Arjun FF: Wait for You - IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT PAGE 12!! - Page 8

Originally posted by: ...Maha-Srk...

Amazing update
just love it
so depiti aunty ne report kea 😡
oh no cliffhanger n finger crossed w8ng 4 sakshi in action
love arakshi n raesha moments n shree realization n hope sakshi is safe
eagerly waiting 4 next plz continue soon n thanx 4 pm

Originally posted by: PoohLover

Oh oh everyone caught up..what about sakshi no?:OO
Hope she is okay...:)
Do update soon and thank you sooo much :D

Originally posted by: manurocks

pls update soon...

this update was really very cool...

damn...that commisioner desai...!!! arjun must definitely blow some punches on his face...

Originally posted by: coolRD

wen r u plning 2 upd8 d stry?? 😡

i'm dying 4 it 😒

Originally posted by: teamasadandzoya

ah sowwwy! it's in the works, I'm trying to finish it asap! I'll definitely PM you when it's ready :) xx

Originally posted by: --Iqra--

Ah! Read it all in one go! Lovvveeeddd iittt!! So so well written, I could feel the ambience, the velvet, the smell of musk. Her tripping, his forced dance. This is gold! You're so very talented! Keep it up!

Hello everyone! Long time no see, huh. I apologize for suddenly disappearing from the forum. School suddenly took its toll, and I was swamped with a bunch of midterms, assignments, and whatnot. Also, I recently got hooked to rachna and kabir from SSLK hehe (EEP who saw the new holi epi;)), but I'm back now with a bunch of updates! Please bare with me as the updates will get a little slower since I have final exams in a month. I hope y'all love this chapter, it was a little challenging but nonetheless fun to write! :)

I planned to update with a humongous chapter, but the chapter turned out to be too long, so I've split it up into 4 or more parts, sorry it took so long again!

Sorry if it's really bad.. I kind of rushed the end, and haven't proofread it at all :/

Happy reading.

Chapter 5A: A Clearing in the Forest

MP Amar Vimal unlocked a hallway door with his personal key and let Sakshi into a secluded tea room deep within the palace. When Sakshi entered, she saw a lavish sight before her just like she would see in a posh British movie - a warm fire burning under the chimney, a rug made from bear skin, oakwood table in the centre, and a bookshelf against the wall.

"We may talk at normal volume. Yeh diwaar soundproof hai. Aap kuch lengi?"

"Nahi, main teekh hoon," Sakshi managed to say in a poised, confident manner.

"Well, agar aapko itraaz naa ho..." Vimal quickly paced to the bar, where he poured himself a plentiful helping of brandy. He threw it back in one gulp and set the glass down hard on the counter.

"Aap jaan na chaahti hai na ki Mehta ki treason kya thi... you want to know the identity of your elusive killer..." He took a deep breath, as if he was about to tell Sakshi a very long story. "Mujhe aapko bahut pehle bataa dena chaiyye tha, leken mein darr gaya tha, aur aaj bhi hoon."

Sakshi inched closer to Vimal, her brow furrowed. "Aap exactly kehna kya chahte hai?"

"I'm trying to tell you that your mysterious treason killer..." He fumbled with his words, as if trying to phrase his sentences in the right way in a shrewd manner, "ek tareeqe se... Woh exist hi nai karta. He is a figment of the public imagination. Woh zindagi ka diawa darr hai."

Vimal's clever wordiness didn't go unnoticed by Sakshi. "Well, someone is chopping up Delhi citizens, Mr. Vimal. I'd appreciate some clarity."

"Last year, Mehta was contacted by some of his campaign donors. Woh log chahte the ki woh sweeping anti-crime reform ko spearhead kare, jo ek drastic initiative be centered ho. Ek surveillance camera Delhi ki har gali gali mein ho." Vimal continued on, "Mehta khushi khushi se maan gaya. Accha aadmi tha, but... jab paise ki baat aati thi, toh woh laalaj mein kamzor pad jaata tha."

