Samaira Lakshmi Deshpande is caught between two worlds, two masks. Amidst the hunt for her missing twin and the pressure to fit her family's mold of the perfect daughter facade, she's trapped in a life she despises.
Everything shifts when a strange...
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Bangalore, India September
Samaira's POV
"Wh-What?" I asked with a staggered breath as I looked at my brother.
He nodded with an earnest expression before trying to embrace me in a hug. I protested keeping a hand on his chest and shoving him away from me.
I looked at me in warning as my eyes narrowed at him.
He knows how much I hate to be hugged. That too since that day.
My last hug was with Amaira the night before she disappeared and the one after that was where Adi embraced me to stop my panic attack.
And I was completely dumbstruck and broken to process the aftermath.
Since then I never hugged anyone.
Hugging feels traumatic now.
Despite his awareness of my aversion to hugs and the emotional trauma associated with them, he still attempted to embrace me.
A person passing by us gave a weird glance. I narrowed my eyes at her in return and she hastily turned away from us. Adi's eyes skimmed around us briefly before holding my wrist and tugging me towards the exit. I followed him with hurried footsteps and I could already feel invisible tremors in my body as I anticipated something bad.
As Adi guided me toward the exit, my pace quickened, matching the urgency in his movements. The hospital's familiar walls seemed to close in on me as an unspoken tension hung in the air.
Adi led me to a quieter corner near the hospital entrance, away from the prying eyes and curious glances. His expression was a mix of concern and hesitation.
"Out with it," I said, my voice betraying a tinge of anxiety. The bustling sounds of the city around us faded into the background as I waited for his response, feeling a knot tighten in my stomach.
Adi's expression was a mix of worry and hesitation as he spoke, "Samaira, I got a call from an unknown number. Yesterday. They claimed to have information about Amaira."
My heart raced. I tried to keep my emotions in check, but the invisible tremors within me turned into a storm. "What information?" I asked urgently, my voice barely audible.
Adi sighed, carefully choosing his words, "The person said they saw Amaira recently, that she's alive-"I cut off him mid-sentence.
"I know she is alive. We know." I said with a firm voice to which he nodded and started again. "But.." He hesitated, and a surge of hope and fear washed over me. "But what, Adi?" I pressed, tightening my grip on his arm, desperate for any scrap of information on Amaira.
"They want to meet in person, somewhere discreet. Their condition, Samaira-no police involvement, just us."
"Anyways we can't go to the police," I said quickly as my mind whirled with different things at a time overwhelming my thinking.
