The magic of Manali evaporated the moment they stepped off the bus into the thick, humid air of Jaipur. It was like stepping out of a dream into a sauna. The city, with its cacophony of horns, its press of crowds, and its heavy, dust-laden atmosphere, was a suffocating blanket of reality.
Back on campus, the invisible shield around Rihan seemed to have developed chinks. The whispers returned, but now they weren't just curious; they were laced with a venomous new ingredient: jealousy. He was no longer just the President's charity case. He was her boyfriend.
Vikas and his cronies saw them. They couldn't miss it. They saw the way Rihan now walked with a newfound confidence, his shoulders a little straighter, his head held a little higher. They saw the way Ruhi would smile at him in the crowded hallways, a soft, intimate smile that was reserved only for him, a smile that made her untouchable aura momentarily dissolve. They saw the way her hand would find his as they walked between classes, a casual, possessive gesture that spoke of a deep intimacy.
And it drove them mad.
Rihan Malik, the punching bag, the nobody, the scholarship kid they had terrorized for their own amusement, had not only escaped their grasp but had claimed the ultimate prize. In their twisted, entitled view of the world, he had stolen something that should have been unattainable for him, and by extension, for them. Their simmering resentment curdled into a thick, black, all-consuming rage. They felt mocked, their place in the campus hierarchy challenged by the most pathetic of upstarts.
The attack came a week after their return. It was a Tuesday evening. Rihan had been walking back to his hostel alone after a late-night study session in the library. Ruhi had offered to walk with him, as she often did, but he, filled with a foolish, love-induced confidence, had insisted he would be fine. "It's okay, the campus is crowded," he'd said, kissing her goodnight under the pale glow of a lamppost. "They wouldn't dare do anything now."
He was wrong. So terribly wrong.
They cornered him in a poorly lit, narrow alleyway that served as a shortcut between the academic block and the hostels. It was a path paved with old, uneven cobblestones, flanked by the high, windowless walls of the old gymnasium and the botany department's greenhouses. There were four of them this time, their bulky forms blocking both ends of the alley, their faces contorted into ugly masks of hatred in the dim yellow light of a single, flickering bulb overhead. Vikas was at the front, a cruel, predatory smirk on his face.
"Well, well, well," Vikas drawled, cracking his knuckles with a sound like pistol shots in the quiet alley. "Look who it is. Romeo himself. Think you're a big man now, huh? Climbing the ladder, are we? Stealing the President's girl."
Rihan's blood ran cold. The fragile confidence he had so carefully built in Manali shattered into a million pieces. In an instant, he was back to being the timid, frightened boy. "I don't want any trouble, Vikas," he stammered, his voice thin and reedy. He tried to back away, but another one of the bullies, a thick-necked boy named Sandeep, blocked his path.
"Too late for that, 'Romeo'," Sandeep snarled. "You need to be taught a lesson. A permanent one. You need to learn your place."
The first punch came from the side, unexpected and brutal, a starburst of blinding pain exploding in his jaw. The second blow came from behind, a vicious kick to the back of his left knee that buckled his leg and sent him sprawling onto the grimy, wet cobblestones. His books scattered around him.
Then they were all on him, a sickening, chaotic flurry of kicks and punches. He curled into a ball, his arms wrapped protectively around his head and stomach, but the blows rained down on his back, his legs, his arms. They were shod in heavy boots, and each impact was a dull, sickening thud that seemed to reverberate through his entire skeleton. He heard a sickening, sharp crack, and a blinding, white-hot pain exploded in his left leg, a pain so intense it eclipsed everything else. He screamed, a raw, agonized sound that was swallowed by the indifferent night.
They weren't just beating him; they were trying to break him. They were trying to erase the quiet happiness they saw on his face, to shatter the confidence he had dared to wear like a stolen coat. The last thing he remembered before the world dissolved into a vortex of pain and swirling darkness was Vikas's sneering face leaning down close to his.
"She won't want you when you're broken," he'd whispered, his breath foul with the smell of cheap tobacco. "Let's see how her precious angel looks when he can't even walk."
He woke up to the blinding white light and sterile smell of a hospital. A dull, throbbing agony seemed to emanate from every single cell in his body, but the sharpest, most insistent pain came from his left leg, which was encased in a heavy, suffocating plaster cast and elevated on a pillow.
