"NOT ALL LIGHT IS GOOD, NOT ALL DARK IS EVIL"
Their meeting was fated. She was the goddess for him, while he was just a mistake for her.
"Firstly, it's Adrian Salvatore, but you can call me anything you want. And secondly, I came here to make a deal...
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The world felt wrong without him.
I stared at the ultrasound in my trembling hands, my breath uneven. A blurry, grainy image of something so small, so fragile... so his.
Adrian's child. Our child.
A shaky exhale left my lips as my fingers traced the outline of the tiny form. I should have been crying with joy. I should have been feeling that overwhelming rush of happiness that every mother feels when she finds out she's carrying a life inside her.
But I felt nothing. Just emptiness. Because he wasn't here.
My hand instinctively moved to my stomach, pressing softly, as if I could somehow transfer all my pain into the little life growing inside me. You'll never know your father if I can't find him.
That thought shattered me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to breathe. It had been days—long, agonizing days since the explosion. Days of hospitals, of uncertainty, of staring at my phone waiting for a message that never came.
"You need to rest."
I flinched at the voice. Rihaan bhai.
He had been hovering over me like a shadow, watching, worrying. I hated it. I hated being treated like I was fragile when I felt like I was already in pieces.
"I'm pregnant, not dying," I whispered, my voice brittle.
"That doesn't mean you should destroy yourself trying to look for him."
Destroy myself?
I let out a bitter laugh, shaking my head.
"You don't get it, do you?" My voice broke, and I turned to face him, my eyes burning. "I don't have a choice, Rihaan. He is either out there waiting for me or he's..."
I couldn't say the words.
I couldn't even think them.
Rihaan sighed and sat beside me, rubbing his palms over his face. "Roohi—"
"He's alive." My voice was firm, even as my hands trembled.
Because if I admitted that Adrian was dead, then I would have to accept that I would never see him again.
And I wasn't strong enough for that.
So I clung to faith—even if it was blind. Even if it was foolish, because Adrian would never leave me. Not like this.
*************
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Pain has a way of teaching you things.
It teaches you how much you can endure before you break. It teaches you what truly matters when everything else is taken away.
And right now, it was teaching me just how much I needed to survive.
Chains bit into my skin, the cold metal digging deep, and dried blood crusted over wounds that refused to heal. My body screamed, but I didn't make a sound.
Because pain didn't scare me.
Losing her did.
Roohi. The name was both my salvation and my torment.
I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly.
Was she safe? Was she crying herself to sleep? Does she hate me for disappearing?
Does she still believe in me?
My hands curled into fists, nails digging into my palms.
"You should just give up," a voice sneered from the darkness.
I didn't answer.
Because they didn't understand.
They could starve me, beat me, chain me in a place where no one could find me.
But they would never kill what mattered most.
My will to get back to her.
"You think she's waiting for you?" The voice laughed mockingly. "She's probably moved on. Probably realized you were never coming back."
My jaw clenched. She wouldn't.
Because Roohi was mine.
And I was hers.
I forced myself to breathe past the fire in my ribs, past the weight of exhaustion dragging me down.
"She's carrying my child."
I whispered it to myself, barely audible, but it burned through my veins like a war cry.
They didn't know.
They didn't know that every second they kept me here; I was planning my way out. That every time they thought they'd broken me, I was putting myself back together.
That the only thing keeping me alive was the thought of going back to her.
They didn't know that I had already won.
Because no matter how long it took—
I would find my way home.
And when I did, I would burn down everything that had tried to take her from me.
