Arjun pov
Darkness woke me before pain did.
A strange thing to realise, but it was true. The dark wasn't just around me. It was inside me too, pooling like heavy ink, refusing to settle. My eyelids fought the weight of sedation, and when I forced them open, the world arrived in blurry fragments.
A ceiling that wasn't a ceiling. Metal sheets. A bulb flickering like it had a stutter. Cold air biting my skin.
Chains.
Chains.
Chains.
My wrists were pulled above my head, metal cutting into skin already torn. My ankles tied to rusted rods. My throat dry enough to crack. My head pounding to its own sick rhythm.
I tried to speak, but my voice didn't come out. Only air. Only fear.
Where is she?
The thought wasn't delicate. It slammed into my chest with the force of an explosion. Sona. My Sona. My storm. My curse. My everything. I tried again to speak.
"Sona…"
Nothing.
The last thing I remembered was headlights tearing through rain, the screech of brakes, my arms around her, her scream carried by the wind, the world flipping, glass shattering, metal crushing.
Then silence.
I pulled against the chains. They clanged like laughter. Whoever kidnapped me knew exactly how to cage a man who spent half his life planning escapes. Whoever kidnapped me wanted me alive, trapped, aware.
A predator knows another predator's style.
Minutes, or hours, or days time lost meaning. When the door finally creaked open, I flinched like a coward. The silhouette entering had no face in the light, but I recognised his walk.
Naveen.
That snake who once stood three feet away from Sona, pretending concern hid behind his polished smile.
He crouched in front of me, lifting my chin with two fingers like he had bought the right.
"Finally awake."
His voice had oil in it. Thick, slick, disgusting.
I wanted to kill him. With hands. Teeth. Breath. Whatever was left of me.
"You should thank me," he whispered. "Your accident could've killed you both. I saved you."
Saved.
Saved?
Rage boiled under my skin like molten iron. "Where… is she?"
The whisper scraped out of me like gravel.
"Alive," he said. "For now."
Two words. For now. I tasted blood from biting the inside of my cheek.
He moved away, pacing like he owned the shadows. "You think your Sona is some delicate flower waiting for you?" A chuckle. "She's already proving she doesn't need you. Already moving on. Already living."
Lies.
Cheap, plastic lies.
But the seed of panic he planted sprouted anyway. My heart thrashed like an animal trying to escape its ribs. What if she was hurt? What if she thought I left her? What if she blamed herself? What if she—
Stop.
Stop.
Breathe.
But I couldn't. My mind replayed every moment with her, every fight, every kiss, every time she said she didn't believe in happy endings. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shake the walls. I wanted to break bones, break fate, break everything between us and run to her.
Instead, I hung there like a crucified idiot, helpless and furious.
Hours passed. Or maybe they didn't. I had no sense of anything except loss. Except the ache in my chest. Except the unbearable void her absence carved into me.
I kept whispering her name.
Sona.
Sona.
Sona.
Like a prayer. Like a promise. Like a curse on whoever kept us apart.
In the dark, the truth began to peel itself open. I had always known danger stalked me. My instincts were never wrong. I had felt it… that we were being watched. I ignored it for her. I shut up for her happiness. I tried to play normal for once. I tried to give her peace.
Look where it got me.
Blood on my lip.
Iron on my wrist.
Nothing but the thought of her holding me together.
And yet… a part of me didn't break. A part of me sharpened.
Because if they touched her.
If they hurt her.
If they made her cry.
If they scared her.
If they dared to whisper her name with the wrong tone
I would destroy every single one of them.
My head fell forward. My body trembled. My breath fractured.
But my mind?
It sharpened like a blade.
The predator in me stretched awake, hungry. Determined. Deadly.
They wanted me to break.
They wanted me confused.
They wanted me helpless.
They had no idea what they had done.
They had separated me from the one person I would raze countries for.
Sona. My wildfire. My reckoning.
If she was alive, she would come for me.
And if she believed I was alive, I would tear this world apart to get back to her.
A soft drip echoed. Water. Somewhere far.
I closed my eyes, gripping onto the only thing that kept me breathing.
Her face.
Her voice.
Her laugh.
Her stubborn eyes.
Her fierce loyalty.
Her stupid, beautiful courage.
I remembered the way she whispered my name like it hung between worship and destruction.
I remembered the way she held me like she could cage my storms.
I remembered the way she fought for me, even when the world tried to force her knees to the ground.
I whispered, "I'm coming back to you."
My voice broke. My determination didn't.
Because they kidnapped a man.
But they woke a monster.
And the monster only loved one girl. Only lived for one girl. Only breathed for one girl.
Sona.
My girl.
My madness.
Wherever she was… she better not be giving up on me.
Because I wasn't dying here.
I wasn't bowing.
I wasn't surrendering.
I would survive.
For her.
With her.
Because of her.
Even if I had to crawl out of hell itself.
