Chapter 12: Trial by Fire

It was Friday finally. Arjun stood at the board, holding a folder. His eyes scanned the paper, but his focus settled on Riya, seated calmly with a notepad.

“ETF doesn’t run on theories and fancy degrees. It runs on instinct, precision, and pressure.” Arjun spoke coolly.

He slapped down a stack of papers in front of her, while Shree and Chotu just looked on.

“Your first weekly evaluation. Written. Based on real ETF cases. You have two hours. Begin.”

Riya looked up at him—surprised. But then… she smiled, flipping open the first page confidently.

Two hours later.

Riya placed her answer sheet on Arjun’s desk, calm and unshaken.

Shree whispered, “He’s going to make it impossible to pass.”

“I want to believe you, but she is too unpredictable, kuch bhi kr skti h, experience se bata raha hoon.”, Chotu added.

Arjun waited until she left the room. Then he opened the first page.

His face betrayed nothing... until it did.

Correct. Logical. Tactical. Sharp.

One response even pointed out a flaw in a strategic ETF operation from the past—a flaw Arjun had covered for.

By the time he finished reading, his jaw had tightened. Not with anger—with disbelief. And something dangerously close to respect.

He placed the last page down and leaned back, irritated. Not just because she passed—but because she passed better than most trained officers.

---

In the evening, Riya stepped out on the terrace, stretching. Her phone rang—unknown number.

“Gear up. You’re coming on your first field task.”

It was Arjun.

Riya blinked. She wasn’t expecting that.

"Let’s see if your theory can stand bullets and blood."

---

It was supposed to be a controlled drill—a simulation, supervised, mapped out, and rehearsed only among the senior ETF members. Riya wasn’t told. That was the point. Apparently, every trainee had to go through this surprise drill in the first week of joining itself, because life at the Police Department wasn't just book and rules.

Arjun had planned it personally. He’d ensured the surroundings were secure, that the "criminals" were undercover officers, that real bullets were not in play.

But fate had its own script.

---

Riya moved cautiously through the dim warehouse, her breath steady, eyes sharp.

Her voice in her own head: Clear corners. Watch elevation. Don’t freeze.

She didn’t know that the shadows had changed.

That someone else was watching her.

---

Then, everything erupted.

A loud crack of real gunfire shattered the silence.

Real.

The sound of metal ricocheting, men shouting—not the actors they planted.

From a rooftop nearby, Shree's horrified voice came through the comms.

“Sir, this isn’t our team! I’m reading four extra heat signatures—armed!”

A real gang had entered the location.

An old enemy. Tipped off.

“Fall back! All units, abort drill. Fall back!” ,Arjun’s voice roared through the headset.

He turned to bolt down the stairs with Chotu, panic lacing his voice.

But on the other end, Riya didn’t respond right away.

---

Inside the warehouse, Riya had already taken cover. A bullet had grazed her upper arm, slicing through her sleeve. She didn’t cry out. She bit down, hard.

The pain was white-hot. But she held on.

“Sir, I have a visual on one—he’s trying to access the far corridor.”

Her voice was tight. Strained.

“No! Riya, fallback! Do you hear me? FALL BACK!”, Arjun barked again.

But she had already made her move.

She limped forward through the shadowy racks, used a rusted pipe to block a path, threw a piece of metal to distract the man, then... slammed a heavy crate down behind him, forcing him to stumble into a storage room.

With all the strength she could muster, she shut the door behind him and dragged the broken latch in place, jamming it with a rod.

Locking him in.

One of them. Caught.

Then she collapsed beside the door, blood running from her wound, her hand pressed against the stone floor to stop the bleeding.

---

Moments later—

Boots thundered against concrete.

Arjun burst through the main entrance, weapon drawn, eyes wild.

He scanned the chaos.

And then he saw her.

Curled on the ground. Her face pale. Her lips bloodless. Her eyes... closed.

“Riya!”

Time stopped.

He knelt by her, his heart hammering in a way he hadn’t felt in years.

Not again. Not like this. Please, no.

His hands trembled as he touched her face.

"Riya, wakeup. Please."

