Love At Last

Demons

"If you take one more minute, I swear I'll leave without you." Zaara said, getting up from her bed, irritatedly.

"Oh, yeah? How are you gonna leave without these?" Anakha smirked, dangling her scooter keys in front of Zaara and making the maximum possible noise by jingling it.

"What's public transport for?" Zaara asked, rolling her eyes. "And please cut the talk and get ready."

"Yeah, yeah, Just gimme a sec." said Anakha, untangling a comb from her disheveled hair. "My, my, aren't we very impatient today?"

"Ah, Look who's talking. Don't forget that you woke me up at five in the morning, so that you would have time to get dressed and go to the hospital as early as possible. And now, you haven't even combed your hair." Zaara said. Then, she checked her watch and added sarcastically, "And by the way, if we're late, the chances of those guards letting us through, are very, very high."

"Just take that helmet from the shelf, would you?" Anakha said, smiling a bit too sweetly, ignoring Zaara's sarcastic comment.

It was a Sunday and Esther, Gayatri, Amelia, Minakshi and Veda had gone shopping. Even though they had a large pile of homework and assignments, they had, amicably, voiced the need to be rid of all work, for a while. Zaara and Anakha decided to visit Gaurav first and join them later.

When they reached the ICU, they saw that the two policemen were standing guard, muttering to each other. They gave Zaara and Anakha dark looks.

"I didn't know that the boy could handle two of them together." One of the policemen sneered, looking in Zaara's and Anakha's direction.

Zaara raised her eyebrows.

"Didn't you get anything better than that to scoff at?" she asked looking uninterested and at the same time, pulling Anakha away from them, in case she decided to shout or ridicule them.

But instead of venting her anger on them, she turned to Zaara,

"You know what? There are some dunderheads around here, who need to be taught a lesson." she said, loudly and clearly, so that the policemen could hear her. "I'd love to report them for creating public nuisance and... maybe..." she pretended to think, "...probably we could add eve-teasing to the complaint? I guess, that'll get them a sure shot suspension or dismissal."

"You wouldn't!" said that shorter of the two policemen. "How dare you threaten us? You have crossed the limits! You wait! I'll inform the police station and get you arrested. You see it fit to threaten policemen?" asked the shorter of the two, very red and angry, his voice rising. It looked like his head was going to burst due to his anger. A few people who were waiting outside the ICU, looked in their direction.

"Threaten? Me?" Anakha asked, feigning innocence. "I wouldn't dream of it if people stopped misbehaving. I was merely... er... rehearsing for a play. But, what made you think that I was threatening you? Sirs?"

Both of them seemed to fight the urge not to slap Anakha. They looked like they were deciding whether to answer her question or to swallow the remarks that threatened to come out of their mouths. Finally, deciding that it was better to do the latter, one of them said,

"Go. See him and get lost!"

They glared at Anakha for the rest of the visit.

"Rehearsing for a play? Couldn't have been more believable!" Zaara half-laughed and whispered to Anakha, as she steered her towards the ICU window. "Just be careful, though. You don't want them as your enemies."

"Yeah, I know. They could have blocked our way and not let us through. Lucky, they didn't."

"Well, I guess they took your threat seriously." Zaara chuckled.