Days dissolved into each other until they were just a smear. Time didn't walk here; it crawled, slow and ugly, dragging its nails over my sanity. The only constants were pain, darkness, and the soft metallic rattle of my own chains whenever I moved too much.
There were no doctors. No treatment. No medicine. They wanted me alive, not healthy. Conscious, not strong.
A breathing body
with a breaking mind.
Food came at random hours, shoved into my mouth like I was some half-dead beast they were fattening for slaughter. I swallowed because I had to. Because dying here meant leaving her alone.
Water tasted like rust. My clothes clung to me like damp paper. My hair grew wild, my beard thick. My body thinned out in strange places and bruised in others. Sometimes I hallucinated her voice whispering my name; sometimes I woke up gasping because I dreamt her hand slipping out of mine at the crash.
Months crushed me.
Months carved me.
Months fed a grief so deep it felt like another chain.
And yet… I didn't break.
Not fully.
Not where it mattered.
On the worst days, I spoke to her in my head. I told her stories I never told anyone. The first scar I got. The first punch I threw. The first time I realised I wasn't afraid of dying. The first time I realised I was terrified of losing her.
And it hurt.
It hurt in ways even knives couldn't copy.
But that pain kept me alive.
One night or maybe morning the door moaned open again. That familiar silhouette slithered in. Naveen. My captor. Parasite in human clothing.
He walked with the confidence of a man who thought he owned my suffering.
He crouched in front of me, just like the first time.
His smile was too clean for a man with such a dirty soul.
"You're quieter these days," he said softly, mock pity dripping from his tone. "Good. Acceptance suits you."
I didn't respond. My throat hurt too much, and my anger lived too deep.
But he didn't need my voice to continue his theater.
"Sona is fine."
He paused, letting it bleed into me.
"More than fine. Laughing. Living. Going out with Riya and Kabir. Actually enjoying life without you."
Lie.
Lie.
Lie.
But when you're starving for hope, even poison looks edible.
For the smallest second, I wondered… had she moved on? Had she been forced to? Had she survived the accident and chosen to forget me for her own sanity?
The doubt stabbed me.
For a breath.
For a heartbeat.
Then it passed.
Because I remembered her face bruised with determination. Her fingers digging into mine. Her voice shaking but fierce.
She wasn't the type to move on.
She was the type to burn the world until she found me.
But Naveen didn't stop.
"She doesn't come searching," he hummed. "She isn't even asking around anymore. It's been months, Arjun. People heal. People forget."
He placed his hand on my cheek, and I felt something twist inside me revulsion, rage, murder.
"She's not coming for you."
I lifted my head slowly.
Looked right at him.
And whispered, "Then why are you scared?"
For a second one glorious second his smile cracked.
He stood abruptly, dusting off invisible dirt like he had been contaminated simply by being near me.
"Believe what you want," he spat. "The truth is, she's better without you. Happier without you. Freer without you."
And he left.
The door slammed.
The darkness returned.
But this time…
there was a spark in me.
A flare.
A wicked ember.
Because his desperation told me the truth.
He wasn't trying to inform me.
He was trying to break me before she reached me.
And she was coming.
She always would.
My girl never bowed to grief. She strangled it.
Still, time stretched.
My wounds healed ugly.
My muscles stiffened.
My wrists bled.
My voice vanished again.
Months layered like dust, suffocating but inevitable.
I was kept alive. Barely.
A body.
A ghost.
A prisoner.
Until one day… I heard voices outside the metal door. Muffled. Aggressive. Urgent.
Then a TV in the hallway flickered on rare, unusual. A news channel. Volume low, but not low enough.
I heard one line.
Just one.
And everything inside me shifted.
"…Roy family blamed by the Kapoors for Arjun's disappearance…"
My lips parted.
Not for pain.
Not for panic.
For a smile.
A slow, razor-sharp, delicious smile.
Naveen came into the room moments later, annoyed, muttering things under his breath. He saw the smile. Froze.
I lifted my head.
"My Sona heard it," I rasped.
Naveen blinked.
"She heard them blame her family."
My voice scratched like gravel but carried fire.
"That means she's already moving."
He clenched his jaw.
I chuckled.
Actually chuckled, even with blood on my tongue.
"You think she moved on?"
I shook my head.
"You think she's living quietly?"
Another laugh.
"You think she forgot me?"
I leaned forward as far as the chains allowed.
"She's coming," I whispered.
"And she'll kill all of you long before she reaches me."
The hatred in Naveen's eyes tasted sweet.
He stormed out.
The lights flickered.
My chains rattled like applause.
And for the first time in months,
I didn't feel alone.
Somewhere out there, my girl had opened her eyes.
Somewhere out there, she had started hunting.
Somewhere out there, the world was about to shake.
Because Sona wasn't a lover.
She wasn't a victim.
She wasn't some soft-hearted girl who waited for fate.
She was a storm with teeth.
And she was coming for her man.
For me.
The predator inside me stretched, awakening fully.
"We're not done," I whispered into the dark.
"Not even close."