NEW! Arjun/Riya (Ariya) FF: Strings of Desire- Note p34 URGENT - Page 10

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Riya barely makes it out to the grounds when her phone rings again. It is her father, and she takes a deep breath to smother the sobs in the back of her throat before she answers the call. The call is exhausting - her father is grieving and seeking explanations for why his family was chosen for this random, horrible act of violence. She has no answers to his questions but tells him she will soon find out. "Will you come home, mishti?" her father asks hopefully and it is the first time since she has heard the news that her voice cracks. "No, I will not. My team will be down there to investigate, though. I'm here in Binsar, investigating another case. I will be involved in the investigation. Just not there."

Her father is quiet, and then the questions begin. When did cases become more important than family? What did it mean - she was too close to be objective? Shouldn't she want to avenge her sister? Did she not care?

She answers the questions the best she can. But her father, who never wanted this life for her or her sister, does not understand. Her father doesn't have altruistic concerns, and doesn't care about duty or protocol. He cares that he has to cremate one child while the other cites duty and protocol as reasons to not help him do it.

She vows to find the killer and bring him to justice, but his answer makes her want to smash her face into the bricks nearby. "You've always done what you want, mishti. Duty notwithstanding, I know you grieve by locking things away until they burst out of you. But remember, there may be nothing to say goodbye to when you are finally ready. I want you to think about that, and reconsider about coming home." He hangs up the phone, not waiting to hear what she has to say and Riya clenches her fists to stop herself from doing something rash. A mosquito stings her in the back of her neck, and she slaps her neck impatiently.

There is white-hot rage building up inside her - at Arjun, at her father, at her sister, at the killer, at God but she does not have the luxury to break down. Actions have costs, and benefits and falling to her knees, screaming, crying and mourning may bring her momentary peace but it will jeopardize finding who killed her sister.

Riya walks back inside. Voices swirl and echo in her ear with every step, and she has to concentrate very hard to keep her breathing even and in control. Her legs are shaking, buckling and she clenches her toes in order to remind them where they were. It feels like she is in a badly made movie where everything is just blurring, happening around her while she walks towards the room. A maid calls out to her and Riya can barely make out the words but she manages to nod anyway. The noises around her are coalescing into one thick slab of sound and everything is spinning. Her nails, clenched and drawing blood from her palms are the only thing keeping her grounded on the carpeted floors of the resort she is in. Her ears are ringing.

She walks and she's walks but the room doesn't get closer. The tears she's refused to shed are brimming up in her eyes and she clenches her fists harder. The blood from her palms coats her nails and stains her skin and the part of her she's kept suppressed wonders if the blood of her sister's killer would feel the same on her skin.

These thoughts are a dangerous direction to go in. She'd heard too much, seen too much, read too much to not be cognizant of what such thoughts meant. But she couldn't bring herself to care about the depravity and deviancy of her thoughts. In her mind, she sees an exposed jugular and her hand, pressing a blade against it. The skin of the throat is whitening slightly as she presses and presses the knife. One more push, and the blade would tear through the skin and blood would flow out - and she wants it to. In her heart, she knows the legal system she is proud foot soldier of, is not the answer she seeks. She wants to push the blade in and slice until the corpse matches the anger within her. She was furious - boiling to the point of explosion but not allowing herself one. Not until there is justice. Not until she can find the person who did this to her sister, slit their jugular and let the blood seep through the layers of skin and wash away the grief in her heart.

Someone grabs her arm - jolting her out of her thoughts. She whips around, her hand already at the throat of her would-be assailant. "How dare-" she begins saying sharply, and stops short.

Arjun wrenches her hand from his throat examines her palm. "You walked past our room. I called you thrice", he explains. Riya looks around and feels woozy. Did she really walk past the room? She tugs her hand away from him, but he doesn't let go. The blood is oozing out of the crescent shaped wounds sluggishly. "Riya - did you even notice how hard you were clenching your fists?" he asks her sharply, looking alarmed. But, Riya is not listening.

Some of the blood from her palm is smeared onto his neck from when she grabbed it, and her eyes don't move away from it. "Riya!" he says again, but his throat is so close and she is so, so angry at everything. She bites her lips hard, and tastes the coppery tang of blood. "Get away from me, please" she says hoarsely, and prepares to move away. His grip tightens around her wrists to stop her and says "No."

Her vision is blurring with tears, and her anger maker her skin burn. She doesn't want him to see her like this - weak, uncontrolled and unsure of her sanity. A part of her is so afraid if she stays in his presence, she'd end up doing something unthinkable. She just needed to get away and breathe.

