Better Feared Than Loved

With the tracker in place, Harshal could feel it: a faint internal sense of where everyone was, small dots of awareness he hadn’t asked for and didn’t fully understand yet.

“Time’s up,” Birdy said, already backing toward the window. “I’m going. Don’t call me again for at least five years.”

Harshal dropped to the ground. Everyone rushed to him, and Sahil lifted him up.

Birdy pressed a wing to its forehead. “Oh god. Why did I have to choose this one?” It glanced back at him. “And this lazy ass wasted his only peak too.”

Sahil rubbed his back and laid him on a bench while Dhruv grabbed a bottle and threw water on him.

“Idiots, it’s not gonna work,” Birdy said.

“What? Why?” Pranav Sir asked.

“Because he’s out from exhaustion, not sleepy. He’s almost unconscious.”

“So aren’t you gonna help him?” Saanvi asked.

“Nope. Anyway, I can’t do shit,” Birdy said, drifting toward the window. “And please, I’m going.”

“How do we wake him up?” Aditi Ma’am asked.

“Aah, you’re teachers. He’s unconscious, not in a coma. Do I really have to clarify this too? He’ll wake up when he’s okay. And now, don’t call me again for at least five years.”

“So what do we do now?” Pranav Sir asked, before the bird had even fully vanished from view.

“Like we have a choice,” Dhruv said. “We train.”

Aditi Ma’am nodded slowly. “We should pick partners who complement our style, not just whoever we’re comfortable with.”

“But first, we need to get somewhere,” Sahil said.

“Where?” Riya asked.

“The whole city is ours,” Priya said. “There isn’t a single person here other than us.”

They turned to look at Harshal, and as they did, the air and the ground around them shifted into something cool and cozy.

Harshal woke on a strange bed to a loud bell ringing through the room. He tried to sit up and clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound hit him so hard that he collapsed back onto the pillow. Sahil rushed in and pushed a button, and the ringing stopped.

“What is this?” Harshal asked. “And where are we?”

“Morning, boss.”

Harshal turned his head toward the voice slowly. His neck was stiff, as if he hadn’t moved it in a long time. Sahil stood beside the bed with his arms loosely crossed, grinning, soft light from a window falling across the clean, woody-smelling room behind him.

“Sahil, where are we?” Harshal asked, his voice rough and dry. “And why are you calling me boss?”

“It’s okay,” Sahil said. “You’ve been out for a month, and we’re in our new base.”

Harshal sat up and let his legs drop over the edge of the bed. When his foot touched the floor, the cold went straight up through his heel. “Please, Sahil, don’t call me boss.”

“It suits you.”

“I know,” Harshal said.

He pushed himself up, but his legs shook the moment they took his weight. His knees gave and the room tilted, but Sahil’s hand caught his arm halfway down, firm and warm, and held him there.

“It’ll be fine,” Sahil said.

Harshal breathed out and steadied himself against Sahil’s grip. “And really, where are we?”

They went down the stairs together, Sahil holding his hand. The steps were cool and smooth under Harshal’s bare feet, and his legs trembled on every landing. A low murmur of voices carried up the stairwell, along with the smell of food being cooked.

“Leave my hand,” Harshal said. “I’m neither your girlfriend nor your grandpa.”

“Sure,” Sahil said. “You aren’t suitable for either of those places. But more importantly, you’re our leader.”

“So that’s why I got three rooms inside one big room,” Harshal said, “and a bathroom bigger than my own room.”

“Maybe I wasn’t the one allotting the rooms. Aditi Ma’am was.”

“Better.” Harshal rolled his shoulders, and the stiffness pulled at him. “And do I really need to be in your meetings? I just woke up, and that too after a month.”

“You’re the boss. You have to be there.”

Harshal pressed a hand to his forehead. “Okay, please stop chanting boss-boss. It’s really annoying.”

On the next landing, the faint dots of awareness the tracker had given him sat at the back of his mind. He went through them one by one, then went through them again.

“One more thing,” he said. “There should be twelve of us. I can sense eleven. Why are there only ten of you?”

Sahil didn’t answer right away. The murmur of voices from the floor below filled the gap.

“Dude,” Sahil said. “Riya died.”

They both stopped on the stairs.

Harshal pulled his hand out of Sahil’s grip, but his weak legs gave and he fell back against the wall, the cold of it pressing through his shirt. “When did this happen?”

“When you were unconscious. She was infected by the cutter Kabir broke.”

