Authors pov.
Paris at midnight was too gentle for what was coming.
The wind snapped playfully through Sona's hair as the open jeep rolled down the quiet outskirts, a playlist humming low under her laughter. Kabir and Riya sat in the back, tangled together in a half-hug as they bickered softly.
For once, everything felt normal.
No killers.
No stalking.
No shadows watching them breathe.
Just four idiots in love, tasting freedom the way people taste stolen dessert.
Sona leaned forward, chin propped near Arjun's shoulder.
"See? I told you this was a great idea," she teased.
Arjun's hand brushed her thigh without thinking, thumb tracing circles like a secret language he only ever used on her.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "If we die tonight, it's on you."
She laughed, bright and warm.
But then—
The universe remembered who they were.
Arjun noticed it first.
A pair of headlights.
Normal at first.
Then… too consistent. Too steady. Too glued to their speed.
His eyes narrowed.
He shifted the steering wheel a little, testing.
The headlights shifted too.
Matching him.
His spine went tight.
Kabir followed Arjun's gaze in the side mirror.
He stiffened immediately.
"That's—"
Arjun cut him a lethal sideways glare.
Kabir swallowed the rest of the sentence.
Sona felt the tension like a cold wind. Her smile faded almost instantly.
"What?" she whispered.
Arjun didn't answer. His hand slid from her thigh to her waist, pulling her closer with a protective grip.
The second car appeared from the right lane.
Black.
Tinted windows.
Silent predator.
Arjun's jaw locked.
Kabir's hand snapped around Riya's wrist, pulling her deeper into his chest.
Riya blinked, confused. "What? Why—?"
Then the third car slid in behind them.
Three sets of headlights.
Three shadows.
Three hunters.
The world tilted.
Riya's breath hitched.
"What the hell— Kabir, what the hell— what—"
Kabir didn't speak. He held her tighter.
Sona's fingers slid to Arjun's arm, gripping his sleeve.
She didn't panic.
She didn't scream.
She only watched his face, studying every micro-expression like she could read the danger written in the lines of his jaw.
"Arjun," she murmured, low and steady. "Tell me."
He didn't tell her.
He pressed the accelerator.
The jeep jumped forward.
Sona grabbed the railing with one hand and Arjun's thigh with the other, steadying herself.
The first car sped up to match.
The second blocked the right lane.
The third closed in behind them.
Riya's panic finally crashed like a wave.
"Arjun! Arjun, they're following us - bhai, they're following us, do something— Kabir, baby do something!"
Kabir pulled her onto his lap, shielding her with his arms as if that would stop a moving vehicle.
Arjun's voice was low and icy.
"Everyone hold on."
Sona didn't question it. She leaned forward again, curling into him instinctively, her cheek brushing his shoulder.
"What do you need?" she whispered.
"Just stay with me."
Her hand near his leg tightened. "Always."
He took a sharp left turn.
The tires screeched.
Wind slapped through the open jeep.
Paris blurred past them in streaks of neon and shadow.
The cars behind them jerked, regrouped, then accelerated.
Kabir cursed under his breath.
Riya sobbed into his chest.
"They're going to hit us—they're going to—oh my God—"
"They won't," Kabir lied, but his voice cracked.
Arjun scanned the mirrors rapidly.
He recognized the cars now.
All three.
Faces from India.
Shadows that had trailed them on campus.
Someone who had watched Sona too long during the graduation crowd.
A man from the airport who had been pretending to take photos of architecture.
All blending together into the nightmare forming behind them.
Sona, catching his expression, understood too.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"They're here for me."
Arjun's knuckles went white around the steering wheel.
"No," he growled, the word a promise and a threat fused together.
"They're here over my dead body."
Sona didn't look scared for herself.
She looked terrified for him.
The chase began to feel like a pulse fast, pounding, breathless. The jeep rattled as Arjun took another hard turn, shooting down a narrower street. The headlights behind them sliced through the darkness, unnatural and cold.
The first car veered dangerously close to the jeep's back bumper.
Riya screamed.
Kabir barked at Arjun, "Left! LEFT!"
Arjun swerved.
The jeep skidded.
Sona's hand flew to the dashboard for balance.
But she didn't cry.
Didn't shake.
Didn't lose her mind like any normal girl should.
She was never normal anyways, were she?
She just watched Arjun, sharp and alert, trusting him with the kind of devotion that was almost violent.
Arjun didn't take his eyes off the road, but he felt her gaze burning into him.
And something inside him snapped into a darker clarity.
They weren't getting away.
They were being herded.
"Arjun," Kabir called, voice tight. "What's the plan?"
"Lose them first."
"And after?"
Arjun didn't answer.
Because the answer wasn't meant for words.
It was hunger.
It was violence.
It was his girl trembling beside him while three predators tried to steal what was his.
The car behind them surged forward
Too close.
Too fast.
Arjun jerked the wheel.
Sona grabbed his arm, steadying both him and the jeep like she was an anchor.
"Kabir," Arjun said coldly. "Hold Riya tight."
Kabir's grip hardened.
Riya sobbed, shaking uncontrollably.
"Arjun please— please— don't crash—"
"We're not crashing."
His voice was a blade.
"We're hunting."
The jeep shot into an empty stretch of road, city lights dimming behind them.
And the three cars followed.
Close.
Too close.