The blood on her palms has started to dry, feeling brittle but wet at the same time. She pushes him slightly and walks towards the back staircase that would lead her out to the grounds directly. Arjun follows hot on her heels, tugging at her arms. "Let go of me!" she says through clenched teeth and pushes him away harder - and his back hits the wall with a soft thump. She gives him one look of utter derision and runs down the stairs and out into the fields. She walks and walks, feeling Arjun right behind her but not deigning to look at him. She walks and walks as the snow swirls around her - the tears slipping out of her eyes and her anger drowning out every other voice in her head - and Arjun follows behind her: still calling, still attempting to slow her walk down.

She turns around sharply and he nearly crashes into her. The lights of the resort are pinpricks that shine from the gaps between the leaves. They have walked through the grounds of the property and are standing at the fringe of the forest. In their own bubble - protected by the night, the snow and the dense coverage of the forests, Riya breathes deeply. He inches near her. Oppressively close. The sobs choke and claw at her throat, making it hard for her to breathe. He makes it hard for her to breathe.

Riya closes her eyes to smother the tidal wave of fury inside her and childishly wishes he'd disappear when her eyes opened. When she opens them, however, he's still there, standing.

"Why won't you leave me alone? she asks tiredly, tears leaking out of her eyes despite her wishing, praying that they won't.

"You have a problem, Riya, you're welcome to do something about it" he sneers. And just like that - her tight, iron fisted control over her anger snaps.

A part of her registers a physical, audible sensation inside her mind - of everything breaking lose and a tar-like substance ooze out of her mind - something ugly, filthy, visceral, violent and raw. But most of her just wants to keeping smashing the arrogant man standing in front of her, until he begs for mercy.

Riya stalks up to him and raises her hands to slap him. He grabs her hand and shoves her against a tree. With her free hand, she cups the back of his throat and wraps her legs around his knees, making him lose balance, giving her enough time to wrench her hand free and kick his shoulder. But he doesn't let up easily, grabbing her knees and making her fall into the snow. She falls hard on her face - and her ribs get caught on some rocks. She ignores the pain and kicks him in the full face. His grip loosens, and she manages to get up on her feet, but he kicks her ankle and she falls to the ground. He grabs her from behind and she struggles against him. "LET GO OF ME" she roars, as her rib screams in protest of his manhandling, but his arms tighten around her. She writhes and wrings and then stomps on his toes and jabs her elbows into his gut. His grip loosens, and she turns around in a flash, grabs his collar and bites the skin that stretches between his neck and collarbone. Her teeth sink into his flesh and his blood drips into her mouth. He gasps in pain and she shoves him away, roughly. He crashes against the tree and slides down to sit as Riya spits the blood out.

His blood on her tongue feels foreign and unclean. Awareness thrums through her trembling body as the enormity of their situation crashes on her. Her anger abates as the horror creeps through her brain. She'd bitten him. Her belief in sanity crumbles further.

She stumbles up to him and falls to her knees, ignoring the pain in her ankle. "Oh god. I didn't mean to do that" she whispers. Arjun is gingerly tending to the wound in her neck. Panic, revulsion and horror make her want to scratch her skin out. "I'm so sorry" she chokes out through the sobs thickening into a wall in her throat. Her grief, misery and panic threaten to break out of her chest and she wants to do nothing more than cry and cry some more but Arjun is in front of her. He's bleeding in front of her. He's bleeding because of her. He's bleeding because she lost control.

She desperately tries to control the horror and the panic building up in her brain, when Arjun folds the handkerchief and presses it against her bleeding palm. In their fighting, she'd neglected them and the once tiny wounds are now wide and bloody. Arjun's neck sports a shallow, open wound. Nevertheless, as Arjun presses his handkerchief into her left palm, she uses her right to press against the wound and shelter it. The symbolism is not lost on either of them. It is an unsanitary, unpalatable reconciliation that follows a filthy, violent confrontation. It is, in quintessence, a resolution that is representative of all that their life is - surrounded by absolute depravity and negativity. That moment is, in essence, them.

The tears don't stop dripping down her face and Riya truly hates herself in the moment they have built around themselves. She hates that she's weak, that she lost control, that she's possibly losing her sanity, that she couldn't save her sister, that someone else had to bear the brunt of her grief and rage. That she -

"Don't"

His words cut through the haze of the rapid, downward spiral her brain had been on.

"Don't blame yourself", Arjun continues.

