Chapter 3

 

recap: Gazing at her face it didn't take him long to put two and two together. The old man in the orphanage, the two kids. If his assumptions were correct. The young man in the photo was the young boy and that left him only one conclusion.

Riddhima gupta was his lost angel.

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Part 2

Armaan malik looked up to see her. Blood crushed through his aorta at immense pressure. His veins rushing to meet the deprived cells in his brain. Armaan Mallik had often visualized him in one of these life changing situations. The countless four leaved clovers and shooting stars had brought him shattered hopes. In an instant he knew that that point was NOW. When you least expected. The stereotypical brain freeze was the last thing on his mind at the moment. He stared at her. Boring.. gazing...

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Riddhima gupta knew what she saw in his eyes. Surprise or maybe shock. For the first time, his blue shields surrendered to the infinite emotions in his mind. She knew what was coming. Taking in a deep breath, she felt the air cool her pulmonary tissues. Maybe never before... but now...

She was ready for it...

atleast she though she was...

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The initial adrenaline rush had calmed down and he felt with drawn. All his resolutions left him. Reaching in his back pocket, he reached out and as soon as his hands touched the cold metal, he stopped to think. The impulses had reached his hands long before and then and he pulled the magnum 22. The small revolver was sleak enough to fit into his back pocket but deadly to anyone who's at the pointing end of it.

The sudden serenity of the room was taken up in a sudden whirlwind of events. She gasped, he pulled her hair back with a shattering force. Her bloodstained neck arched back and he thrust the metal hole on the throbbing pulse right below her neck. Riddhima gupta stopped. She knew she had to. Enraged, he knew he wanted something even he wasn't sure of. Her hands trembled and she grabbed the arm of his leather jacket. Pleading? He wasn't sure...

"Speak." A mere whisper escaped his lips as he looked at her dry blood on her lip.

"My granddad." Three syllables escaped her hissing lips. She waited.

Nothing.

"The guy?" His voice shrill.

"Atul... My brother."

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Riddhima gupta looked up to see him. His legs crossed on the floor. The revolver clutched tightly in his left hand. He made no movement and yet the calmness on his face was that before a storm. Apart from their heartbeats, riddhima heard nothing. Eventually his heartbeat boomed across her ear drums and she could hear no more.

Riddhima knew it was time.

"You're the same one aren't you?" She spoke, his eyes rose. Blood shot red. She could bear no more.

And for the first time that day Ridhdima gupta smiled. "Yes... yes I am."

"Tum." She looked at him. Her eyes forgering something beyond his understanding.

"You remember?" Armaan asked. His lips beginning to form a smile. Mistaken Riddhima looked away as his lips formed into anything other than a smile. She nodded.

"I was a child then!" Armaan Mallik defended.

"So was I."

"He told me to find you." Riddhima whispered.

"Like he cared." The rude remark hit home. Riddhima gupta no longer cared for the weapon clutched with him. She lept forward and nabbed his collars between her palms.

"Don't you dare..." Her voice came a bare whisper but with such force that armaan nearly stumbled.

He kept mum. Anticipating her words he listened. Thats what he wanted all night. To listen.

"My grandfather was the angel you hoped for. Don't you dare... just don't!" Riddhima released her clasp. She slumped on the floor and inhaled.

The well rehearsed speech in her mind. It came.

"My grandfather had built that orphanage years ago with my dadi. It was the last memory he had of his deceased wife. My parents and my dadi passed away in a car accident when I young – She paused, gulping the saliva forming in her throat, she continued – After the incident, he made it a habit to go there every Sunday and we tagged alone. My brother and I. He tells me that I played with a certain nameless orphan there." Riddhima gulped and paused briefly to look at his expressions. Void... it was almost expected now.

"I was child... I don't even remember your face... yet he told me... always... he always said he saw something in you... a field of lava... waiting to erupt... to take the world by wing and fly..." Riddhima almost chuckled. "How wrong he was." The words crashed against him. Armaan looked up to see the woman's face. Rage turmoiled through him until her eyes set on him. And like ice to the wound, it enthralled him. Feeling the turbulence pass through him and seep into the ground, he looked down yet again.

