Aron: Not So Lonely Anymore

Ashura has been doing up and down to the hospital ever since Reavan was admitted. Each time he visits, he leaves behind flowers, or fruits for Reavan to consume and also as a gesture of good will that he read about in his book on ‘human relations’ recently. He is relieved from that duty as Reavan is finally getting discharged.

Ashura decides to go meet up with Reavan in the hospital as they plan to do a sleepover at Reavan’s along with Zack. After all, they have to plan upon deciding how to lure out Aron from his hiding and the best place to think about it is in Reavan’s. this is so, as Ashura too is comfortable to visit there and it won’t become a burden for any of them. Well, Zack has his own methods of escaping his wife’s grasps, and she too had become lenient due to her knowing about Reavan’s injury. Certain things she too understands, that it is a friend’s duty and thus has to be done.

**************

It was getting colder and colder as they neared winter, Maya fetches Reavan’s trench coat and takes it to the hospital along with her. She is accompanied by Ashura who holds onto the coat. They enter his room to find that Zack had already lent Reavan his set and that Reavan was finally ready to go home.

The weather was marvellous and so was their ride home. Maya alone returned home while the other three directly went over to Reavan’s with a serious conversation as to whether Aron knew if Ashura was his brother. Every time this topic came up the end result was, no one knew for certain. Even when Ashura could bet that Aron didn’t, the argument begins as to how, and that too by demanding for a proper justification for which Ashura’s answers never satisfy the two of them.

As this argument goes on, they enter Reavan’s house via the garage. The house has nothing peculiar except that the house feels warmer than the outside. Sensing the same, Reavan hides Ashura behind him and asks Zack to be warned. Ashura is initially confused but knew it quite instantly that someone had been living here since that morning.

Reavan picks up his gun just in case, as a precaution for what may happen next, and who knows what may happen.

Looking at how serious Reavan looked, Aron decided to come out of hiding, he just hid to toy with his old friend and also to give Reavan a sense of assurance that his home was empty and as welcoming as it usually was, by being the same, that is vacant.

“Alright! I am out… so, you must be Ashura” Aron comes in view of them with his hands raised in the air and mouth uttering nonsense. Isn’t that obvious that I am Ashura? Anyway, you know the other two, so what’s the point in even asking, were to trying to distrac- Ashura’s mind was running in the lines of the same when suddenly Aron leaps out with the support of the sofa, trying to kick Reavan and attack him all the same. Reavan moves backwards, little did he expect Aron to start fighting immediately.

Reavan throws the gun towards Zack and begins his hand-to-hand combat with Aron, with the thought that he hadn’t changed even after so many things that happened in both of their lives. Every time they met; all they did first was have a hand-to-hand combat.

All that Reavan currently did was dodge him, and Aron kept attacking, Ashura thought of intervening seeing that Reavan was hurting from his healing injury, he was scared that it might re-open, but was stopped by Zack with a show of hands.

It meant more to Reavan than just a ritual between the two, it was one of the things that he had missed and longed for since he was arrested. He starts questioning Aron as he continued dodging.

“Why are you back you moron?”

“didn’t I mention in my letter?”

“I asked you why are you here in my house, are you planning on hurting me more, now that you are back?”

“No, no! I came to die in your hands and before that I just wanted to meet up with this genius of yours”

“And why would you want to do that?”

“Obviously to know how he could see through my plans and bring me to the state I currently ‘am in”

“And what state are you in that you dare seek for him, even if you know that you have to go through me first?”

“Well, my gang betrayed me, and I have no one to safe guard me, and also I guess God had other plans and wanted to end my story here, that’s why. It doesn’t matter, I just want to die in your hands, kill me faster, also, as my final request before death, I want to have a good conversation with Ashura, and that is my death wish. Please grant me the same”

Reavan is shocked to hear it, but is still managing just enough to dodge his hits. “You know what, you wouldn’t say the same if I tell you something interesting”

“And what could that possibly be? How can it change my decision?”