"When Roshni died, it was like something ugly in me had been born. I was so angry - but there was no one to tell me my anger would kill me because I pushed everyone and everything away. My anger consumed me. I asked questions but no answer would satisfy me - and I couldn't say a word because there were more things to do. Always, there was something to do. And I knew, a part of me knew I needed to say something to someone because if I didn't - I'd snap. But I kept asking, kept pushing, kept telling myself my anger was in control and I was in control. Until one day -" he stops to collect himself

Her eyes don't leave him. She unconsciously holds her breath in.

"Until one day, there was a ten-year old boy brandishing a knife in a market to steal a purse from an old lady. I was having a bad day, it'd been Roshni's birthday. And I - I became a monster. I was about to beat a ten-year old boy to death. Twenty constables had to drag me away. The worst part is, I could have killed him. I would have killed him. I nearly did. The guilt that came after broke me and there was no one around to help me pick back up. And it got worse - I couldn't control myself. I was shunned by the people. I got into fights with politicians, bar men, pimps - anyone who would raise fists at me because I was angry and nothing made sense"

She draws a shuddery breath in, and her ribs scream in protest at the action. Her shoulders sag under the weight of the solidarity he offers.

"I bit you", she says hollowly. "I bit you"

"I was about to kill a ten-year old boy he says quietly. "You're not losing your mind. Because the grief is normal, the anger is normal. But bottling it away isn't - if you keep it inside yourself, you'll end up on the same crossroad as me. And there may be no one there to stop you. It's not something you can survive. I know I didn't."

Her fears about her sanity are temporarily allayed, but the vindication is tinged with bitterness, grief and rage. Her sister used to tell her the same thing. 'Speak your heart mishti!' she used to say. 'Sometimes the benefit of emptying your heart is greater than the supposed cost'. But all these years have passed and she is too used to locking things away to suddenly not do it. Looking into Arjun's eyes, she knew that he understood all this.

"I have trouble saying things", she begins haltingly, "but I promise you will not have to goad me into a fight to get me to speak up again."

He nods uncomfortably, gets up gingerly, and then hauls her to her feet. Slipping his hand onto her waist, both of them hobble towards the resort. The snow swirls around them, and her heart weighs heavy with the grief she holds in. But that Arjun was standing by her meant something. To Riya, who wanted to collapse under the weight of everything - it meant the difference between crumbling and standing. Everything, really.

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"You're telling me that the two of you thought you saw something in the woods and went without backup. Then Riya tripped on the rock, twisted her ankle and while you rushed to help her, you too fell and managed to sprain your shoulder?"

"Yes, Rathore", replies Arjun blankly.

It was close to midnight, the next day. The team had assembled to further the investigation. It had been a pain to sneak back into the resort and then stitch each other up to the best of their abilities. Her rib was heavily bruised, though not broken. His bite too, wasn't infected. His shoulder was in a bad way, but a sling would help. Through an unspoken understanding, both of them decided to not tell anyone what had happened.

"Then what happened? Did you both meet the murderer and have a picnic? Or was that a monkey that tried to steal your food and bite you?"

Shree begins to laugh, but at a look from both Rathore and Arjun, promptly assumed a look appropriate for visiting someone on their deathbed. Arjun turns back to Rathore. "No, we walked back to the resort and patched each other up."

Rathore looks at both of them with suspiciously but then turns to the murder board. "What more do we know?"

They all turn attention to the murder board. Arjun furnishes the team with whatever details they have, but information is sparse and there are no new leads.

"What of your assailant?" - asks Rathore. "Do you remember anything of him?"

"We told you Rathore, he was tall. I don't know anything else of him because he was wrapped up in too many layers with a thick blanket on top. He seemed to know the area really well."

"We tested the blood sample that the bullet left behind. No matches to anyone in the system" Shree added.

"What about the water?"

"doesn't match samples from anywhere."

Rathore sighs in frustration. Arjun closes his eyes.

"What if"- Riya speaks up for the first time since the meeting has begun, "what if we're looking at this wrongly. The only lead we have is the victims. So, let's just focus on that. Did we find any links between them?"

It is Chhotu who answers her questions. "We went back and started interrogating the wives. After badgering and questioning - they both admitted their marriages were failing. They'd been afraid to say anything before because they thought suspicion would fall on them. Apparently, both the participants had had multiple affairs with numerous people. The wives had just stayed with them because they didn't want the stigma of divorce"

Shree updates the murder board. Riya is lost in thought, when a sudden idea occurs to her.