Vimal poured and threw back another shot, his hands quaking. "Phir, a few weeks ago, he came to me, ashamed. He told me he was going to back out of the deal with the donors. Woh legislation ko maar na chahata tha. Aur tabhi..."

"Tabhi woh maara gaya." Sakshi finished for him, her face full of shock and remorse.

Vimal nodded. "The donors' company stood to profit immensely if the bill passed. They weren't going to let him get away with it." His face suddenly displayed emotions of anger and frustration as he said, "Usne unko ek no-bid contract sign kiya tha to provide the surveillance of Delhi... they're called - "

"Horus Corporation." Sakshi finished again, her face scrunched up in anger. All the pieces were finally fitting together. This meant ki Horus millawua hai.

"Ji haan, unka CEO, Ananya Dipti. Yeh sab ussi ka plan tha. It was a happy accident ki Mehta ki disappearance fanned the flames of fear in the city... And aise karte hue, picked up citizen support for the legislation."

"So they kept going. Oh my god. They kept killing in order to scare people into supporting the bill."

Vimal explained further, "They came to me to resume its passage through Parliament, as I was Mehta's closest friend in the governing legislation. And risk suffering the same fate? Heavens, no."

"So the entire killer is a ploy designed to inspire fear... And woh joh saari baatein thi about criminals trying to stop the bill's passage..."

"They were P.R. manipulations by Horus executives. Ab aapko sab kuch pata chal gaya hai. They will kill me for telling you. I think they've planned to for some time, just to tie off a loose end."

Angered and determined, Sakshi spoke up, "Hum aapki raksha karenge, Vimal. Hum Dipti ko arrest karlenge, aur we'll take Horus apart."

"You'll try," Vimal objected, "But this city is as controlled by corporate interests as is yours."

Vimal tossed back yet another shot.

"Kaash main usse bacha sakta, Ms. Anand. Mujhe pata tha ki Mehta ki jaan kathre mein hain. Mujhe kuch kehna chaiyye tha. Ek raat, I went to his home to speak with him, uski safety ke liye mera becheni was at the height... Jab maine dekha ki ek Horus operative of terrifying countenance was leaving him. A man swathed in gauze."

Just then, she had a sudden revelation moment, just like the super cop ACP Arjun Suryakant Rawte would have had had he been in her situation right now. Her racing thoughts slammed on the breaks, locking onto Vimal's last utterance.

"Did you say, gauze?"

"Ji woh... haan. Kya aap iss insaan ke baare mein kuch jaanti hain? Tell me - "

The door to the team room swung open. In stepped an imposing, bespectacled older man.

"Excuse me, sir, this is -" Sakshi interrupted upon the unknown man's entry into their conversation.

"So you have finally come for me, have you?"

The man looked from Vimal to Sakshi, and then back. "Kya bataya tumne ETF ko?"

"Everything," Vimal answered in a blunt manner. No hesitation was in his voice.

"I really wish you hadn't done that."

"Miss Anand, please meet Raheem Shaikh, my corporate handler'. Aaya toh thaa mujhe katham karne, but now I'm afraid, darling, he must kill us both. I'm terribly sorry to have dragged you into this."

"I too am sorry to have dragged you into this," Raheem urged, a sinister look on his face.

He brought his gun up, its target straight at Sakshi's tense face, the bullet within the contraption ready to finish her off.

Sakshi froze in place, her legs and arms not able to move at all. Her heart was telling her to move and do something, anything to save her own life and the poor MP in the room as well.

But her mind? It was stuck in place, not able to signal her body to move an inch. Instead, it drifted off to a distant memory back in time.

Flashback:

Both individuals were walking on the forest path for who knows how long now. Arjun was walking a couple feet ahead of Sakshi, his feet trudging grudgingly along the dirt path, each step firmly planted with utmost concentration, as if he had come here with one sole purpose.

