The First Blood
Anika didn’t remember dropping the knife.
She only remembered the sound it made—metal kissing tile—soft, final.
Vikram Rao watched her carefully, the way one observes an animal deciding whether to fight or freeze.
“You see?” he said calmly. “Truth breaks people. Lies keep them alive.”
One of the men moved to grab her.
That was the mistake.
Anika reacted on instinct, not thought. She swung the bedside lamp with everything she had. It shattered against the man’s skull with a sickening crack. He went down without a sound.
The second man reached for his gun.
Too slow.
Anika slammed the door into his arm, heard bone give way, then shoved him back with a force she didn’t know she possessed. He stumbled, hit the wall, and collapsed—breathing, but broken.
The room went quiet.
Vikram didn’t shout.
Didn’t panic.
He smiled.
“There she is,” he murmured. “Your mother had the same fire.”
Anika grabbed the knife again, hands slick with sweat. “Where is she?”
Vikram stepped closer, unconcerned by the blade pointed at his chest. “If I tell you… you’ll die trying to save her.”
“Then I’ll die,” Anika said. “But not like you.”
For the first time, his smile faltered.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Vikram stepped back. “I called them. Self-defense story already prepared.” He adjusted his cufflinks. “You attacked my men. You fled the scene. You killed an officer yesterday.”
Anika’s blood turned to ice.
“You framed me.”
“I owned you,” he corrected. “From the day you were found in that cupboard.”
She ran.
Through the window.
Down the fire escape.
Into the rain-soaked street where anonymity still existed.
Behind her, Vikram Rao calmly dialed a number.
“She’s awake,” he said. “Initiate Phase Two.”
By morning, Anika’s face was everywhere.
WANTED FOR QUESTIONING
SUSPECT IN MULTIPLE ASSAULTS
LINKED TO RETIRED OFFICER’S DEATH
She sat in an abandoned bus depot, soaked, shaking, reading the news on a cracked phone she’d stolen from one of Vikram’s men.
That was when the message came—from an encrypted app she didn’t recognize.
If you want your mother alive, stop running.
Attached was a location.
A hospital.
But not on any map.
Anika followed it anyway.
The building looked abandoned—windows boarded up, sign rusted beyond recognition. Inside, the smell of antiseptic mixed with decay.
A woman lay on a bed in the far room.
Thin.
Pale.
Alive.
Anika knew her instantly.
“Amma…” she whispered.
The woman’s eyes fluttered open.
Recognition bloomed—then terror.
“They found you,” her mother croaked. “You should have stayed hidden.”
Anika knelt beside her, tears falling freely now. “I won’t leave you.”
Her mother’s fingers tightened around her wrist with surprising strength.
“You already paid the price,” she said. “Now make them pay.”
Footsteps echoed in the corridor.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Her mother whispered the last truth Anika hadn’t been ready for:
“Your father wasn’t the only one murdered that night.”
The lights went out.
And Anika realized—this wasn’t a rescue.
It was a trap.
And she had just walked straight into it.
