Deceiving Veils

Chapter-41 {Cold harsh ground}

Demurs filled the hall and disquiet crept in like a background music. Only difference was she couldn't hear a thing those elite people were yelling behind. She just gaped her father trying to find any sign of mischief. It had to be one of his pranks which he used to play to scare her. Maybe he was angry on her, maybe he was upset because she didn't cooperate. Maybe he was disappointed in her because she ran away instead of coming to him. But to her dismay, she didn't even find a single line in his eye which could recognize her. He was just staring her distressed face blankly. 

"It's me. Nandini," Nandini said holding his hands. 

"Do not scare me, Papa," She murmured wiping the tears from back of her hand. She waited for him to melt but nothing changed on his blank face. He wasn't joking, this deduction hit her like a windstorm. 

"Now what would you say?" A voice echoed the hall as one by one each person sitting there sought answers from that dictator. 

"He slapped you across the face," Another one yelled and Nandini kept trying to read the situation. 

"He would not sign the God damn papers," Some lady shouted on top of her voice and bitter struck Nandini's ears like edgy glass. 

She turned around to see the face of that dictator who was head of that barbaric army. He looked like a death summon as he glared both of them. Mr Murthy's gripped Nandini's hand tight and Nandini looked at him with a smile. She hoped how he had recognized her. 

"It's me, papa," She uttered trying to seek his warmth but that clutch wasn't about affinity but fear. His eyes were timid as he looked at that dictator. Before her heart could refuse to take the ache, he hid behind her like a kid. He was trembling and was continuously murmuring something. 

"Quiet," Dictator yelled to shut the demurs up. 

Protests died one by one as an army walked in marching like death. Nandini could hear her father's helpless gasps as he had started to plead already. 

Not in her entire life, she had felt this lost. She was standing in middle of strangers who were for sure not her well-wisher and the only man she knew had refused to recognize her. All she thought all this while was that her father was one of them. She knew he had bowed down in front of that new rule. She had never imagined that she would meet him in such a cruel reality where he was nothing of a man she knew and she was no one to him. Reality had thrown her on cold harsh ground. 

That autarch walked towards her and she counted each his calculated step. Today was the first time she was standing alone and she had that one reason for whom she had to rise above. Her fears, her anxiety, her heartache, her tiredness, her helplessness; nothing could stop her from protecting what she had found after losing. Her father. 

"Playing, aren't we?" That man leaned in and murmured over her shoulder. Mr Murthy shrunk more almost barring the blood in Nandini's veins with that grip. 

"You doesn't know who Nandini is? Sounds like a perfect plan," That man uttered with tinge of excitement. 

Club in his hand twirled as if mapping its target and Nandini couldn't miss any detail. 

"Do not hurt him, please," Nandini requested lowly and those ruthless eyes gawked her angelic face so close. 

"Who said I would?" Dictator asked and Nandini's eyes shot to meet his. 

Grabbing her shoulder in a second, he put that edgy club on her neck and pressed it in her skin. She yelped and that filled the hall with gasps. 

"He doesn't know who you are. I see no reason why you should live, Nandini. Tell him to drop the play," He uttered. Nandini could read between the lines. She gaped her father but could see only horror which had nothing to do with dripping blood off her neck. She bit her lip to suppress the cry but a whimper escaped her throat. She could see her father retreating and all her doubts got splashed with merciless reality. Her father wasn't playing any game. He didn't know her anymore. Wet running down her cheeks or red flowing down her neck didn't move him. He had forgotten his daughter.