Author's Pov:
Rain whispered against the city like a secret trying to be heard.
Mumbai never truly slept — it only learned to pretend.
From the rooftop opposite the old textile building, Reyaksh Adric watched through the scope of his binoculars, unmoving. His black shirt clung to him, rain tracing lines down his jaw, but he didn’t blink. The world below flickered in fractured reflections -neon, puddles, exhaust fumes — and somewhere among them, a man in a grey jacket entered the building he had been watching for two weeks.
“Target entered,” he murmured into his comms, voice low, unhurried.
Static. Then a calm reply crackled in his ear - “Proceed when ready, Ghost.”
He exhaled once, steady.
Ghost. The name they called him when he wasn’t supposed to exist.
He packed the scope, slipped the weapon into its case, and disappeared into the rain.
No one noticed. No one ever did.
The same night, across the city, Sayeera Mehroon was running late for her night shift at the library — the small one tucked behind the mosque street, the only place where silence still felt like home.
She moved quietly through the corridors, the faint scent of wet paper and ink wrapping around her. Her hands traced the spines of old books, pausing over one — The Sound and the Fury. She smiled faintly, remembering her therapist’s words: “You don’t need to read loud to be heard, Sayeera.”
The lights flickered once.
And in that brief darkness, something inside her chest tightened.
Whereas,
On the street below, Reyaksh stood beside his black motorbike, rain dripping off his gloves as he watched the library window from across the road.
Not part of the plan. Not on the mission sheet.
But something about that window — the faint amber glow, the solitary figure moving inside — pulled his eyes to it every night since he’d stumbled upon the place a week ago.
He didn’t know her name. He didn’t want to. What he knows is,she shouldn't be here.
Upstairs, Sayeera looked out.
For a moment, through the veil of rain, she saw him — a tall silhouette under a dim streetlight, face unreadable, eyes unreadably fixed on something unseen.
Their eyes met for less than a heartbeat — and then he turned away, melting into the mist like a ghost made of rain and breath.
She blinked, unsure if she had imagined it.
And yet, a strange thought crossed her mind.
He wasn’t supposed to be there.
But neither, perhaps, was she.
The power cut again. This time, it didn’t come back.
Sayeera turned toward the sound of footsteps echoing in the empty library hall. It wasn’t the soft shuffle of a coworker or the rustle of a late reader. It was heavier -deliberate.
Before she could move, a rough hand covered her mouth, and the scent of damp leather and smoke filled her lungs.
After that, the world turned into fragments — a van door slamming shut, rain hammering on metal, voices she didn’t recognize.
And then silence.
A silence so loud it split her open inside.
They dragged Sayeera through the rain-slick alley towards the warehouse, her shoes scraping against the ground as she fought for breath. The van door slammed, and the city’s noise vanished behind metal walls. When the world returned, it was colder — the smell of rust, oil, and damp stone. The men’s voices were a blur of threats and laughter, and the sound of her own heartbeat drowned them all.
By the time the door locked from outside, the light in the warehouse was dim and fractured, spilling through broken windows. What followed wasn’t loud — it was the quiet, cruel kind of violence that left echoes instead of bruises.
When it was over, she lay still, her body trembling, mind trying to retreat into the silence that once comforted her. Somewhere far away, thunder rolled — the only witness to what had been taken from her.
After an hour,
Inside that same alley, a man in his fifties paused at the warehouse’s broken entrance.
He shouldn’t have been there. He knew that.
But the faint cry — barely human, barely alive — stopped him cold.
He stepped inside, flashlight trembling in his hand. The sight before him froze the air in his lungs. A girl — bloodied, shivering, barely conscious — lay on the concrete floor.
For a moment, his world shattered into memories — of a son who walked away, of choices that cost too much.
He knelt beside her, his hands shaking as he covered her with his coat. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice breaking.
Then, distant voices — armed men, getting closer.
He looked toward the door.
He couldn’t stay. Not now.
With one last, pained glance, he disappeared into the night.
Miles away, Reyaksh was tracking a convoy through the city’s eastern docks ,another target. His earpiece buzzed with updates from Kian his best friend , but his eyes caught something else — a flash of blue fabric near a crumbling warehouse, half a block off his route.
He almost ignored it. Almost.
Then instinct twisted in his chest.
He turned the bike sharply and drove into the rain.
Minutes later, Reyaksh broke through the same door.
Gunfire. Two shots.
Then silence.
He found her exactly where the man had left her — wrapped in an oversized coat that didn’t belong there. She was barely breathing.
Something sharp and wordless clawed up his throat.
