Life As We Know It

Shot 21

"Please" Gauri begged Kamini. "You are driving much too fast."

"Poor little wifey. What are you trying to do? Make me slow down so that your wonderful macho husband can catch up with us? No way!" Kamini laughed.

"No way do I stop until we’re back at my home and then, my dear, Muskaan and I will be on the first flight to Delhi where we will stay until your precious husband comes to his senses."

Gauri winced as she was thrown against the car door when Kamini took a turn

There was no way Muskaan could endure being driven even a few miles at such a break-neck speed without being sick, never mind all the way to the evil woman's home, wherever it was.

And thanks to Kamini all the baby had was the clothes she was wearing.

Gauri had never in the whole of her life hated anyone as much as she loathed and detested Kamini.

How could she do this to any child, never mind her own grandchild? But Gauri already knew there was no point in trying to reason with her.

Muskaan was snuggling as close as she could to Gauri, her baby eyes round with shock and distress.

"It’s all right, little one" Gauri whispered tenderly to her. "Don’t worry…don’t worry."

Out of the corner of her eye she watched in horrified disbelief as Kamini took a corner by driving in the middle of the road, and only just missed being hit by the car coming the other way.

"Typical male driver!" Gauri heard her mutter as she increased her speed.

"God, I hate men! All of them, but none of them as much as I hate your husband" she told Gauri bitterly.

Gauri refrained herself from reminding the woman that she had two sons.

"All he had to do was to part with mere crores. That was all. He could have kept the bloody brat and you as well, but, no…he claims to love the pair of you but he obviously doesn’t love you very much, does he?"

Kamini was already dangerously driving and frantically Gauri tried to think of some way to calm her down and get her to reduce her speed. If she didn’t Gauri was desperately afraid that there could be an accident.

Once she got to airport she would ring Omkara. Just before she boarded her flight, Kamini decided gleefully. And she would tell him that now the cost of getting Muskaan had doubled, with of course another crore thrown in for the safe return of his wife.

Quite how she was going to persuade Gauri to board the plane with her, Kamini hadn’t worked out as yet, but she suspected that wherever she took Muskaan, Gauri would follow.

Surely Kamini wouldn’t simply be able to leave the state with Muskaan, Gauri fretted.

There would be legalities; formalities; the small matter of a passport. Or is a passport necessary for domestic travel? Gauri had never gotten on a plane before, so she is unaware of the formalities.

Muskaan had been sick so often as they’d been thrown around the back of the small car that the poor little thing probably didn’t have anything left in her tummy to be sick with, Gauri recognised as she tried her best to comfort her.

Kamini was a rash driver. And Gauri could have sworn that sometimes Kamini forgot which side of the road she was actually supposed to be driving

The inevitable happened just when Gauri had finally begun to relax and convince herself that Kamini’s driving was no worse than that of the drivers coming the other way.

She had taken a corner far too fast, and had to swerve to avoid crashing head-on with the lorry coming the other way.

Gauri felt the sickening lurch of the car as Kamini lost control of it and looked up just in time to realise that they were skidding across the road right in the path of an oncoming car.

Reaching instinctively, she threw herself protectively on top of Muskaan whilst the world turned into a hell of twisting, screeching, tearing metal, punctuated by a woman’s screams and a series of bone-jarring thuds.

She felt the pain in her legs, and then the numbness, but by then a blessed silence had fallen, a stillness in which she was at peace to let go of the pain tearing into her.

Just as long as she didn’t let go of Muskaan…

Later Gauri realised it could only have been a matter of minutes after the crash and her loss of consciousness before willing hands were pulling open the doors of the car, calling out to her in anxious voices that dragged her back from the abyss of her agonising pain.

"The baby! You must take the baby!" she heard herself insisting as she managed to twist her head to look into the eyes of the man bending anxiously over her.

Her thoughts felt muddled and slow; she couldn’t see Kamini but she could feel Muskaan’s warm, squirming body lying protectively beneath her own.

"The baby!" she repeated to her would-be rescuers.

It was an effort for her to talk, her lips felt numb, but she couldn’t lift her hand to touch them because it felt as if the whole of her upper body was trapped beneath some heavy, crushing weight…

"Quick. There is a child in here" she heard one of the men say. And then another called out, "We need to cut the woman free!"

Cut the woman free. What woman? Who were they talking about? Kamini? Even though she disliked her, Gauri hoped that she would be all right…

"The baby" she repeated painfully…as the man leaning over her started to fade and recede in a sickening wave of dizziness…

Muskaan had managed to free one of her arms, and she reached out and touched Gauri's face.

"You must tell Omkaraji that Muskaan is safe" she told the man

"He will be worried about. You must contact him."  Slowly and painstakingly she gave him the address and the telephone number, resisting the desire to cling onto Muskaan as she was gently eased out from beneath her own body.

They had to hold her whilst someone put a huge wadding of cushions and what looked like discarded clothes beneath her where Muskaan had been.

She could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness.

A/n

Too much drama??

I was just making up for the lack of drama in Vows Of Love😁

Got delayed because I was reading accident scenes in some books for inspiration. I watched accident scenes in movies, and I couldn't write anything properly. Books helped Ofcourse.

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