Sona whispered, voice razor-soft:
"They're not stopping, Arjun."
His eyes darkened, empty of fear.
"I know."
The real chase was only beginning.
The night stretched thin as wire.
Arjun slammed the jeep into another turn, the tires screaming against cobblestone. The cars behind them fanned out like wolves circling prey, headlights cutting through the dark Paris outskirts in feral arcs.
Riya clung to Kabir like a terrified child, her nails digging crescent moons into his forearm.
Kabir didn't so much as flinch.
His eyes weren't on her.
They were scanning the road. The mirrors. The shadows.
Sona stayed pressed close to Arjun, one hand gripping the metal bar, the other resting near his thigh, steadying herself while the world blurred into chaos. She didn't tremble. Her eyes were too focused, too sharp.
Too trusting.
And that trust clawed at Arjun's sanity.
One mistake, one slip, and she'd be gone.
He would never survive that.
The first car rammed the back of the jeep.
The whole vehicle jolted forward.
Riya's scream sliced the night.
Kabir's arm locked around her waist as he braced them both.
"Arjun!" Sona hissed, fingers tightening around his sleeve.
"I see them," he growled.
The second car crept up on their right, trying to cut them off.
The third accelerated, boxing them in.
Arjun's breathing stayed even, but his knuckles were bone-white.
The hunter inside him had snapped awake completely.
Kabir leaned forward between the seats, voice low.
"They're not backing off."
"No shit," Arjun muttered.
Nothing about this felt random anymore.
It felt planned.
Calculated.
Kabir's hand slipped under the seat.
Sona's eyes widened just slightly.
"Don't—"
Kabir pulled out a gun.
Riya froze. "K-Kabir—what—how—"
Kabir didn't look at her.
Didn't justify it.
Didn't explain why he was carrying a weapon in the first place.
He simply clicked off the safety, jaw tight.
Arjun didn't react.
He had known Kabir's secrets for years.
"Cover me!" Kabir barked.
He pushed Riya's head down and stood up slightly, steadying himself in the back of the shaking jeep.
"Hold her," Arjun ordered coldly.
Sona gripped the wheel too, leaning into Arjun, bracing herself and the jeep as Kabir aimed.
The first shot cracked through the air.
Missed.
Second shot just as loudly.
Missed again, kabir cursed under his breath "come on, come on stop shaking. Third shot.
Missed again.
With annoyed huff sona stood up holding arjun for balance she smack kabir with mutturing something about being "useless fool" she snatched gun from his hand. Riya whistled, kabit push her down again, shock yet pouty, and arjun he was proud driving with one hand while holding her stady with other.
Her first shot rang.
The bullet punched into the front tire of the nearest car.
The vehicle swerved violently, metal shrieking as it fishtailed across the road.
Riya screamed again.
Sona didn't blink.
Kabir was shocked.
Arjun was smug, shoting look to kabir that says , see my girl is better then you.
Kabir pout and mutter something about not being manace enough to stalk serial killers and crush for kick and fun like she dose.
Sona igrlnored him and fired a second round.
The second car jerked sideways as its tire burst. Sparks skidded across the pavement.
Arjun took advantage of the gap—
Accelerating.
Turning sharply left.
The third car hesitated.
Just enough for Arjun to break free.
Yet sona dis fire the last shot right in front tire of third car crashing one with slow smirk.
Fir anrun his hsarp sona his girl were back in action.
Yet for everyone.
For the first time in 15 breathless minutes…
There was silence.
The roar of engines faded behind them.
The wind howled over the open jeep.
Paris lights gleamed far in the distance like the glitter of shattered stars.
Kabir collapsed back into his seat, almost pouty yet proud breathing hard, Riya practically wrapped around him.
Arjun kept driving, slower now, tension still vibrating through his bones.
Sona rested a palm against his chest, feeling the uneven rhythm of his heartbeat.
"Arjun "
He didn't speak.
Didn't soften.
Didn't release the wheel.
He was still listening for engines.
Still searching the mirrors.
Still expecting blood.
But nothing moved.
No cars.
No headlights.
Nothing but silent road.
For a moment, the world felt normal again.
Too normal.
Kabir leaned back, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Well," he exhaled, shaky laugh escaping, "that was—"
His voice died.
Arjun's eyes sharpened instantly.
"What?"
Kabir swallowed, staring ahead.
"Arjun," Sona whispered, her fingers digging into his arm.
She saw it too.
A truck.
Parked sideways across the road.
No lights.
No driver visible.
Just a massive wall of steel blocking every possible way forward.
Arjun's blood went cold.
He pressed the brake.
The jeep skidded.
Not enough.
The truck's headlights suddenly blasted on, blinding white.
Sona gasped, throwing an arm in front of her eyes.
Riya shrieked.
Kabir grabbed her, shielding her again, teeth clenched.
Arjun didn't scream.
He whispered one word—
"Hold."
The world flipped.
The jeep slammed into the truck.
Metal against metal.
Glass exploding.
Bodies thrown forward.
Sona hit Arjun's shoulder so hard it knocked the breath out of her.
Arjun twisted mid-impact, shielding her with his entire body.
Riya crashed into Kabir's chest as he wrapped around her like armor.
The sound was thunder.
The pain was instant.
And then…
Darkness.
Complete.
Heavy.
Smothering.
The chase ended.
But the nightmare didn't.