For a moment, Reyaksh just stood there. The smoke curled around him, gun still warm in his hand, heartbeat too loud against the ringing in his ears. The world narrowed to the shape of the girl lying before him—small, fragile, covered in someone else’s coat.
He dropped to one knee. Her pulse fluttered weakly beneath his fingers. He’d seen wounds before, more times than he wanted to remember, but this was different. This wasn’t a mission, a target, or a report waiting to be filed. This was someone’s daughter, someone who’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Think,” he told himself, voice low and raw. His training screamed one thing—call it in, keep the distance, move on before backup arrives. But the human part of him, the one he’d spent years burying under code names and silence, refused to move.
He looked around: the flicker of a single bulb, footprints in the dust, blood on concrete. Evidence. A trap if he stayed too long.
Still, he didn’t move.
His gloved hand brushed a strand of hair from her face. She stirred, only slightly, and a broken sound escaped her—something between a breath and a plea. That was enough.
Reyaksh swallowed hard, slipped his weapon back into its holster, and pulled off his jacket. He wrapped her in it, lifting her as gently as if she might break in his arms.
“This isn’t what I do,” he muttered under his breath, half to her, half to himself. But even as he said it, his feet were already moving toward the exit.
Outside, thunder cracked across the sky. His earpiece buzzed again—Kian’s voice, urgent.
“Ghost, are you clear?”
Reyaksh stared at the woman in his arms. The rain hit her face, washing away the grime and the blood and leaving only the faint rise and fall of her breath.
“No,” he whispered finally. “Not yet.”
He turned toward his bike, one arm still holding her close, the other reaching into his pocket for the detonator.
If the night wanted to keep its secrets, it would have to burn for them.
The rain had thickened to a silver curtain by the time Reyaksh reached his bike. The streets were nearly empty — just the hum of neon signs fighting the storm and the occasional flash of lightning cutting through the sky.
He set Sayeera down for a second, propping her gently against the wall while he swung a duffel from the side compartment. His movements were fast, efficient — training wrapped around panic. He tore through the bag, pulling out a thermal blanket, a small medical pouch, and an old helmet.
Her breathing was uneven but steady. She flinched when the thunder rolled again, and his jaw clenched at the sound. “It’s all right,” he said softly, not sure if she could hear him.
He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, tucking the ends close against her body to keep the wind from cutting through. Then he lifted her again — careful, deliberate — feeling the faint tremor in her limbs against his chest.
The bike roared to life beneath him, headlights slicing through the rain. He adjusted her so that she sat sideways in front of him, her weight leaning against his chest. His arm locked around her to keep her steady as he shifted gears.
For a heartbeat, he hesitated — his mind running through every rule he was breaking. The mission was still active. The perimeter still hot. He should be disappearing into the shadows, not carrying a stranger out of them.
But the thought of leaving her there — broken, nameless, forgotten — twisted something deep inside him.
“Hold on,” he muttered, as if she could. Then he kicked the throttle.
The tires hissed across the wet asphalt. The warehouse behind them glowed faintly in the mirror, and then — a flash. The explosion swallowed the night in orange fire.
He didn’t look back.
Wind whipped past, carrying the heat and smoke away. The road blurred into darkness, the rain stinging his face. Sayeera’s head rested against his shoulder, and he could feel her shallow breaths through the fabric of his shirt.
Reyaksh drove like a ghost through the storm, past checkpoints, through back alleys, down roads no one else remembered. Every turn, every heartbeat, was a promise he hadn’t planned to make.
When the city lights finally began to fade behind them, he slowed. The safehouse was still miles away, hidden beyond the industrial zone. For the first time that night, he let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
She was alive.
And somehow, that was enough reason to keep going.
The rain eased by the time Reyaksh reached the edge of the city. The bike sputtered once before he guided it into a narrow, unmarked lane between warehouses. There, hidden behind a half-collapsed gate, was a small, windowless building that looked abandoned to anyone who didn’t know better.
He stopped the engine and listened. No pursuit. Just the soft sound of the storm retreating.
Inside, the safehouse smelled of oil and dust. A single bulb flickered to life when he flipped the switch. The room held the bare minimum: a cot, a metal table, a shelf stacked with supplies, and a first-aid kit that had seen too many nights like this.
Reyaksh lowered Sayeera onto the cot, careful not to wake her. She stirred, a faint sound caught in her throat, then fell still again. He studied her face pale, streaked with rain, a few scrapes along her temple. Whatever had been done to her, she had fought hard. He could see it in the tension that still lingered in her hands.
He removed his gloves, set his gear aside, and crouched beside the cot. The old training whispered in his head: Stabilize, assess, move on. But this time the words felt mechanical, hollow.
