Morning came quiet, the kind of quiet that feels like a bruise after a storm.
Meher sat on the edge of her bed, her knees pulled to her chest. The sunlight slipped in through the curtains, soft and pale. Her phone buzzed once, Rhea's message glowing on the screen.
"You're still mad? Mom says you'll feel stupid later."
She stared at the message for a long moment.
Then she deleted it. No reply. Not this time.
Her body still hurt from training, but the ache felt good, honest, earned. Every sore muscle reminded her she wasn't helpless anymore.
She took a deep breath and stood up. Today wasn't about being the good daughter or the quiet sister.
Today was about her. Across the city…
Devian flipped through the folder his man placed on the table. Photos. Reports. Background checks.
"Boss, the girl you mentioned, we found her," the man said. "She's local. Name's Meher Khanna. Seventeen. School student. Parents own a small export business."
Devian's jaw tightened slightly. "And?"
"Clean record. Nothing suspicious. Ordinary family. Step-sister. Rhea. That's it."
He stared at the photo clipped on top Meher's school ID picture.
The same eyes.
Same soft face.
But alive.
He leaned back, expression unreadable. "Ordinary, huh?" he murmured. Something in him didn't believe that. Nothing about her presence felt ordinary.
"Keep eyes on her. No contact," he said. "If she's a ghost, I want to know where she came from."
That evening, Meher walked home alone from the gym. The streets buzzed with life, honking rickshaws, chai stalls, vendors yelling about their last batch of samosas. It was the kind of ordinary chaos she'd once longed for.
Now, it felt fragile, like glass that could shatter any second. A group of boys passed her, loud and laughing. She flinched out of habit. Then she stopped herself.
Her trainer's voice echoed in her head: "Don't look small. Keep your shoulders straight. Eyes up." She did. And for once, they looked away first.
A small victory.
But it mattered. Later that night, Devian sat on his terrace, staring at the city lights. Mumbai looked different from above, quiet, almost peaceful, if you ignored the noise.
He poured a drink, thinking of her face again. The same face he'd seen lifeless two years ago.
He wasn't a man who believed in miracles or fate. But this… this was something else. He turned to his guard. "When she leaves home," he said slowly, "no one follows her too close. I just want to know if she's safe."
The man frowned. "Safe? From who?"
Devian didn't answer. Maybe from the world. Maybe from him.
In her room, Meher flipped through her notebook, her secret journal of "what not to do this time."
She wrote slowly, almost trembling:
Day 16.
I saw that car again. The black one. Maybe it's coincidence. But it felt… familiar.
If this is fate, I'll be ready.
She closed the book and turned off the light.
Somewhere across the city, a man she once died in front of sat in the dark, thinking about the same pair of eyes. Neither of them knew it yet, but the line between past and present had already blurred.
And fate… was waiting for its cue