Estranged lovers

Chapter 43

ANNIKA'S POV

Annika paced the house, her thoughts racing, heart pounding in her chest. The minutes felt like hours, each second stretching longer than the last.

She couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

She had tried to stop him, begged him to stay, but the way he had looked at her...... so resolute, so cold...... it had crushed her. And now, here she was, alone, surrounded by the suffocating silence of her own thoughts.

What if he didn't come back the same? What if he came back changed? Annika pressed her palm to her forehead, trying to shake away the heavy fog of anxiety that clouded her mind. 

She couldn't afford to be weak..... not anymore. She had survived so much, had fought through things that should have broken her long ago.

But Siddharth...... he was different. He was the one person who had always made her feel safe, even when the world around her was falling apart.

Her mind spiraling into a maze of unanswered questions and mounting fears. 

When he'd left earlier, he had been distant, a coldness in his eyes that she'd never seen before. It was like the warmth she had always felt from him.... his protective nature, his unspoken promise to never let her down..... had been replaced by a strange emptiness, as though the very core of him had cracked open and something darker had taken its place.

She thought about everything they had been through together. The late-night conversations, the quiet moments when they both sought comfort in each other's presence. Now, though, it felt like all of it was slipping through her fingers.

The sound of a knock at the door made her jump, and her heart leapt into her throat. Her breath caught as she slowly approached the door, uncertain of what she would find on the other side.

When she opened it, there he was.

Siddharth.

He looked the same. Same sharp jaw, same intense eyes, but there was something in his gaze now. A coldness. A sharpness that wasn't there before.

"Annika," he said, his voice distant, as though it were coming from miles away. "It's done. It's over."

Over. She stared at him, her breath caught in her throat. She wanted to scream, to ask him a hundred questions, but the words got caught in her chest. What did that even mean? That it was over? That her uncle was dead?

Siddharth didn't meet her eyes. His gaze flickered briefly to the floor, then back to her, and Annika's heart squeezed in her chest. He was trying so hard to hold it together, but she could see it....... his fragility, his brokenness. The coldness in his eyes wasn't from guilt. It wasn't from regret. It was something far more painful. Something deeper.

You don't have to carry this burden alone, she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come.

"What do you mean, Siddharth?" she finally whispered, her voice shaking. "What happened?"

His gaze softened for just a moment..... barely noticeable, but it was there. And then, it was gone. He looked at her, but there was nothing left of the man she had known. Instead, there was just the shell of a man who had seen too much.

"Your uncle..." He took a slow breath, as if the words were scraping against his throat. "He won't hurt you again. I made sure of it." His voice dropped to a murmur, as if the finality of his statement weighed more than anything he could have said. "He's dead."