ArHi FF! Dante's Labyrinth: Thread 2 [Completed] - Page 14

Oh dear...the ultimate revenge...

Oh. My. God.

RB, I don't know who to feel sorry for or whose side to take. They are all victims and players in a twisted society. All I can say is that you have exposed a side of humanity that I cannot fathom as maybe I am too naive and think of all good things. This is pretty disturbing. I know we all say little lies, try to outdo someone else but this is taking it to the evil point , to the point where people were getting killed. Tara still looms big even in death.

Sometimes khushi is a psychopath too ...
And no need to tell any thing abt tara..
U have a talent in complicating things and I love complicated

Nice one!😊 Tara is haunting khushi's present n future too after death,,,,

Omg tara!!!! But how?


Continue soon and please pm me

Chapter 22: The root of beginning

"She told me that this will be her ultimate victory – to wind you up here." There was sadness in his voice.

"But things got messed up, didn't it? When the punisher killed her instead of me?" Khushi questioned.

Shukla shook his head. "No Ms. Gupta. Tara didn't do anything halfway. She fully well knew that the story should start with her murder as your game of dares had so she arranged for it hoping that it would end for you worse than it would for her. I tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn't listen. She said this was the only way she could repent." There was sadness in his voice.

"But you mucked up anyway." She pointed at the photo on her table. When Shukla's face didn't betray anything, she began laughing.

"Okay ACP Shukla, now I am truly, really, very impressed." Shukla didn't say anything but the slight widening of his eyes was enough for Khushi.

"This whole I having people investigate stuff outside for me was all a hoax, wasn't it?" She said wiping the tears from incessant laughter. "I was being played from the get go, including the so called people I was talking to who were getting things done for me. Which means the information I now is mostly manufactured, is it not? Including this photo?" She tapped on the photo in front of her.

Shukla smiled sincerely for the first time. "Wouldn't you like to know?" He caught himself before his smile could break into a grin. "Photoshop is an amazing product Ms. Gupta."

Khushi shook her head. "Not really. I do know that everything I got till the point Arjun was alive was the truth and after which probably not. I can work with that." She replied cheerfully.

"Can you?" Shukla asked raising an eyebrow.

Khushi's laughter died immediately making Shukla wonder if she was really laughing or was she acting. "Do you think I am new to Tara's plans ACP Shukla? Every plan I make has a plan B and the plan B has its own Plan B. That's how I work Shukla," she hissed dropping of the title. She stood up again and stretched like a cat. Her state issued shirt rode up and the nasty gash gifted by Punisher marred the otherwise pale and smooth skin. Shukla couldn't help but stare.

"I really don't see how you can walk out of this place with everything going against you. You are going to be inside this asylum forever Khushi." Shukla's voice was calm and satisfied. To him, this was the ultimate revenge. He dropped honorifics and stuck to her given name. It was all over anyway.

Khushi paced in front of him leisurely and he couldn't help but admire the calmness with which she was handling the biggest con to be played on her life. She wasn't rattled and she had been told several minutes ago that all the information she had come to know after death of her friend Arjun was a lie. If he were to believe Tara, Khushi always had a hidden card, her trump card which would somehow pull her in the end. It wasn't because of dumb luck but because Khushi was paranoid and never trusted anyone and did a lot of ground work on her own.

"Shukla, you must know by now that I don't do anything half assed. Tara challenged me to seduce your brother and I did. Also I did some more, didn't I?"

"It would have worked for you when you were outside these stone walls. You have money, people and freedom to do whatever you want. Don't you see none of those are at your disposal inside?" Shukla smiled happily. He was strangely content and incredibly relaxed. The game had come to a screeching halt and he was alright with it. For one, this charade would end and two, Khushi would know and realize the cost of her actions.

Khushi chuckled. "Shukla, don't be an imbecile." She chided him like a mother would to a toddler. Shukla scrunched his face but didn't respond. "I may not have any of those…things you mentioned. But it so happens that my sanity is with me irrespective what Dr. Jha writes off and my intellect is really, really high. Didn't Tara ever tell you that?"

Shukla shrugged. "She told me that you took after your biological father who was a smart man himself."

"Oh yes, he was. Now let's talk a bit about my sister's murder, shall we?" Khushi said pleasantly. Shukla's breathing became heavy and she could see that he was struggling to maintain composure.

"Shyam killed her to fulfill his own psychological need of closure and Tara wanted that. Macabre as it sounds but then again, Tara was always for the theatrics. Morbidity never suited me though." She said drolly and walked back to her chair. The ease in her actions troubled Shukla but he didn't show. There should have been a complete catharsis when she realized that everything she had come to know was a big lie. But that hadn't happened and she was still confident that she could walk away from all this and people would actually let her. Which meant only one thing – he hadn't seen her trump card yet.

"I have told you about my paranoia and I guess now it's also in public records. I forgot to mention one very small thing before. When I meant I had wireless cameras in my room, I actually meant the whole house." Khushi sat back in her chair and grinned.

Shukla let out a strangled cry.

"I don't know why you look so surprised?" She said flippantly.

"You are bluffing." Shukla said controlling the onslaught of emotions.

Khushi raised an eyebrow. She shrugged carelessly snickering all the way. "Tara opened the door to the Punisher who walked in, grabbed the scissors in Tara's hand and stabbed her. Everything is beautifully caught on cameras." Khushi stood up and walked towards one of the cameras in the visiting room. She waved her hands at it cheerfully and blew a kiss.

