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I looked at him with a mean glare making him chuckle.
Was he also calling me insane? The same way my mother would have thought?
As if reading my mind, he replied with a gentle smile, “if you were insane, I must be worse than insane but that shouldn’t define us for what we are. If the world has a problem with it, the world can deal with it. Just know that I am always there for you, no matter what.”
And just like that, he melted my heart once again. My amazing husband, just what in the hell did I do so right to end up with him?
Guess, I have an entire life ahead of me to figure that out.
BONUS CHAPTER 3
*VIAAN*
“Viaan,”I was woken up by rapid shaking. My blurred visions focused on the one face that made my heart soft. I could even recognize her in the dark of the night, with just her gentle touch. However, her face harbored tension that only I could perceive in the dim moonlight that entered from the open window.
“Ma?” I asked, my hoarse voice coming out in a worry that had been induced from her stress.
My mother, Aradhana placed a finger over her lips, signaling me to remain quiet as she looked over her shoulder to watch the patrolling guard walk by the window. The darkness of the room hid us both in its veil. We waited till the sound of the footsteps dimmed before my mother quickly helped me out of the bed and exit the room.
I looked at her soundless feet which usually used to invoke the sound ofpayalwhenever she walked. Today, she wasn’t wearing them.
We were careful enough to not get caught by the patrolling guards as we headed towards the stables. Many times we had to stop and hide behind the pillars and in the darker corners of the strongholds that we knew like the back of my hand.
It was way past midnight. The moonless night was darker than the other new moons. My heart thundered in my head as my hitched up breathing made my senses overwhelmed.
I knew it instinctively. The time my mother had been preparing me for so long had finally come.
We slid into the stable, quietly.
It was darker inside than it was outside. It took some time for my eyes to adjust. Nevertheless, I could see the silhouettes in the center of the stable. They were turning to face us as my mother hurried towards them.
The first thing that my eyes could make out was the familiar face that I had initially hated but then it was my mother who had taught me well. She had taught me not to hate someone just because I thought she had been unfair to me and her. She made me realize that they were just as much victims as we were. Asha’s face became clear in the dark of the stable.
Two of her sons were sleeping on her laps while he eldest son Vikrant was staring at the night sky from the skylight.
“Are you ready? Did you get everything you need?” Mother asked her in a hushed voice as she handed her a pouch.
“Yes, I have everything here,” Asha replied tiredly, covering her swollen belly with her veil.
“This has some money, the tickets of the train and details of the boarding pass. The agent will need it,” my mother gushed hurriedly as she helped her up after picking up one of the sleeping children.
“ButDidi, why are you telling me this?” Asha asked, confused.
“It’s better if both of us know about it, we don’t know what kind of situation can come up,” mother replied as she grabbed Daksh’s hand who was rubbing his eyes and headed towards the other side of the stable. It was a deadend for anyone who wasn’t familiar with the layout.
But for us, it was a door for our escape.
Putting Neel down, she pushed some hay away which revealed a trap door that could fit a person through it. She opened the hatch and lit the lantern to illuminate the steps in the ground.
“Viaan, go down, take this,” she instructed, making me take the lantern and head down. I waited for her next instruction as she helped Asha down the stairs. Vikrant who enjoyed following me around, had jumped his way behind me but Daksh held onto Asha’s dress as mother had picked up a crying Neel, trying to lull him back to sleep.
That was when we heard someone shout loudly outside. Soon we could hear the blaring of the horns, indicating an emergency.
The shouting intensified as mother rushed after Asha. The sound of the stable door being pulled apart echoed loudly as mother closed the hatch behind her and our little group rushed through the tunnel.
It was a short tunnel that would lead us right outside the stronghold walls. Towards the unpaved road that not many traveled through.
We got out of the tunnel and down the unpaved path when we heard right behind us.
