Sona pov
I returned to consciousness like a knife rising from water.
Slow. Quiet. Deadly.
The hospital lights hummed above me, a soft sterile buzz, like an insect trapped between glass panes. My eyelids cracked open. Dry. Heavy. Stinging.
It took two blinks for the room to snap into focus.
White walls.
Beeping machines.
The scent of antiseptic.
The hollow taste of oxygen tubes.
And absence.
His absence.
A hole. A void. A missing heartbeat in the air.
That was when the grief hit me an avalanche crashing over my ribs, shattering bone, slicing through every soft piece of me I once pretended existed. It knocked the wind from my lungs, stole my breath, my name, my sanity.
I curled into myself, a wounded beast gnawing its own limbs.
Tears soaked my cheeks before I even realized I was crying.
Not the pretty kind.
Not the soft sobbing kind.
No.
The kind that comes from losing your center of gravity.
Arjun was gone.
And my world had the audacity to keep spinning.
My throat burned. The machines beside me beeped faster, louder, as if trying to mimic the panic tearing through my veins.
Where is he?
Where is he?
Where is he?
His name pulsed behind my eyes like a bruise.
I screamed once silent, choked, swallowed by the oxygen mask strapped to my face. My fingers clawed at it. Tore it off. Air hit my lungs like glass shards. I welcomed the pain.
Pain meant I was still alive.
And if I was breathing, he damn well had to be too.
But the bed was too soft.
The lights too artificial.
The sheets too untouched.
If he had survived, he would've been here.
Pressed against me.
Breathing into my skin.
Watching me wake.
Whispering that he'd kill the world if it ever dared harm me.
But there was nothing.
Only the echo of his absence.
Grief twisted into guilt.
Guilt thickened into rage.
A rage that tasted familiar, metallic, sweet.
I wasted time.
Time acting soft.
Time pretending to be normal.
Time letting happiness blind me.
Time allowing warmth to melt the edges of the monster inside me.
I had forgotten who I was.
Forgotten that I could track Arjun by the taste of his breath.
Forgotten that I could find him by the echo of his footsteps.
Forgotten that his shadow lived beneath my skin, stitched into every nerve.
I should have smelled the danger sooner.
I should have sensed the eyes watching us in Paris.
I should have dragged him away the moment I felt the world go still around us.
Instead…
I let myself laugh.
I let myself be held.
Be kissed.
Be loved.
And when the chase began, I was the one who didn't feel it in time.
A pathetic softness.
A disgusting weakness.
A betrayal to the part of me that existed long before Arjun ever learned my name.
The part of me that followed him.
Memorized him.
Marked him.
If I had stayed that version of myself
the one with knives instead of eyelashes
the one who watched him from rooftops
the one who could scent danger from across a city
I would have ripped the truth out of the night before it dared take him.
Now he was missing.
A ghost scraped out of my chest.
I pressed my palm to the empty spot beside me on the bed. The sheets were cold. Unwrinkled. Mocking.
I imagined him lying there.
Breathing.
Warm.
Beautiful in that ruined way that made my heart crawl out of my ribs for him.
Instead it was just me.
A hollow thing.
I turned my face into the pillow and screamed again, soundless, throat raw. Tears stung my eyes. My chest cracked open. A shiver ran down my spine.
Every second without him was a slow death.
My thoughts spiraled, sharp and vicious.
If I had been myself…
If I had tracked the scent of wrongness sooner…
If I had followed that instinct instead of burying it beneath stolen laughter…
If I had kept my eyes on every corner, every reflection, every whisper behind us…
He would be here.
With me.
Breathing.
Alive.
Mine.
I pushed myself upright.
My muscles shook.
My bones screamed.
Good. Pain was good.
It reminded me of who I was beneath the softness he loved.
It reminded me of what lived under my skin long before Paris taught me to smile.
I wasn't prey.
Not anymore.
Not ever again.
I was the girl who stalked him for years.
The girl who followed killers for inspiration.
The girl who vanished between pages of crime scenes and blood trails.
The girl who hunted shadows for fun.
And I forgot all of it.
Because happiness made me lazy.
Because love made me fragile.
Never again.
I would tear the city apart if I had to.
Rip up roads.
Burn down safehouses.
Follow the smell of blood to wherever it led.
Follow the echo of his heartbeat through every alley in this damned city.
Arjun wasn't dead.
My bones refused to believe that lie.
Not as long as I was still breathing.
My grief sharpened into purpose.
My tears dried into resolve.
He was out there.
And I had wasted enough time being the soft version of myself.
The version he held gently.
The version he kissed into submission.
But now?
He needed the real me.
The one who never lost him.
The one who never stopped watching.
The one who could find him in a world full of ghosts.
I wiped the tears off my cheeks.
The hospital room hummed beneath my pulse.
I was awake now.
