23. Poppies

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West's grip on my hand was firm enough to break my fall with a sharp tug. 


"What the hell?" I cried, studying the gobsmacked expression gracing West's features. Pulling myself upright, hand still in West's, I followed his gaze to the gaping blackness where the bookcase had stood moments ago. Gently pushing me aside, he took a tentative step across the threshold.

At once, a series of lights flipped on inside as if by magic. I jumped a little with surprise, my hand shooting up to clutch at his arm, a whirlwind of wonder and trepidation rapidly rising in my chest.

The staircase that had now emerged plunged deeper into the earth with each glass step. West and I exchanged an anxious look. "This is some next level shit," I finally said, shaking my head with disbelief. "A fucking secret door? Explain yourself, West."

"I-I've never seen this before," West stammered, making me raise a brow in concern. "You knocked out this book," he said, letting go of my waist to crouch down to pick up the green hardcover now on the floor. "Must've triggered the movement. I don't think Mr. Kreep built this, though?"

"Well then, who did?" I asked, but it was as if he hadn't heard me. He gravitated further forward, and the next second, he had disappeared down the stairs. I looked upward, shot whoever was up there a stinky look and followed him in on naked feet.

I found West at the entrance of a colossal stark white hall, gaping at the bizarre scene before us. A 'holy shit' rolled off my tongue subconsciously as I stepped in beside him, jaw dropping.

I identified the rows of forehead-height glass containers inside the cavernous room as small greenhouses. Inside the greenhouses were an astounding array of poppies, 10 times their regular size! My mind whirred with questions...and answers.

"West, w-what exactly did you mean when you said that you're not from a normal family?" I stuttered, waves of dread seeping into my chest as if they were beings thrashing around in quicksand. Just as he opened his mouth, a frightening moan sounded from deeper down the hall, making me yelp and seize his arm again.

West took a step forward, but I tightened my grip on his bicep, a thousand silent pleadings in seconds of eye contact. His eyes weren't fearful like mine, they glistened as if he was slowly sinking and he knew that he wouldn't make it. "I don't really know, Aditi...but I'm going to find out exactly how fucked up this is."

Genetically modified poppies...drug abuse in Edelweiss suddenly skyrocketing...an Asian man killing off Sharmaji...all drugs disappearing just when the police got involved...it all made sense now. But West knew all of this all this time and was keeping silent?

I gingerly followed West around the greenhouses towards the source of the moaning, my heart throbbing with an entirely different emotion than mere moments ago. Oh God, I kinda wish we hadn't found out about this.

I froze.

The woman strapped to the steel chair was ever familiar and yet unrecognizable, her soulful features now sunken and swollen in different places. Speechless, I took several shaky steps towards her, falling to my knees. "Ma?" I whimpered, tears clouding my vision as I reached my hand out to her.

Ma had become deathly pale. Her skin was riddled with red needle marks, making the stinging tears roll down my cheeks. She stared ahead blankly through tiny slits in her swollen eyelids as I grasped her hands in mine, choking on the tears.

As soon as I felt the hand on my shoulder, I flinched away from West, my voice trembling as I warned him, "Don't you dare! Stay away from me, you- you lying little asshole!"

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