“For a simple start, Ashura is your blood related brother.”

Aron stops at his punches, with a sudden absence of mind as to recollect what he just heard, it was hard to process at the same time hard to accept too.

This was Reavan’s chance, he got Aron by his legs and slid Aron to the ground and kneeled above him, as to restrict his movement.

Aron gave up and accepted defeat, Reavan got up, gave Aron a hand as he said, “you haven’t changed even a bit, but glad I won”

Aron laughingly comments as he grabs Reavan’s hand, “you caught me by surprise that’s that, You trickster!”

Ashura and Zack do not understand what was going on, thus stand by the side as if they dissolved into the background. Seeing those two, Reavan warns, “be careful guys, this is Aron and he may seem nice, but don’t forget he is a Cobra, that too the head of them all.”

Aron, thinking about his current scenario, and not self-pitying, comments, “silly you”

***********

They all sit by the garden side, with tea served by Reavan to all the guests. As they all laugh at the failure of their blueprint as to how to let Aron and Ashura meet, and catch him while he is at it.

Its ironical that even in this, Aron is ahead of them all. He arrived even as they were in their initial phase of planning the meeting.

They then start discussing the next plan as to what can be done to Aron legally now that he was in the custody of Reavan unofficially and also about what can be done to the cobra gang now that it had gone out of control.

They finally decided that it can all end if Aron becomes an approver. This could help in reducing his sentence too, though none of them were certain about how much. He had done a lot of crimes if killing, disobeying order, escaping the prison etcetera was considered. But if they understood that he was clean and never harmed the innocent, even then nothing changes, as he doesn’t have the power of execution and neither does he have any authority over deciding who lives and who dies in this society.

*************

Aron goes for a trail in the judiciary getting a reduced sentence upon becoming an approver, and is partially free to roam around with Reavan who had his custody for the reason of letting him know or show him the location of cobra gang’s base, his factory and other locations that he used for his trade.

Aron did as he promised to the law and each of his gang members get arrested by the police, which was a win-win for the cops as well as Aron. After all, all that Aron was trying to do was bring justice to the society but using wrong means.

Justice and legal system can change to accept and rectify the loop holes in the same, all that is needed for the same is the time and a deeper understanding of the system and at the same time, people like Aron who swore to protect the same.

************

Once they reached the factory and the raid was carried out, all were arrested except one. Joshua seems missing, and something seems off to Aron, he says to Reavan about the same, he turns in the opposite direction to search for him, if at all he finds him escaping.

As he turns, he gets shot by someone with a cobra tattoo, Aron falls to the ground with injury to his chest, Reavan turns to find Joshua, who has his gun raised, he is ready to shoot at Reavan when Reavan acts quickly to grab hold of his gun as he shoots the same at Joshua’s gun holding hand.

Joshua loses the grip of the gun as it drops to the ground and he holds his hand with that of the other, groaning in pain. Reavan hits him on his popliteal fossa (behind his knee), makes him kneel on the ground and cuffs his hands. He then collects the gun of Joshua and calls his subordinate to carry on further procedures.

He then rushes to Aron who is almost unconscious on the ground, blood spurting out like fountain from his chest. Reavan removes a handkerchief and presses it against the injury as he rushes to the hospital with Aron on his lap and seated in the backseat of his car.

His shirt becomes bloodied and Reavan can no longer figure out the location of the wound, it’s all red, nothing but blood. He keeps slapping on his face so that Aron doesn’t go unconscious, somehow manages to take him to the hospital half dead and half alive.

The doctor demands for a lot of blood from the blood bank as Reavan waits outside the ICU and thankfully Aron has AB negative blood group leading to acceptance of any kind of blood group available. His fate though seemed to lead to his death but his innate luck wants him to survive, and thus he had AB negative.

Aron was saved from the current risk of losing his life for the time being, but nothing could be said for certain. He might have to be hospitalized for at least a week to look at his progress.