Lavender [3]: NEW THREAD LINK POSTED - Page 25

Chapter 46: Approach with Caution

Climbing up to the balcony of a mansion was not an easy job... by any means... and that too without being detected. His only advantage was the darkness and the fact that there was still light shining in her room. After trailing ASR to come here, it had taken an hour of hiding and watching to figure out where exactly her room was. He had been able to see the balcony with the wide double doors that were left open. There were people going in and out of the room at random intervals, although he couldn't quite make out their forms well. About fifteen minutes ago, he had seen ASR come out of the house and a woman who had a slight limp had followed him out. From their conversation, he had surmised that V had yet again refused to go to the hospital, so Arnav was going to bring the doctor to her. Once Arnav's car drove off and the woman went back inside, he finally climbed up the damn wall to the balcony. His shirt was ruined; it was ripped in places and had dark spots here and there. He didn't have enough time to focus on that as he hopped over the railing and walked to the doors. There was no one in the room, thankfully, and the two bedside lamps were on, giving him sufficient light.

She was lying face down on the bed and her head was turned to the other side as he crept up to the bed. It took him a few minutes, busy as he was looking around the room to make sure that he was indeed alone, to notice that even though she had pants on, she was barebacked. Not, topless... merely barebacked. She was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, he could see, but it was torn right down the back and the flaps were spread out on either side of her. By the gleam of her skin, it was evident that someone had applied some sort of a topical cream to her back. Just as he stopped by the bedside, he saw that there were scribbles in marker inside the flaps of the t-shirt that were spread open. There were a bunch of them, but there was one that had a large arrow pointing to her back with a caption on the bottom that said,

"Ground Zero. Approach with caution!"

His eyes narrowed as he read the ones below.

"Tell AJ, Aakash, and Mamaji to keep out. This is girls' zone only."

He leaned over to the other side and noticed that there were marker scribbles on the other flap of the shirt as well.

"Only Anjali didi is allowed to put Bengay on. Mami and Dadi, no offense, you are just not as good as didi."

Below that, there was one in red marker that said,

"If any of you try to take me to the hospital, I will resist. And I have been recently called a rabid bitch, so... just fair warning..."

And below that, there was more in blue ink,

"When Amma and Dad calls, tell them I'll call them back. If any of you breathe one word of my recent heroics to them... well, please read the rabid bitch comment above..."

He drew back from reading and finally looked at her back.

She had never looked as small as she did now, with masses of blue and purple covering her back like huge ink blots blurred around the edges. Without thought, he reached out and placed a finger on the edge of a particularly dark spot. She winced slightly even in her sleep.

"You are the craziest thing that I have ever met, do you know that?" he asked in a whisper.

He went back to looking at the state of her back and was caught off guard a moment later when she said, "Crazy good or crazy bad?"

"You aren't asleep?" he asked, leaning over her side to look at her profile.

Her eyes were closed and she nodded. "Of course I am. But I have really vivid dreams, like this one."

"What makes you think this is a dream?"

He thought he saw her smile as she said, "Oh come on... what are the odds that Rajeev Joshi, my most ardent protestor in the world, would actually come to visit me in my room..."

He thought of how to answer that and then it made him think of what he was doing here in the first place.

"Are you okay?" he asked, deciding further thoughts on the motivation behind his actions can wait until a later time when he wasn't running the risk of being caught in his boss's sister's room while she was lying half-naked. He had already been accused of sexual wrong-doing by one member in this family; he didn't want to at the receiving end yet again, especially because he was sure that Arnav would be much more vicious that Vaibhavi.

"Am I okay? Hmm... no, it sucks that I have to lie here like this because if I move, it feels like my back might split open. But in another sense, it's totally awesome, because there are two alpha males hankering after that girl with the long hair and the bow-tip lips and yet it's little ol' me who was able to save her from that jackass. The satisfaction is..." She smiled again as she finished, "simply unparalleled..."

He stared at her for a solid minute, not knowing how to react. He was perpetually caught off-guard by the things she said. Her brother, at least, was a bit more predictable in how obstinate and tenacious he could be.

Just then he thought he heard the sound of a car and quickly rushed to the window. There was no one there... yet... but it reminded him once again that Arnav would be back any minute.

He walked back to her bed yet again and stood there looking at her once more. Just as he turned to walk away, she said, "You disappeared... just like the last time..."

He turned back around, his eyes wide, but then heard noise outside the bedroom. Someone was about to come in.

Then he was forced to disappear in truth, rushing out the room and onto the balcony and down the side and out of grounds...

When he was finally in his car driving away, he did think that she was right... it had all been a dream... a very vivid dream... the only thing to remind him otherwise was the state of his shirt.

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