Kyra (Complete)

Chapter Thirty Two

Something struck Mr. Jindal from behind. It wasn't as painful as it was powerful -powerful enough to cause him to loosen his grip around Kyra's neck. His lungs all of a sudden seemed incapable of accepting oxygen until he was falling to the floor, gasping for air.

From the corners of the eyes, he saw Kyra fall to the floor before him, her mouth wide open as she struggled to take in oxygen.

Tearing his lips apart as pain coursed through his veins, he tried to cry out but the words failed to form on his lips, the foul taste of blood filling his mouth. Soon, he was unable to stop the blood from coming out of his mouth until he was coughing and gasping for air. He felt himself weaken, his organs shutting down for lack of oxygen. A part of him knew he was dying, yet, a part of him fought the idea -he couldn't be dying, not when Kyra still laid gasping for air before him, not when his company would pass to Kyra if he died, not when everything he ever worked for was all of a sudden going to be passed on to an ungrateful daughter! His mind seemed to yell but his mouth was unable to proud any noise.

Tears filled his eyes as the image of his environment began to blur before his eyes. He felt his heart beat slow down, the dull thudding of his heart in his chest becoming duller as the seconds ticked by.

Something warm touched his cheek. He struggled to see past his tears but couldn't, his eyelids all of a sudden becoming too heavy to stay open. He felt himself being pulled against something -or was it someone? They seemed to be rocking him back and forth, only helping to heighten the overwhelming urge to fall asleep, an urge he was all of a sudden unable to deny.

Weak and terribly sleepy, his heavy eyelid flickered shut, darkness blanketing him as a soft puff of air drifted from his parted lips for the very last time.

*

A loud crashing sound was strong enough to gain Kyra's attention as her breathing began to regain stability. She tore her eyelids apart, the blurry image of something appearing before her. At first she didn't know what it was, but as her vision became clearer, so did the reality of what it was she was staring at; her father, lying in a growing pool of his own blood.

For a second, Kyra sat there on the office floor, confused. It appeared to her that her father was dying, yet, she couldn't bring herself to accept this horrid fact.

Her eyes scanned the room, horrified faces of her staff staring back at her.

"What?" Her lips trembled. "...happened?"

Silence filled the room, the people in seemingly completely unable to move.

Hitching a breath, she turned her attention back to her father, scrambling to his side. She touched his sweaty face, wide brown eyes staring back at her in horror as his face paled for lack of blood -he knew he was dying, and so did she for she saw it plainly in his eyes as life seeped out of him rapidly.

"I had to shoot, Ma'am."

She heard a voice but didn't bother to look up. The long arm of the clock that hung just above the entrance to the office was the only sound Kyra could hear past her beating heart as she pulled her father into her arms and opened her mouth wide. She must have yelled, she wasn't certain for she heard no sound, darkness clouding around her.

She tightened her hold around her father, the pain of possibly losing him, filling her heart until she could no longer see. Her mouth still hung open, for whatever reason, she couldn't bring herself to shut it again. Her hands trembled, still, she couldn't loosen her hold on her father.

The moment he died, Kyra felt it. She felt his body become heavy in her arms and she knew.

A part of her wanted to run into the streets of Delhi and just lay there, while the world collapsed around her. A part of her wanted to sit here and hold on to the father who was once a good man -perhaps a good man with a temper, but a good man nonetheless. Then there was the part of Kyra that hated herself for mourning for her father. It almost seemed like she hated herself for feeling the burden of grief pull her to the ground for a man who murdered her mother.