"They are sitting there and watching this, aren't they?" She asked not turning around.

Shukla didn't reply. She walked back towards the table and saw Shukla's hands shaking. She chuckled mirthlessly. "Did you know that the Punisher liked to take off his mask and look his victims in the eyes and ask them to look at him?"

"When Shyam attacked you, you confronted him, didn't you?" Shukla asked.

"Actually, that didn't really go all that well. When Shyam was being the way he was," she did stabbing actions with her hand, "it was impossible to rationalize with him."

"If you already had the evidence, then why didn't you end this before it got to this point?" Shukla asked, tired of it all. Emotions were consuming him. The closure he believed he had got by incarcerating Khushi in an asylum was robbed from him in such a brutal way that the shred of pride he took in avenging his family's tragedy was hopelessly dunked in an icy pool.

They all had believed that they were building a labyrinth for Khushi for her to start questioning her sanity and the resulting catharsis. But they were crudely disillusioned.

"Honestly? I was bored."

Shukla lunged for her throat and pinned her on the ground. Orderlies were strangely absent in the visitor room to stop this. Khushi looked at him with open expression and chuckled when his palms tightened around her neck. Her eyes started to roll back and burning in her lungs started to twitch her body. Shukla suddenly eased his hold and stood up. The ache in his heart intensified when he saw Khushi looking at him without a care in the world and coughing.

"I need a better answer Khushi. I don't believe that just because you were bored, you didn't turn in evidence which would have let you go free in the first place." Sadness haunted in Shukla's eyes as he collapsed on the chair and held his head in his hands.

Khushi didn't bother getting up from floor and kept touching her neck gingerly. "For all the things I have done and known I suppose I can give you an answer which will make you feel better." She coughed once more as oxygen moved into her lungs freely.

"I didn't turn in evidence because I wanted to repent for my actions. I got myself incarcerated and participated in this charade hoping that it would alleviate the guilt I have been harboring for my actions. I only knew that Shyam was the Punisher and had no idea that there was more to it than met the eye. So there you go." Khushi flailed her hands offering the explanation. She slowly crawled towards the table and pushed herself up. There was a buzz in her brain and her throat felt dry and raw. She didn't complain about it but allowed Shukla to seethe in silence.

"Do you mean all of this?" Shukla asked.

Khushi managed a feral grin. "Of course not." She replied.

Shukla's anger was evident in his stance. "You are a monster." He said harshly.

Khushi smiled. "You know Shukla, I was never scared of the dark when I was young. Because I knew very well that the demons in my heart could easily slaughter the monsters under my bed or if they were to be around me."

Shukla shook his head.

"You still cannot walk away from this place Khushi. I can stop you from having any visitors. I can get you killed in next five minutes and there will be no investigation." Shukla stammered.

Khushi looked at him with sympathy for the very first time. "I am a ticking time-bomb Shukla. All the evidence would be with concerned parties by end of one year of my incarceration and you cannot stop this; no one can. I arranged it even before my court trial started. So whether you like it or not, the evidence is out there and it will come in open in about three to four month time. The only option you have left is to kill me."

Shukla looked at her with contempt.

Khushi smiled. "Is your hatred strong enough to break your policeman vows? Or would you prefer someone else to do the dirty work – like Punisher?"

Shukla didn't respond. She got him there.

"So here we are at the end of story Shukla. Truths are out in open, we all know exactly who we are. What do you want to do next? I told you that I will be out of this place in couple of months. It's your move now."

"How can one compete against a psychopathic monster without becoming one?" Shukla asked softly. Khushi looked at him sharply. He stood up and smoothed the wrinkles on his shirt. "How can we continue play this game when we both know that it will be a mere way of passing time than actually understanding the plight of us? I am putting a stop to all this."

"What are you doing?" Khushi asked startled at his reaction.

"I am doing what I should have done a long time ago," he shrugged. "Ignore you like one would ignore a fatal contagious disease."

Khushi's face was openly disturbed at that. "But…"

"But what Khushi? You get off in being intellectually superior to everyone around you and feel gratification even in someone's vengeance. So I am going to do exactly opposite of what you want me to do which is – nothing. So you get out of this place or not – I or anyone else for that matter will particularly not care." He smiled wanly.

"Are you saying you are giving up on this…me?" There was a small tremor in her voice.

"What I am saying Khushi is - go to hell. I am done. We are done. Enjoy your rest of the stay here alone."

Shukla walked out of the visitor room without a backward glance. It had taken him a very long time during their conversation to figure out Khushi's weak spot.

She couldn't survive without being in some mind stimulating game. Tara got her started on it and she was addicted to always being in one for as long as she could remember. It had fed her ego, her mind and had led her to believe that her entire existence was dependent on it. All he had to do was to snatch that feeling of being part of a game. His chest finally unclenched and felt relief spread over him as he walked away from the madness. There was much more to life than clinging to the past. He knew his friends would agree with him on this after he told them everything that has happened here. They could see the two of them talking but couldn't hear everything.

Sometimes, revenge wasn't all that it was hyped up to be. They would let it go and forget the woman who was the vortex of it all. She was a thing of the past and it was wise to leave her there.

Khushi saw him walk away with his head held high and ease in his legs.

The sweetness of victory she was waiting for never came.

ME

wow.. you are evil.. you can literally make people's assumption go to trash not once but several time in one update..

i am like. oh he did it.. nope.. after few lines the story has taken a complete u-turn.. enjoyed it sooo much..

thanks girl..