A soft groan.

She was alive.

Relief—intense, all-consuming—flooded him.

And something else.

Something he didn’t want to name.

---

Shree and Chotu arrived seconds later, dragging out a man in handcuffs, shocked.

“Sir... she got him. She locked him in herself.”, Shree whispered.

Arjun didn’t respond.

He lifted her carefully into his arms, her body limp but breathing. Her blood seeped into his jacket, yet she looked almost peaceful.

Too brave for her own good. Too smart to underestimate. Too... important.

He turned away from the team.

And carried her—his arms tight, his jaw clenched, his heart unbearably loud—out into the waiting ETF SUV.

The sirens wailed behind them.

But all he heard was her breath. All he wanted was her to keep breathing.

---

The hotel door flung open with a loud thud, crashing against the wall.

Riya, comfortably perched on the bed in her oversized hoodie, legs tucked under her, spoon halfway to her mouth, blinked up at the whirlwind in combat boots now standing in her room.

Kabir.

Hair a mess. Shirt half-buttoned. Chest heaving. Panic still dancing in his eyes.

She blinked again.

He stormed closer. “Are you INSANE?! One week in, Riya. ONE WEEK—and you’re out there catching bullets like it’s Diwali sparkles?!”

Riya blinked again, slowly licking her ice cream. “Surprise?”

Kabir looked like he might combust.

“You were SHOT. I come back and the first thing I hear is ‘Sir, she’s stable, just a graze’—excuse me, WHAT?”

Riya tried to contain her smirk, but it crept up anyway.

“You make it sound like I took a bullet to the heart and survived a war. It was a scratch.”

“Oh, sure,” Kabir scoffed, voice rising. “Next time, why don’t you take the full bullet and then tell me it’s just cardio, huh?”

“I mean…” she glanced at her ice cream, then at his dramatic pacing, “…I’d rather die full than fit.”

He stopped.

Dead in his tracks.

“RIYA.”

That did it.

She burst out laughing, holding her ribs, trying not to spill her ice cream.

Kabir, clearly at the end of his rope, crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees beside her.

He cupped her face gently, eyes scanning her every feature like he still wasn’t sure she was real.

“God, you’re really okay?” he whispered.

She sobered, resting her forehead against his.

“I am now,” she whispered back. “It wasn’t supposed to be real, Kabir. Sir set up a surprise drill. It was supposed to be fake. Controlled. But… something went wrong.”

Kabir’s jaw clenched. “Your SIR did what?”

“He didn’t mean to,” Riya said quickly, sensing the fire in his voice. “It was planned. But someone else showed up. Real gang. Real bullets. I just… reacted.”

Kabir pulled away slightly, searching her eyes. “Riya, you’re not supposed to just react. You’re not trained for that yet.”

Her voice dropped, small but steady. “I couldn’t just stand there.”

He sighed, his hand sliding down to grasp hers.

“You have to promise me something,” he said, softer this time.

“What?”

“Next time you feel the need to go all Mission Impossible—you call me first. And if I say no, you don't go.”

Riya raised an eyebrow. “Says the guy who jumps out of helicopters for fun?”

Kabir gave her a dry look. “I’m trained to do that. You’re trained to—what? Profile murderers and watch crime documentaries until 3 a.m.?”

Riya poked his shoulder. “Rude.”

He pulled her into his arms before she could sass again.

And in that moment, all her tiredness melted into him.

Her head rested on his shoulder, his arms locked tight around her.

“Don’t scare me like that again,” he murmured into her hair. “You’ve got too many people who love you. I love you.”

He pulled back and looked at her suspiciously.

“…Are you eating chocolate chip ice cream?”

Riya looked away. “Maybe.”

“After a gunshot wound?!”

“It’s medicinal.”

Kabir rolled his eyes, exasperated.

“I swear, you’re the only person I know who’d treat trauma with dessert.”

“You love that about me,” she grinned.

Kabir sighed, brushing his thumb over the bandage on her arm.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “I really do.”

And with that, he kissed her temple—softly, reverently.

“I’m still telling your Baba.”

