Chapter 37: Chapter 37

"Dua. My Dua," The whispery voice said from the other side of phone making her cheeks turn red.

"Nikkah Mubarak," The voice said again and she drew her lashes to the floor, feeling shy.

"How many more times would you say that?" Her voice too wasn't above a whisper as she bit her lips.

"Until the little creature we created is not out in the world,"

Her hand crawled to her stomach as she protectively placed it.

"My jaan. Mama Baba love you,"  She caressed her belly.

"But baba loves you much more, jaan," He said from the other side of phone.

"No mama does,"

"Baba,"

"Mama,"

"Baba,"

"Oh so you want to fight, so let's fight," She said and was about to start her bickering when something shifted behind her and she turned around only to get widened-eyes.

"Haya," Dua whispered.

....

One step.

Another step.

And then another step. She kept on walking holding his hands tightly as her vision was blocked by the black eye patch.

Then she heard a creaking of door, and they both entering in that room. The first thing that hit her nostrills was smell of blood, sweat, urine. Then her ears heard the sound of metal clanking.

Her heart stopped.

What was that?

Chains?

And without realizing her grip on his hands had tighten. Then the black clothe was removed from her eyes. Her eyes tried to adjust with the light but it was dark around already.

Her eyes broadened as she saw the scene unfolding infront her.

There was a girl.

Almost half dead.

Her feet tangled in chains. Her hair interwined till the roots. Her back resting against the cold wall. Sheharzaad could figure out she was just bone and skin. Both her hands were free as she half laid on the mattress.

Her condition was so horrible that Sheharzaad was shaking. Her feet stood frozen there. She was still. Life escaping her body.

She remembered once going to a horse riding competition with her father when she was a child. It was all hue and cries. The sound of people screaming, cheering, gasping was loud. As if she had entered a fare. But when the race had began all sounds subsided and all the keen eyes were on the ground. Then came the horse. Their hooves colliding through the ground as they galloped. The sound was instilled in her ears. Fast horse, galloping through the ground, vibrating the whole earth.

And years later she heard the same sound in her ears again.

But it wasn't the horse hooves striking the ground.

It was her heart banging against her chest.

The woman turned her face slightly towards Sheharzaad and in her soulless eyes, for a brief moment, she saw herself. She saw her sitting locked and shackled instead of that woman.

And this was her undoing.

Jolting into reality, her eyes couldn't bear the torture more and turned around. Her face coming across his chest and he wrapped his arm around her, pressing her body to him. Her puzzled mind couldn't decipher anything and she began to cry.

"You know who she is," He began.

"Please no,"

"She was a woman who tried to deceive me,"

"Please please no!" She didn't want him to continue.

"She played with me, Sheharzaad," Her face was pushed against his chest and she didn't realize that her tears were already wetting his shirt.

"You know who she was?" This time around, he grasped her chin and pulled her away from him, probing his gaze in hers.

"A spy, Sheharzaad. She was hired to make me fall in love with her and she did her job quiet well,"

"Please stop. Please, I request!" The plea in her voice increased ten-folds.

"I don't let a woman go on whom I set my eyes, Sheharzaad," Their gazes striked against each other.

"This is," She gulped, "is this...is this what you do to the woman who gets your attention?" She croaked.

He subtly shook his head.

"No, zaad. This is what I do to the ones who play with my feelings,"

"You're not normal!" She said, emphatically. Tears flowing down her eyes, "Look at her. What you've done? How can you-you do that to someone?"

He placed his palms on her shoulders and turned her around so she could face that woman again, "Look at her. Look well. She was the one who was once close to the title of being my fiancee. She played me bad. And she landed herself here," he neared to her ears, "now, if you don't want to be in a similar or worst situation then you know there is no way out but to obey me, zaad. Obey me. Submit to me. Be mine," These words were whispered near her ear.

Obey me

Submit to me

Be mine

And they played like a tape in her head while her eyes witnessed the caged woman.

He was playing with her mind. The goosebumps surfaced on her body. Her eyes cursorily landing on an ant that crawled from the dusty basement floor al the way upto her mattress and then to the chain, circled around her ankle.

"How can you treat a woman like that?" The whisper escaped through her lips, catching his ear.

"You don't know me," He muttered.

It wasn't in his hands. What he did with her, it was all bolted up inside him, pented up and she was the one on whom he released it all. He was never in love with her. She was just someone who attracted him, with her innocence, with her moves. She lured him. And for some moments he was lured in. She was nothing but a mere infatuation. And after one fling she was off of his head. But then he came to knew of her reality. The web she created on purpose around him so he could be moved by her moves. All the memories of his childhood had flashed into his mind. The rage, the anger, the revenge, everything came at once and with such sheerness to destroy someone if exposed to it at once. And he did what the demons whispered. He kept on doing that, kept on torturing her until he was satisfied yet those emotions collected within him for the lifetime couldn't be subsided.

He was not done yet with her.

She would have to pay.

Pay for playing with him.

Pay for killing him.

'Every woman could bear a child but not every woman could be a worth'

His own words cursorily rang in his ears as in a trance he was staring at a mirror of her eyes.

Sheharzaad's grey eyes.

"So never play with me, Sheharzaad," The whisper played on his lips. One of the very few sentences that were said without him having the control over them.

They were said. Just like that. Diffused in the thin air.

But he always meant each and every syllable of such instinctive sentences.

"Let's go, now," He was about to place the blindfold on her eyes when that woman completely turned towards Sheharzaad. Her grey eyes colliding with Sheharzaad's.

And in that moment Sheharzaad's heart stopped beating. The flash of recognition ran on her face. She was chilled to the core.

Before she could see more, the blindfold already blackened her vision.

Her mind too numb to produce out a response.

'How could it be her?' Her mind probed a question. And then she was taken away.

....

'The information has became insufficient for us to initiate any charges against him, Sheharzaad. You just need to try and find the file that they signed. That would be a big proof enough to let him behind the bars. You've two days, Sheharzaad. Be very fast on your steps'

It was another letter from Khaleda. Immediately, she got up from the sofa and burnt it.

Shehryaar had dropped him at her home. Amna had gone with Ahmed to Multan to look at the flat about which Hannan had told her about. Sheharzaad had told, Amna and Ahmed about everything from the very start now. They both were apalled. Amna had began to cry in her arms and cried out that she had better let her lay dead instead of going to that extent just to get some money for her treatment. The guilt and the pain had overtaken Amna completely.

Then Sheharzaad had told them about the plan she was cooking with Hannan. Sheharzaad asked Amna to call Hannan from her phone as Sheharzad's phone might be tapped. Hannan told them about the flat in Multan where they would be living so Ahmed and Amna decided to go and look at the conditions of that flat and the basic amenities there.

Sheharzaad was alone at home. She didn't tell them about her work with FBI. As Khaleda had even forbade her to whisper such words as walls have ears too.

Once Shehryaar had dropped her, she found the letter in the mailbox.

Sheharzaad had already made up her mind. After witnessing the condition of that woman, the urge to see him behind the bars had grown. And so did the terror in her.

She was playing with fire. And if she failed in this game, she would be doomed. Badly doomed. The situation of that girl was enough for her to establish the fact that how worse could it get.

And if she didn't take this chance then she had to marry him. And if she married him then she would kill herself in no less than a month. The way he confined her now when she was nothing to him had certained her about her confinement after the marriage.

Yet Sheharzaad was now able to gauge out, whom she was running away from. After all these years, she atlast got it.