Neel Kashyap developed a crush on Niyati Patel when he was in primary school. She was the one with the longest hair and he adored her curly mane. That crush however faded when Neel wrote his first love letter and it ended up reaching her brother.
A...
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I realized a little later that informing Kabir about Sameera Malik was a bad idea.
A week after surgery, Sameera regained conscious and first word she uttered was, "Give me my gun. Where's my gun?"
She was indeed fragile at the moment, but her voice carried so much authority that a chill ran down my spine.
It was a miracle that she was able to sustain such injuries without having any severe consequences on her brain and nervous system. Ofcourse, her thoughts were haphazard, but she was only trying to remember things before the accident.
Four inspectors from the CID guarded her ward day and night. Due to the changes in their shifts and mine, I was only acquainted with two of these officers. One of them was a middle aged man with limited speech and more of duty while the other had been a talkative fresher who happened to be a caffeine addict like me.
The talkative inspector was Dhruva and it was from him that I learnt more about Sameera.
"That woman is a badass," he said one day over a cup of coffee in the hospital cafeteria.
"Is it because she is a cop?" I asked.
He shook his head, with a smirk he said, "I have seen a lot of woman in my life and they don't possess half as much grace as her. But when on duty," he paused. There was a distant look in his eyes that said he was picturing it in his mind. "it's as if she has got the intellect, strength and courage of a man."
"You have got some issues, buddy." I said, pushing the empty cup and saucer away from me. His words made no sense. They were biased, as if to say they were the qualities meant only to men. That was unfair.
"No! You will not believe her skills with the gun! Steady, aim, shoot and dang! you're dead." He demonstrated the action with an imaginary gun. "I personally call her Hawkeye. She has got heart of a stone. There's no fear or doubt when she aims a gun on your forehead. I piss my pants off when I touch the cold metal of my gun." He shuddered as if someone dropped my ice cube in his pants.
"Any idea who is behind the attack?" I asked on our way back to the ward.
He slid hands into his pockets and said, "Lets just say there are a lot of people who want her dead."
A crowd had formed outside Sameera's ward. Anxiously, Dhruva and I rushed to the scene. Everyone in the crowd were struggling to peek a glance and it had been quite a mess for a hospital.
We squeezed, wriggled and pushed our way into the ward to see Sameera standing on top her bed, holding a shining object in her hand. On closer inspection, I realized she was holding a fully loaded gun.
