Part 4
Arnav felt a strangely intoxicating warmth in his fingers, as they clenched around the girl's throat. And yet those gnarled hands felt disconnected to the rest of him, as though they belonged to another, and he was just a helpless spectator who watched as she choked wordlessly, her wide glassy eyes tearing up, her body struggling in vain. He could feel in the throbbing knottiness of the veins in her neck, that the bloodstream to her brain was being interrupted. Soon her limp body had given way and fainted. In a few moments, it would be too late.
He looked at the glassed walls of the interrogation room with urgency. The guards should have been there by now. The only possible explanation was that there was nobody watching them. She had not lied. He let go, horrified at his own beastliness, and felt her collapse onto his thumping chest.
She was breathing; she would live.
Arnav's ravenous eyes turned towards the door. When he had been taken into the interrogation room, he had observed that the warden - pitiably stupid as he was - had not locked the door behind him. At least he was quite sure he had not discerned the sound of a lock click into place. He placed the girl on the floor, rushed to the door, gently turned the handle and pushed the door open ever so slightly. He was right, it was unlocked.
He felt his heartbeat quicken and his mind began to race until his thoughts blurred into a feverish, dizzying haze. There were close-circuit cameras all over the place, and he knew he would have to encounter the guards at some point if he tried to escape. He was hopelessly outnumbered. The odds of him somehow finding himself on the other side of the iron gates, were dismally, laughably low.
Yet, there was a chance, slim as it may be, that he would just manage to make it outside, armed with his vicious desire for freedom, and the electrifying adrenaline that was surging through him. He felt that primal part of him awaken, that part that just wanted to live, no matter what the cost... That part that persuaded him that he would manage to outsmart them, and if need be, kill whoever stood in his way.
And even if they managed to catch him, at worst, all they could do to him was torture him until he pleaded for death. He knew that he would live through it all, taking comfort in the fact that at least he had tried and that they would never be able to crush his spirit.
But something stopped him. Something in the inert form that lay on the ground a few metres away. The shrink, whatever her name was, was alive, but her breaths were painfully laboured, her pulse was weak. He could not leave her in that state. A state he was responsible for. A state that she had, in the end, done little to deserve. His rational side immediately scoffed. On seeing him escape, surely, someone would come to the interrogation room and help her. And if they did not help her in time... she would die, for no fault of hers.
He heaved a testy sigh, irritated by the absurd direction that his uncontrollable thoughts were taking. Time was of the essence here. It was probably a split second that would ultimately mark that critical difference between the sweet air of freedom and his inhumane captivity in that repellent dump.
All the same, he knew he would not be able to leave like that - maybe he was not the unscrupulous monster they all made him out to be after all. And then it struck him: he could revive her, and then make a run for it. There was no way she would be able to catch or stop him, given her weak condition. The different warring voices in his mind seemed to reconcile over this reasoning.
She felt like a doll in his hands, with her petite pixie-like frame. He averted his eyes from the ruthless finger marks imprinted on her slender neck and cupped her marble-like face in his unworthy hands. Slowly, he bent down until his lips brushed against hers, and forcing them upon, breathed into her mouth. Nothing. He pressed his hands against her rib cage, and tried again. Finally she let out a small cough, then a louder one that caused her entire body to convulse. He watched as colour returned to her cheeks, and her translucent eyelids fluttered until they parted at last to reveal teary orbs of glistening brown.
He got up quickly, refusing to allow his eyes to meet hers, and leapt towards the door. But it opened before he had a chance to reach out for the door-knob. The warden and his sycophants. It was over. He had foregone what could have been his only opportunity to escape, all for some ridiculously cheesy attempt at heroism. Such was his rage that he hardly heard the yelling, he hardly felt any pain when his face was roughly slammed down onto the table, twice.
But she, the shrink, intervened and, in a wispy croak, made up some cock-and-bull story, about her having fainted due to the heat.
"He was only going out to get help, for me," she said slowly, every word a painfully arduous task.
Arnav stared at her. His face was devoid of expression, so as not to bolster the warden's suspicions. But had he been able to, he would have fashioned his face into an incredulous, but amused smirk. The girl was insane, an absolute madcap! First she brought herself into facing a reputedly cold-blooded murderer such as himself. Then she conjured the guts to provoke him. Then she got his handcuffs removed, and now, after he had, as far as appearances would suggest, attempted to kill her, she was making excuses for him. Unbelievable!
Either this was part of some obscure kind of dastardly scheme that he was unable to fathom. Or, more plausibly, he had overestimated her all along. She was not the manipulative, pretentious shrink. She was the perfect combination of stupid and emotional, and would play right into his hands. Arnav Singh Raizada would be in control once again, and she would, very conveniently, get him out of prison.
The guards and the warden had left the room. Surprisingly they had not noticed the finger-marks on her neck. Perhaps they were so excruciatingly visible to him because of the guilt that weighed down upon his heart, prickling his eyes, obstructing his throat. He felt that he should apologise, but the words felt oddly rusty and out of place in his mouth.It had been too long.
"I'm sorry," she said then, softly, almost as if she meant it.
Arnav, rightly taken aback, said nothing. If one overlooked the sincerity that appeared etched in her eyes, one might be inclined to think of it as sarcasm. But then, how could one possibly avert one's eyes from hers?
She walked towards him, in tantalisingly slow, measured steps, until she was too close for comfort, and mumbled, barely moving her lips, "I don't think they've left this time." And maintaining an unreadable expression on her face, she led him to his chair.
Arnav reasoned that she was surely right. One could have surmised from the look in the warden's wary eyes that his doubts had not been assuaged, and he would be watching them, perhaps even out of sheer curiosity. He gave her a slight nod, even as he wondered why she would want to warn him. Was it to fence off any imminent violent attacks that she thought he might be tempted towards? And why had she apologised when he was the one who had -?
She seemed to have read his question,
"I understand why you would be so angry," she answered, "I was very insensitive the last time we met. I'm sorry for that."
She was a most peculiar person. He was not sure that he would ever be able to trust her, but he felt that she was... just a little different, somehow. It almost made him feel mildly uncomfortable with what he was scheming.
"What's your name?" he asked without thinking, nudged by a small unfamiliar part of him, as though it mattered.
"Khushi," she replied, and her lips curved, ever so slightly. Arnav Singh Raizada was changing.
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