" I'm sor-"
"DON'T, JUST DON'T SAY IT. YOU DO NOT EVEN DESERVE TO SAY IT AFTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME! I BEGGED YOU, SCREAMED AND PLEAD, BUT YOU DIDN'T HEED MY WORDS. THEN WHY SHOULD I!"
I yelled with tears streaming down my face when witnessing m...
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The silence didn't last long.
It didn't fade gently or give them time to prepare. It shattered violently, as if reality itself had cracked under the weight of the words spoken on the television. The newscaster's voice, so detached and professional, still hung in the air of the drawing room, each syllable a splinter of ice in the warm, familiar space.
Amina was the first to react. She had been perched on the edge of the leather sofa, a cup of chai cooling and forgotten on the table. Her body seemed to flinch before her mind caught up.
"This,this can't be it," she said, her voice sharp with a panic that rose from her stomach to her throat, hitching her breath painfully. She shook her head again and again, a mechanical denial, as if the motion could physically dislodge the meaning of the words. catastrophic failure... no survivors expected. Her eyes darted across the room, desperate, frantic, searching for someone,anyone,to contradict what they had just heard. To laugh it off as some macabre mistake. But the ashen faces around her only reflected her own terror.
"No," she whispered, the sound thin and cracked. Then louder, as if volume could make it untrue, "No, this isn't happening." Her sister Amaira was on that flight. Everyone was on that flight. Amaira, Elizey, Rehan, Adithya and Anjali. Her other family. Amina turned to Rafeeq so suddenly it startled him, her movement jerky. "Get the car," she said urgently, her voice trembling but forceful. "We need to go. We need to reach the airport right now." Logic was gone. Protocol was gone. There had to be a list, a mistake, a miracle,something at the airport that this sterile broadcast couldn't show them.
Before anyone could respond, Suhail was already on his feet. The mug he'd been holding hit the Persian rug with a dull thud, soaking the intricate patterns with lukewarm tea. He didn't think. He didn't pause to clean it up. His body moved on instinct alone, driven by something primal and uncontrollable that bypassed all reason. His fingers closed around the keys on the sideboard as he headed straight for the large oak door, his strides long and fast, his movements sharp and reckless with a kinetic energy that threatened to break things.
There was no plan in his head. No logic. Only one thought burning through him like a chemical fire: Move. Get there. Find her. Amaira was his orbit, his counterbalance. If there was even the smallest chance,one percent, one fraction of a percent,that the news was wrong, that she was in some hospital bay or wandering dazed in the terminal, he would take it. He would tear through the city, break every rule, destroy everything in his path if it meant reaching the airport in time. Sitting still was an act of surrender. Waiting was a slow, unbearable death.
Rafeeq noticed immediately. He had been standing by the fireplace, his own shock a cold, heavy stone in his gut. But years of managing crises, of being the one others leaned on, kicked in. He saw the wild, glazed look in Suhail's eyes, the way his knuckles were white around the key fob.
"Suhail," he said firmly, stepping in front of him before he could wrench the door open. He placed a broad hand on his friend's chest, not pushing, but a firm barrier. "I'll drive."
