I only shattered his jaw for kissing your hand. Defy me again and next time you'll see heads, starting with Ravi Gupta. Remember, Little gazelle, I'm watching. And remember that you are mine. MINE.

Gritting my teeth, I crumpled the note and cursed that bastard. I wasn't a least bit bothered about Rahul. I was going to end him myself after I was done with striking off the top names in the list. If anything, he took a little burden off. What angered me was the fact that he thought I was his. That he owned me. And what I could do about it ? Nothing. My carefully woven threads were being unraveled beneath his audacious fingers and for the first time in my life, I was losing control of my domain. My sinful realm. I couldn't risk him chopping Ravi Gupta's head off. No. He was a good man that took care of his grandparents after his parents kicked them out to live on the streets. Ungrateful fuckers. He was sixteen when he left home and since two years, after his grandfather died, he'd been carrying that old lady. It was just an harmless flirting but guess what ? This freaking maniac was blind.

Sighing, I took the box to the cliff and chucked it into the sea.

Rishi was staying at Preet's so by the time I was done with bath and dinner, it was past midnight.

Kehdoon Tumhe by Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar and R. D. Burman was blaring from the radio as I sat on the middle of my bed. A beautiful and twisted mess scattered before me. The night was young and silent, my room submerged in dim amber.

Hello, Little gazelle.

You think I don't see you running around flirting with random men ? Careful, Little gazelle, or you'd be the cause of so many deaths. My patience only stretches so far.