He cleaned the small cuts on her arms, checking for fractures. When she flinched, his hand hesitated mid-air, but after a moment continued anyway. He wasn’t used to offering comfort, only orders and silence.
Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. She murmured something he couldn’t make out. He stayed still, watching the faint rise and fall of her breathing until the panic in his chest began to ease.
When he finally moved away, he sat on the edge of the table, elbows resting on his knees. The detonator lay beside him, the last spark of what he’d left behind. He stared at it for a long moment, then closed his fist around it.
There would be consequences, there always were. Someone would come looking for answers, maybe even for the girl. But for tonight, the mission could wait.
He stood, checked the locks, and dimmed the light so only a sliver fell across the cot. The storm outside had quieted to a steady drizzle, and inside the small room, there was only the hum of electricity and the slow, steady rhythm of another person’s breathing.
The next morning crept in through the cracks of the metal shutters, thin streaks of light cutting across the safehouse floor. The air still smelled faintly of smoke.
Sayeera stirred. Every muscle ached; the effort of simply opening her eyes felt heavy. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was, just the steady hum of electricity and the muted clatter of someone moving nearby.
When her vision cleared, she saw him.
The man from the rain. Black shirt, rolled sleeves, quiet movements that filled the space without sound. He was pouring water into a bowl, focused, distant.
She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her side. A sharp breath escaped her.
“Don’t,” he said without looking back. His voice was low, controlled,like a blade wrapped in cloth.
“You’ll reopen the wounds.”
Sayeera froze, uncertain if it was an order or advice. “Where… where am I?”
“Safe,” he replied. Nothing more.
He brought the bowl over and placed it on the table beside her. His hands moved with precision, cleaning a cut along her wrist, checking for swelling. She flinched once; he paused but didn’t apologize.
The silence stretched between them, awkward for her, natural for him.
“Did you..” she hesitated, “..bring me here?”
He gave a short nod. “You were left in the wrong place.”
Something in the way he said it made her chest tighten. “Who are you?”
“Someone who doesn’t stay in one place long.” He started packing up the supplies, each motion exact, methodical.
Sayeera watched him. The coldness in his voice wasn’t cruelty,it was distance. As if emotion was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
“Why did you help me then?” she asked softly.
That stopped him. For a second, his jaw tightened. When he spoke again, the words came out clipped.
“I don’t know.”
He turned away, rinsing his hands. “You need rest. Food’s on the shelf. Don’t leave this place until I say.”
Her gaze followed him.
Reyaksh stopped at the door, the light catching the sharp line of his jaw. For a moment, he didn’t turn , just stood there, as if deciding whether she was worth the question.
Then, without fully facing her, his voice cut through the stillness.
“What’s your name? And where do you belong?”
Sayeera blinked, startled by the sudden edge in his tone. “Sayeera,” she said quietly. Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to meet his eyes. “Sayeera Mehroon.”
He turned then, studying her with an expression she couldn’t read , half suspicion, half something else.
“Mehroon,” he repeated, as if testing the sound of it. “That name doesn’t belong to this part of the city.”
Her fingers tightened on the blanket. “I… don’t have a place anymore.”
For a brief second, something flickered in his gaze -pity, maybe. Or understanding. But it was gone before it could settle.
“Where do you belong?” he asked again, quieter this time.
Her eyes glazed over. She seemed to look somewhere far away — beyond the walls, beyond the night. “I… don’t know anymore,” she murmured. “I just wanted to go home.”
The air between them shifted. Something cold and sharp inside him faltered for a heartbeat. He saw it , the distant stare of someone trying to piece themselves back together while still standing in the wreckage.
He exhaled slowly, gaze softening for the briefest second before hardening again. “Then for now,” he said, “you stay here. Don’t move unless I tell you to.”
Her breathing hitched. “Why?”
“Because whoever left you like that doesn’t get to find you again.”
Her eyes filled, though she didn’t cry. There was nothing left to cry with , just exhaustion carved deep into her bones.
Reyaksh turned fully this time, his expression unreadable. He wanted to say you’re safe now , but the words felt useless, dishonest. Safety wasn’t something he believed in anymore.
Instead, he stepped closer, set a glass of water on the table beside her, and said quietly, “Drink when you can. Sleep if you can’t.”
He started to leave again, then paused at the door, rainlight catching the hard edge of his profile. inspecting his weapon.
And then he was gone.
The door clicked shut, and the silence that followed wasn’t peace , it was the kind that swallowed sound, leaving only the rhythm of her shallow breaths and the distant roll of thunder.
Sayeera lay still for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Her body was safe, but her mind was still trapped in that room - replaying echoes she couldn’t silence.
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