Sakshi, on the other hand, was blissfully enjoying the journey. The sweet, mixed sounds of the jungle - birds chirping in the air, the flowing of the water in a nearby creek, crickets chirping on the ground. But the sound she loved the most was the sound the leaves made when they crunched with her footsteps. She just loved it. It reminded her of the time when she would walk in the forest trails with her father when she was just a child, with no care in the world except for her baba. Her small, hand with her tiny, chubby fingers fit perfectly her father's soft, tender one made her feel at bliss. She didn't need anyone else, or anything else. As long as she always had her baba.

The fresh sound of the leaves crunching under her feet always made her feel at ease, like her baba was always with her, by her side forever. The sound of a bluejay flapping its wings inside the green, lush, bush of leaves emerged out of a tree and soared through the air, startling Sakshi and jolting her back into reality.

Arjun was still walking ahead, and suddenly noticed that Sakshi had been mum for quite a while now. How unusual. Sakshi... and quiet? Not possible. What if she was in some kind of trouble? The thought itself scared him. She was his responsibility, HE was the one who brought her here. He slowly started to turn his head over his shoulder to look behind him, slightly hoping that what he was fearing wasn't to be worried about. And before he could even begin to turn his head around towards her, he heard that annoying chirpy, voice of hers yet again. And then her incessant blabbering commenced again.

Here we go again. I shouldn't have even bothered. He told his subconscious mind in a sarcastic manner, rolling his eyes at the sound of his voice.

Another hour passed, and Arjun abruptly stopped in the middle of a vast clearing in the forest they had been trudging along for the past numerous hours. Sakshi mindlessly and aimlessly kept walking along the trail, when she noticed that her and Arjun's surroundings had changed. There was a vast clearing of trees, the wide view of evergreen grass along with some pebbles of dirt and other debris underneath her shoes. Her eyes wandered up, down, left, right, - all around - as she took in her fervent surroundings. Her awe-stricken eyes however snapped closed tight upon feeling her body suddenly colliding with a hard wall, like a water balloon against a brick wall.

"Oof!" She staggered back a few steps, regaining her posture from the collision. She rubbed her head in slight pain and slowly opened her eyes to find that the wall she had collided with was Arjun's back. Ugh. That hurt.

She took a stance beside him, and faced him, "Arjun, yeh hum kahaan aa gaye? Aur kyun?"

Sakshi's relentless voice was starting to give him a headache. "Savaal bahot karti ho tum." He told her, his face centered forwards, away from her, walking a couple meters away from her.

Sakshi sent a glare his way in response, then perked up a moment later, as usual. However, she didn't intrude his space as he was so far away from her, and instead continued to blabber on about how beautiful she thought their surroundings were, while Arjun had knelt down on the ground, taking his hefty voyage backpack off his broad shoulders and peering inside his bag.

Arjun was seriously starting to get a headache from her blabbering. Doesn't her silencer ever stop? How can someone be so chirpy all the freaking time! It was times like these he really felt like shutting her up once and for all.

That's it. I've had just about enough. Time to end her chattering voice box once and for all. He pulled out an arrow from the container full of other sharp, steel arrows and assembled it with the bow.

He stood back up on his two feet. Intense concentration filled his mind, and his eyes burned with a fiery aim towards the bubbly, carefree girl a few meters in front of him, who was mindlessly standing in place. He eyed his target precariously as if it were his prey and he were a predator; his target was the only thing in his line of sight.

And then... he stretched the arrow back with the bow, and with impulse, let it go as it flew towards its target.

Sakshi turned around to face Arjun, but when she did, she encountered something she had never expected to encounter ever before. A steel, sharp arrow speeding right towards her face - she immediately let out a blood-curdling scream and hid her face with her hands, absolutely terrified of the impact of the sharp arrow with the flesh of her face, mere nanoseconds away from striking her flawless face.