She inhaled. "He was never wrong in recognizing a person. But TUM... I guess he wasn't right after all..." She finished with a whisper. Her continued remarks was the last blow. And then he erupted.

"I DIDN'T CHOSE TO BE LIKE THIS!!" Armaan Malik surprised even himself with the tone in his voice. Why did he feel the need to justify his doing to this creature. When he couldn't care less for the 6 billion on the face of the planet. Whimpering now, he hid his face between his knees.

"We always have a choice..." As soon as the words escaped her mouth, his blue orbs looked into hers. Prodding... longing...

He didn't ask her to continue but she did...

"Shashank gupta saw you in light that you always failed to."

"How can you say that..." An innocent question and riddhima realized he'd miss the obvious all along.

Inhaling... she broke to him... feeling the need to tell him in straight she repeated what he'd already heard from her...

"Shashank gupta is my grandfather... in the innocence of childhood... we once played together - pausing, she spoke the words... not only to assure him but somewhere to assure herself... to assure herself of the bond she once shared with the alien sitting across form her.

"He always said... always that you were something.. he wanted to do so much for you. To him... you were cactus in the desert" – She emphasised her grandfather's words. Thinking... is this what he would have wanted her to say? Regardless she spoke - "Because its lives... it lives where everything dies. The day he became your official guardian... he immediately bought you the school uniform... bag... shoes – She looked at him and for the first time riddhima gupta thought she saw what was left of the human in him.

"He regretted it his entire life you know... not getting to you in time... to find you had run away was his remorse.. forever and always... he was forever telling me to find you... you weren't in our lives and yet you were never away from it..." "Debating weather she should say the next words in her mouth. They stumbled out regardless. you ARE a part of me... weather I want it or not you don't ever leave my being... Shashank gupta made you not only a part of him but a aphotic part of every fibre in my being..."

Armaan Malik heard her voice rise and yet he couldn't decide it if was pain or relief. The events of this one night came back to him. Her monosyllable responses. Her response to her own rape... but she couldn't have known he was HIM until she got here...? could she?...

Her gaze was lost. She stared into the floor tiles as to rip them apart. Inhaling another gulp of air she continued. "He told me to find you... forever telling me that till that day he died."

She looked up to see him. The words had fallen on deaf ears. Armaan Malik didn't flinch. He sat there. Frozen.

She had expected atleast some response.

Nothing.

And then riddhima gupta tore her gaze away form his chiselled face for one moment. A gasp escaped his lips and riddhima gupta stuck her eyes onto his face in the speed of light. An ocean gathered around his eye lids. On blink form him was it took for it to overflow and drip down his cheeks. Thats it. No more No less. Two fat tears ran down his face and then stopped. He looked straight into her eyes and for once riddhima gupta saw what could only be described as pain.

Two tears was all it took to melt his shields as he surrendered to the emotions erupting in him. Raising a hand, riddhima put it on his shoulder. With the intensity of light, he crumbled into her arms. Riddhima stumbled against the bed as she felt two arms slip along her waist. Gripping her torn top, she felt the soft abrasion of his manly arm against her waist, she hung on. He rested his head on her chest as the two tears dangling off his chin wiped against her rising chest.

Riddhima gupta held on. Stroking his back gently, she didn't register her action. She sat as Armaan Mallik's tears seeped though her top. She held on in what she cold register as an innocent hug... She knew what was coming and inhaling she awaited...

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I kno I kno... CRAP...USELESS... but hey I managed it... :D Sorry I jus put what entered my biology and chemistry stricken brain!!!! arrrrrggghhhh!!! sorry for the never dying frustration... got exams after Christmas so bear with me... be bluntly honest please!!!

P:S: This part has been written over the last 5 days and still its's all I could manage... :P

love you guys... my pillar of strength..

back to biology for me...

P:S: whilst reading the replies for the last one.. SONIA seemed more than eager for this update so hun.. enjoy it.. lol

xxxxx