Abhira- The untainted love.

21. Colliding with the Nightmare.

From the past several minutes Abhimanyu was pacing in his cabin, trying to calm down himself.
She was just sitting on the side couch, looking at the ground and not even once at him.
He was looking every now and then at her, sitting calmly, no reaction, nothing, not utterly a single word, and this for sure was irritating him.

Giving up on maintaining the cool, he spoke and his voice came out louder than he expected it to be.
"How can you be this unaffected? How can you stop me from reacting?"

She looked at him through lashes and met his eyes.
"I am not stopping you from reacting, I just want you to keep your reactions under check infront of Nishtha."

Rubbing his forehead he said.
"I can't, I just can't imagine something was about to happen with my sister."

Standing up she moved towards him.
"Abhi, listen, something bad has happened with Nishtha, I don't know the extent of it, but there's something."

"How can you be this sure?", he asked in disbelief.

"I know because, I have also....", she bit her tongue before she could blurt out.

"You what Akshu?", concern lacing his voice.

Avoiding his gaze, she turned around.
"I....Abhimanyu I....its just that I have lived alone in various cities, firstly those three years and now the past eight months, and people out there are not nice, they are just.....they are bad, evil, monsters and I know that for sure."

Placing his hand on her shoulder he asked gently.
"Tell me, please."

Turning around she again faced him.
"Its....its nothing like that. Let's focus on Nishtha for now."

Taking in a understanding that maybe she doesn't want to share anything with him right now, he kept this conversation for later and she told, right now his prime focus was his sister.

"What do we need to do now?", his brain wasn't able to process all of it.

"We'll have to talk to Nishtha. Calmly. She already is scared, we can't let her be more scared."

"Alright. Let taiji leave the room and then we will talk to her. As politely as I can.", he kept his focus on the last line, more like assuring himself of that.

<>

An hour later Nishtha gained her consciousness. On insistence of Abhimanyu, Mahima Birla took the leave to take rest after her hectic, long operating surgery.

Opening her eyes Nishtha tried to almost jump out of the bed, but soon took in the realisation of her surroundings, it was Birla hospital.

"Nishtha, bacche, how are you feeling now?", her brother asked creasing her head lovingly.

"I am fine bhaiya.", she said and then her eyes fell on Akira standing in the corner, smiling at her.
"Di thank you so much for bringing me here.", her eyes welled up recalling today's incident.

"There's absolutely no need of any thank you.", Akira took a seat beside her.
"Nishtha I know you are fine, still you are not fine. I just want you to know that you are in a safe space and you can tell us everything."

"What happened today Nishtha, tell your brother, why weren't you in school? I promise nothing is ever going to happen to you.", Abhimanyu added assuring.

"Noth....nothing happened bhaiya. I just....I just...", She started breathing heavily and Akira tried to calm her down.

"Listen Nishtha, whatever happened, nothing, I repeat NOTHING of it is your fault. Now, take a deep breathe and tell us everything. Okay?", these were the words once Akshara wished someone would tell her, but here she was pouring the same to this other girl.