He turned his head, a movement that took a monumental, agonizing effort. Ruhi was sitting in a chair beside his bed. Her face was a pale, rigid mask of controlled fury. Her eyes, usually so calm and serene, were blazing with a cold, terrifying fire he had only seen once before, in the student council office when she had confronted Vikas the first time. But this was different. This was a thousand times more intense. This was the fire of a controlled inferno, burning so hot it had turned to ice.
In the corner of the private hospital room, Kritika was huddled in a chair, her body wracked with silent, choked sobs, her colourful dupatta clutched in her hand like a lifeline. Ashutosh stood by the window, his back to the room, his massive shoulders tense. His fists were clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles were white. The air in the room was thick and heavy with a toxic cocktail of grief, guilt, and a simmering, murderous rage.
"Rihan," Ruhi's voice was a choked whisper. She reached out and took his hand, her grip surprisingly strong, almost desperate. Her hand was ice-cold. "You're awake."
"What... what happened?" he croaked, his throat raw and dry.
"They broke your leg, Rihan," Ashutosh said, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He turned from the window, and Rihan was shocked by the look on his friend's face. It was a thundercloud of pure, undiluted fury. "Two places. A compound fracture. And you have three broken ribs and a severe concussion. Who was it?"
Rihan's first instinct, the ingrained reflex of the victim, was to lie, to say he fell, to protect them from the inevitable trouble that would follow if they knew. He opened his mouth to say it, but then he looked at Ruhi. He saw the raw anguish in her eyes, the single, silent tear that traced a path down her pale cheek, and he knew he couldn't. He couldn't lie to her. Not after everything.
He whispered their names, his voice cracking. Vikas. Sandeep. The other two.
A muscle jumped in Ashutosh's jaw. "I'm going to kill them," he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, which was far more frightening than any shout. He turned and strode towards the door.
"Ashu, no!" Rihan cried, trying to sit up, but a gasp of excruciating pain escaped his lips and he fell back against the pillows. "Don't. It'll just make things worse."
"They put you in a hospital, Rihan! They broke your leg! How can it possibly get any worse?" Ashutosh shot back, his hand on the doorknob.
"Please," Rihan begged, his eyes pleading with his friend. "Please don't."
While the two friends were focused on each other, a strange, silent transformation was happening to Kritika. Her sobs subsided, replaced by a quiet, unnerving stillness. She looked from Rihan's broken form to Ruhi's face, her own expression a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. There was sorrow, yes, and rage on his behalf. But there was also something else, a dawning horror, a sliver of a terrible suspicion that was just beginning to take root in the back of her mind.
Ruhi ignored them all. She was in her own world, a world that contained only her and Rihan's pain. She leaned closer to him, her grip on his hand tightening. She stroked his hair, her touch impossibly gentle. "Everything will be fine," she murmured, her voice a hypnotic, soothing lullaby. "I'm here. I won't let anyone hurt you ever again." She then hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder. It was a gesture of profound love and comfort, but over his shoulder, her eyes were open. They were fixed on the door through which Ashutosh was about to storm, but the cold, blazing fire in them wasn't for him. It was a promise of retribution, aimed at the boys who had done this.
Kritika saw that look. It was a look she had never seen on a human face before. It was utterly devoid of pity or hesitation. It held a terrifying, absolute promise of something far worse than a simple college disciplinary action. A cold dread, heavier and more chilling than anything she had ever felt, washed over her. Her soul felt like it was shattering into a million tiny pieces. Without a word, she turned and fled the room, her face a mask of disappointment and a terror she couldn't yet name or understand.
Rihan, enveloped in Ruhi's embrace and clouded by a haze of pain and medication, only felt her love. "Please," he whispered into her hair, his own tears starting to fall. "Don't do anything rash. Promise me. They might hurt you."
Ruhi pulled back, a faint, chillingly serene smile on her lips. It was a shocking, terrifying sight on her tear-streaked face. She kissed his forehead, a soft, lingering kiss. "Don't you worry about me, my love," she said softly, her voice now calm and steady again. "You just rest. I'll take care of everything."
She stood up and walked out of the hospital room, her steps calm, measured, and deliberate.
Rihan, even in his haze, felt a sudden, inexplicable chill sweep through the room, colder than any draft. It was as if an angel of mercy had just walked out, and in her place, something else entirely, something cold and ancient and utterly ruthless, had been left to stand guard. And it was hungry for vengeance.