“Nooooooo!” she gasped, tackling him back on the bed.

He yelped as she knocked him over, her ice cream spoon still in hand like a weapon.

“Okay, okay!” he laughed, arms around her waist. “But you’re feeding me ice cream now.”

“You just want a bribe to shut up.”

“Damn right, I do.”

They lay like that—tangled in laughter, love, and shared relief.

Because even when the world around them spun into chaos—

they always found their way back to each other.

---

Arjun stood motionless by the large glass window of the ETF office, city lights flickering like distant memories beneath a velvet sky.

The hum of silence was deafening.

He had replayed the mission over and over in his head—the simulated drill turned real. The sharp crack of gunfire. The startled gasp that had ripped from Riya’s throat. The blood.

The impossible stillness in her eyes as she crouched behind the store-room wall, bleeding but not broken.

And later… her exhausted smile in the medical room, trying to ease the tension in the room like she wasn’t the one lying bandaged.

Arjun closed his eyes, his hand rubbing across his face as though he could scrub away the storm within him.

He didn’t understand it.

He didn’t want to understandit.

This girl—Riya Mukherjee—was reckless.Emotional. Untrained.

She shouldn’t have been there. She should’ve fallen back. Followed protocol.

He opened his eyes again. The night looked back at him, silent and indifferent.

“Why didn’t you just fall back?” he whispered, his voice hollow.

He turned back to his desk. A scattered mess of old files and notes, but one thing lay separate—neat, untouched.

Her test paper.

The one she had submitted so confidently. He had mocked her enthusiasm then.

He sat down slowly, the chair creaking beneath him, and picked it up.

Flipping to the last page, his eyes landed on the final answer once more:

“Real courage isn’t in avoiding danger—it’s in knowing what you’re walking into, and still choosing to stand tall.”

He didn’t blink.

He read it once.

Then again.

And again.

This time, it wasn’t arrogance or rebellion he saw in those words.

It was truth.

A truth that unnerved him more than he wanted to admit.

He folded the paper carefully, as ifafraid it might shatter.

And for another time in just few days—

He didn’t know what to feel.

Guilt?

Anger?

Or something far more dangerous.

Something that felt like fear…

Fear of caring.

---

Meanwhile, in the same city, under the same sky…

The hotel room was bathed in a soft amber glow, the city lights spilling in through half-drawn curtains.

Riya lay asleep, curled up on the bed, her bandaged arm resting over Kabir’s chest, her face nuzzled close to his neck like she belonged nowhere else.

Kabir stared at the ceiling, unmoving.

His hand rested lightly on her waist, fingers absently tracing slow circles as if to remind himself she was still there. Still safe. Still breathing.

But peace? That eluded him.

He had seen death far too closely in his line of work. But this—this near-miss with Riya—had shaken something deeper.

He remembered the call. The chill that ran through him. The way his heart had stopped at the sight of blood on her shirt, even if it was just a graze.

She had smiled.

She had smiled through it all.

And he had felt like the world had tilted beneath him.

“What if…?”

The thought wouldn’t let go.

And beneath that fear—another emotion stirred.

Insecurity.

He tightened his arm around her, just slightly, as if the warmth of her would anchor him.

She deserves a world without blood and guns and secrets, he thought.

She deserves Sunday mornings and safe hands. Not a man who can’t even promise her tomorrow.

He sighed, eyes stinging but dry.

Tonight, she slept in his arms.

But he wondered…

What if one day she woke up and realized… he wasn’t the forever she thought he was?

---

Back at the ETF, Arjun stood again, alone in the briefing room. Still clutching Riya’s folded answer sheet, his gaze blank.

He wasn’t sure what scared him more—

The memory of blood on her sleeve…

Or the fact that it had mattered so much.

---

That night, Riya slept peacefully in Kabir’s arms, blissfully unaware of the two men haunted by her strength, her smile, and her silence.

One held her hand with love and fear.

The other, her test paper—with a fire he could no longer name burning in his chest.

And neither could sleep.

Because in their own ways—

They both cared, were both scared and whether they accepted it or not, they were both falling for the girl who refused to fall back.