And whoever took him?
They should have killed me too.
Because I'm coming.
For him.
For answers.
For blood.
And I don't waste time twice.
The moment their voices on the TV said "Kapoors blame the Roys for the disappearance of their only heir…" something inside me clicked like a lock sliding back into place.
My breath stilled.
My pulse didn't.
It prowled.
And then the smirk happened, uninvited, wild, familiar.
A long-lost creature stretching inside my ribcage.
So they're blaming us.
Blaming me.
Adorable.
Infuriating.
Useful.
Because accusations are confessions in disguise.
People scream only when they're scared, and Kapoors were barking loud enough to echo.
I let the smirk bloom into something feral as the nurse walked past the doorway. She froze, eyes widening like she saw a ghost. No, not a ghost. A resurrection. I tilted my head slowly, politely, letting the smile fade into calm before anyone panicked.
Not yet.
Not now.
First I need to get out.
To get to him.
Arjun.
My pulse whispered his name like a lover's oath, like a blood-bonded vow.
He wasn't dead.
I'd feel it.
The string between us would snap or strangle, but it would never stay silent. And right now, it was humming like a taut violin wire.
I'd wasted time.
Crying.
Grieving.
Falling apart like I was some fragile porcelain doll instead of the girl who once could follow Arjun across an entire college festival without being noticed.
I used to track him by the sound of his laugh, by the shift of air when he entered a room, by the way his cologne clung to hallways long after he left.
I knew his patterns, his ghosts, his tells, his fears.
Softness made me stupid.
Never again.
I inhaled, slow and steady, and forced my heartbeat to mimic the machines beside me.
Normal.
Stable.
Recovering.
The perfect illusion.
From that moment, I crafted the performance.
I drank the water they brought.
I ate the bland soup.
I let the nurses touch me without flinching.
I answered the doctors' questions with a hollow monotone.
And when Riya or Kabir entered the room, I let a ghost-version of Sona sit up in bed and smile.
The weak one.
The broken one.
The one ready to give up.
They didn't notice the shadows behind my eyes sharpening.
They didn't hear the calculations spinning beneath the silence.
They didn't smell the rising storm I was swallowing back for their sake.
Kabir sat beside me today, brushing my hair with gentle fingers, voice cracking as he whispered, "You're getting better, Sona. I'm proud of you."
If he knew what "better" meant, he'd run.
Riya hugged me, teary-eyed, murmuring, "You're coming back to us, finally." Her words trembled. She was afraid of losing me to grief.
Not understanding I was returning not from grief… but from restraint.
I hugged her back. My hands were steady. Too steady. She didn't notice.
The doctors were the easiest to fool.
They saw charts, not people.
Numbers, not hunger.
"Her vitals are stabilizing beautifully," one said. "She's progressing faster than expected."
Because prey pretends to be harmless when hunters are blind.
Kabir told me to rest.
Riya told me to take my medicines on time.
Both kissed my forehead and promised they'd be back after filing some papers for discharge.
They left.
The door closed.
And the real Sona rose like a quiet omen.
I stretched my fingers and studied how they no longer trembled.
Strength was returning in waves.
Clarity followed.
Arjun's disappearance wasn't random.
Not a robbery.
Not an accident.
Not a coincidence.
Someone took what was mine.
Someone breathed near him.
Touched him.
Dragged him away from me.
My chest burned with a cold fury that tasted like metal, like old versions of myself I buried because he loved my softness.
But soft girls lose people.
Soft girls cry in hospital beds while their lovers bleed elsewhere.
Soft girls get drugged so they stop screaming his name.
Never again.
I'll find him.
With or without anyone's help.
I'll dig up every scrap of truth hidden under the Kapoors' sudden convenient accusations.
I'll break open every secret our families kept sealed.
I'll walk back into the world wearing innocence like perfume.
Everyone will smell what they expect.
Not what's underneath.
My plans started layering themselves like honey and poison:
Step one:
Get discharged.
Walk out smiling.
Step two:
Go home.
Act weak.
Recover publicly.
Step three:
Slip away at night.
Find the trail.
Follow it.
Smell him.
Sense him.
Hunt for him.
Because he's alive.
My bones know it.
And when I find the person who thought they could take him from me…
I'll show them what happens when you corner something that was never prey in the first place.
Outside my window, the sun was setting over Paris, slow and blood-gold.
The light hit the metal IV stand and turned it into a spear of reflections.
Pretty.
Fragile.
Breakable.
Just like the world will be if it stands between me and him.
The hallway outside stirred.
Riya's laugh echoed.
Kabir's footsteps followed.
They were coming back.
I slid effortlessly back into the harmless version of myself and smiled at the ceiling with a sweetness that tasted like honey hiding a knife.
Because Arjun isn't lost.
He's waiting for me.
And I'm coming.
For him.