"In most cultures, water is a signifier of cleansing. And marital infidelity is the worst thing in most cultures. Several holy scriptures and other such books talk of how infidelity is a sure shot way to land yourself in hell. What if, the killer, whoever it is, sees these men and kills them for their impurity by drowning them? What if the areas are so clean because this is just a cleansing ritual for him?"

"That's overshooting, Riya" - Arjun and Rathore speak up at the same time. "It's just a theory. I'm not saying it is the only explanation, but at this point it could be one.

Chhotu turns to them. "Does that mean we're looking at a serial killer?

Rathore turns to him sharply. "It doesn't mean anything because we don't have proof. Find me some, but before that, let us not overreach our limits."

They all nod. Chhotu reaches for the jug of water placed in their room and Arjun stares at him drink the water. "Shree!" he says, and everyone turns to him. "Do we know where the hotel gets the water it uses for consumables?"

They all immediately catch his drift. Rathore calls the local police chief and asks him to find out immediately. Shree stores the water samples for the forensic team to test out, and Chhotu volunteers to immediately go down to the main city and get it to the lab. Arjun calls the lab to let them know Chhotu would be down in a couple of hours and they want the results immediately.

The flurry of activity subsides and they decide to end the meeting there. Rathore and Shree push the cupboard back in place, as Riya hobbles around - picking up the loose bits of paper. Arjun walks out to the balcony - and is soon joined by Rathore. They seem to be in deep discussion about something. Riya collapses on the bed.

"How are you?" Shree asks her quietly. Her mouth twists as the emotion she's kept locked up momentarily overcomes her. "Do you have what I asked for?" she says instead. He gives her the file on her sister's murder, and she hides it beneath her pillow. "Rathore Sir is against this, you know. We've already booked tickets for Kolkata tomorrow morning - Chhotu will be going and coordinating with local police. Once we make some headway here, Rathore is going to go join him. Don't think we're going to let this go" he says quietly. She pretends to not hear him.

"How are you?" he asks her again. "I'm fine, Shree" she says - and forces a smile on her face. He looks like he wants to continue the conversation, but Rathore and Arjun walk inside and he stops himself. "Chhotu will take at least 2 hours to make it to the main city. Then another two hours for the results. We will get the results in four hours, minimum. I suggest we meet tomorrow. Shree, let's find out if the resort has any more targets with a similar connection as the two victims - that is, marriages that are failing. I'll take charge of the water, once the report comes. Riya, Arjun - find out more about the history of the resort. These old buildings are often not what they seem - maybe we will find a clue there."

All of them nod and leave. Once the room is silent, Arjun and Riya fall back into the bed. Riya waits for Arjun to fall asleep before slowly drawing out the file from beneath her pillow. Using the dull, muted light from the bedside lamp, she begins digging into her sister's life and death.

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The room is quiet, save for Arjun's breathing and the scratching of pen on paper. Dawn is just about to break. Riya's eyes are burning with the need to sleep, but she pushes herself harder and harder. The notebook she bought with herself is nearly full with notes, observations and theories from the file and her own memories and observations from her sister's life.

Her phone rings, cutting through the silence and startling Arjun into consciousness. She surreptitiously slips the file and her notebook out of the line of his vision and picks up the phone blindly. "Hello?"

It's Rathore. She puts the phone on speaker. "The water is a jackpot. The water sample from the jug matches the water sample from the lungs of the two victims. Local police found out that the resort owners have connections with the state water board and once in every three days - water is delivered to the resort in huge trucks. The murder dates coincide with the water delivery dates. When it is a more reasonable hour, I'll go down to the offices of the water board and pull up information about who all is involved in the delivery. However, we still need to know how the man transported the water from the trucks to the rooms without anyone noticing."

The phone call ends and Arjun falls back on the bed, as does Riya. The file she'd hidden neatly rustles slightly, and she prays he won't notice. She waits for him to fall asleep so she can resume her work on her sister's murder. "Go to sleep Riya, Arjun says tiredly. "You've done enough for your sister. You won't be able to function tomorrow if you continue like this. Continue tomorrow, please". With that - he turns on his side, and watches her with his eyes narrowed. After two minutes of continued staring, she draws out the file from under the covers and places them quietly on the bedside table.

As time ticks on, Arjun falls asleep again. Riya watches the sun rise higher and higher through a narrow crack in the curtains. Sleep does not come to her.

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A/N: Let me know what you thought! I'm so sorry for the delay. I was on the road, and everything was consequently delayed. Likes and comments needed.

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