“But Birdy healed everyone.”

“It did, but only the ones with visible damage. She kept it to herself until Birdy left.”

“But how?”

“We somehow stopped the bleeding, but we couldn’t stop the infection. And we didn’t have the medication or any way to put her down without pain.”

Harshal pushed off the wall and grabbed Sahil’s collar with both hands. “What did you do?”

Sahil closed his fingers around Harshal’s wrist. “We broke... we broke her neck. We thought it would kill her instantly, but she was alive for three minutes.”

Harshal’s grip loosened.

“You fucking made it more miserable for her.”

Dhruv and Pranav Sir stood at the gate, the evening air cool against their faces and the iron bars still faintly damp under their hands.

“He hasn’t eaten anything in two days,” Dhruv said, his eyes on the building behind them.

“He seems okay to me,” Pranav Sir said. “You don’t need to worry. He’s been out a long time, and he’ll get back. He’s just a little rusty.”

He patted Dhruv on the back and led him away from the gate.

Harshal sat at the meeting table with his hands flat on the cool wood, his eyes on the portrait on the wall across from him. The light from the window caught the glass so that Riya’s face was half hidden by the glare. Behind him, a chair creaked as someone shifted their weight.

“Why is it there?” he asked, his voice low and tired.

“What is there?” Saanvi asked.

“The portrait. There’s no need for it to be there.”

“It’s a memorial for Riya.”

“We already have a grave outside the meeting hall.” He kept his eyes on the frame. “Do we really need a portrait too? Shouldn’t there be maps of the city instead?”

“There should be,” Saanvi said, “but it’s to honor her.”

Harshal finally looked away from the portrait and at her. “You want to honor a dead body that will never be of any use to us?”

As Pranav Sir and Dhruv walked past the grave, they saw Diya sitting in front of it, crying. As they got closer, they could hear her sobbing.

“Why...” Her voice cracked. “Why...?”

A sob shook her shoulders.

“Why did you have to...” She choked on the words. “Why did you have to leave me here? I have... I have no one.” Her breath hitched. “Please... please come back.”

Pranav Sir and Dhruv rushed to her. Pranav Sir grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently.

“Diya, please don’t cry. We’re here for you. It will be okay. We’re sad that she left too, but please, don’t lose yourself.”

Harshal and Saanvi came toward the grave, Harshal leaning on a stick to walk. Pranav Sir still had his hand on Diya’s shoulder.

“What are you crying for?” Harshal asked.

Diya wiped the tears from her face. “Nothing. I was sad that we lost...” Her voice broke. “That we lost Riya.”

“And you’re crying for someone who won’t be here to see you cry.”

“Harshal, please stop,” Pranav Sir said.

“For what? I’m not lying, and I’m not saying anything bad. It’s the truth. Can’t you see? We’ve been put in this world to die, and to survive, we only need ourselves.”

“Okay, please stop,” Saanvi said. “Being the leader doesn’t give you control of our emotions.”

Diya got up. “It’s fine, Saanvi. It’s no use.” She turned to Harshal. “And you’re no leader. You’re just a monster. Even worse than Kabir.”

Pranav Sir and Saanvi led her away.

“Like I care,” Harshal said.

“Do you even know what you did?” Dhruv said in a low voice.

“Dhruv, I said I don’t care.”

“Then go fuck yourself.”

Dhruv walked off.

“Leader, my ass,” he muttered as he went.

As they moved away, they saw Aditi Ma’am coming toward them.

“Diya, what happened? Why are you crying?”

“Nothing, ma’am,” Saanvi said. “What happened is we got a tyrant for a leader.”

Aditi Ma’am went on toward the grave. Harshal had stayed behind, and now he stood alone at the foot of it with his back to her, so he didn’t see her coming. She stopped a few steps short, half hidden by the corner of the meeting hall.

He lowered himself onto one knee, gripping the stick, and his shoulders began to shake as he sobbed.

“I’m sorry, Riya,” he said, his voice breaking. “But I had to show them the truth. Please... please forgive me.”

A sob tore out of him.

“And I... I promise you, I’ll bring down every one of them who did this to our world. I promise.” His voice cracked. “I’ll avenge your death.”

He bent all the way down, his forehead nearly touching the earth.

“Please forgive me.”

Aditi Ma’am watched from where she stood, unseen. “I don’t know about our leader,” she said quietly, “but we sure got a great actor.”