~IRAANYA KASHYAP~

"You are safe," his whisper is hot and sudden, scorching the skin behind my ear. His fingers hook under my jawbone, the pressure yanking my chin up. "Only until you forget," he murmurs. "Only if it stays between us." His free hand starts dragging under my skirt, the other clamps over my mouth suffocating any sound.

My cries comes out muffled when his palm dig into my calves, until crescent marks of his nails start appearing. "You'll wear knee length socks tomorrow, okay?"

I shake my head, an immediate refusal and the response is immediate as well, punishing, a tight slap on my face until flaring pain burns my cheek… but not as much the pain in my heart.

Iraanya, do something. Stop him.

I-I... can't move…I'm frozen under his grip.

Just bite his hand.

I..I feel numb.

Scream for help.

M- my throat feels dry.

Don't let him do this.

It's already happening.

Run. Run. Run.

​His hand vanishes.

The sudden absence of pressure is a shock, leaving a throbbing ache along my jawline. My eyes fly open yet I don't dare move until the steady ceiling swims into focus above me.

But the air in my lungs refuses to cooperate. Each intake of breath is shallow, a painful hitch in my throat that refuses to settle into rhythm. I'm shaking, but not visibly.

It's over. It got over when you were thirteen. I tell myself the words, but the tremor in my chest is the only truth I can feel.

I close my eyes tight, digging the heels of my palms into my sockets exhaling loudly.

Why won't he stop crawling in my head every night?

Why am I still scared of him even if he's seven thousand miles away?

I'd tried everything: counting backwards, the ridiculous no screen policy one hour before bed, breathing exercises my therapist suggested. And let me tell you one thing. Nothing worked.

Insomnia is the worst friend you can ever have. It consumes peace from your body like a parasite, leaving you hollowed out, a ghost in your skin.

Sleep has been unkind to me. Even when it finally comes, it brings nightmares with itself… his evil laugh, venomous threats switching to distant loud crashing sound of a car.

Tossing and turning endlessly comes to an end with the dawn which arrives like an apology for every sleepless gloomy night... a beautiful, colourful start.

I throw on my hoodie and step out, letting the morning air rush against my exhausted skin. The air outside is chill like a shock that wakes the bones but numbs the thoughts, momentarily providing me peace of mind. The only thing I crave with heart. The garden stretches endlessly with trimmed hedges adorned by flowers.

When I close my eyes, I remember Delhi's chaos, the uneven pavements outside our home, the smell of monsoon mud, mumma's voice calling me back from the gate.

How this orderly mansion where I've been nothing but been safe since day one can feel strange despite the cracked space back home that exploited my sanity to the point that my whole personality is nothing but an exhausting, moment-to-moment act… a desperate, fragile defense to convince the world (and myself) that the terrified child inside is finally gone.

I take another few steps down the path, where the garden splits into two directions. One side leads to the fountain courtyard, the other to a narrow cobblestone lane disappearing behind a line of tall hedges of the left wing.

It's the one part of the mansion that is locked away. That fact alone makes my chest ache with immediate, furious curiosity.

"Good morning, Mr. Brown." I greet the guard, a wall of black suit standing outside the front doors.

"Morning, Miss. Kashyap," he replies, nodding politely.

I move toward the front doors, my pulse suddenly thumping with a thrill and reckless beat… a perfect distraction but Oscar Brown shifts in front of me, his body creating an immovable barrier between me and the front door. His eyes are full of that familiar, controlling warning.

"Not this way, Miss Kashyap." His voice slice through the quiet morning air polite yet warningly.

"Why?" I ask, my tone lighter than the pulse quickening in my throat. "What's there?"

"Restricted area," he says, in that flat dead tone men use when they're just following rules written by someone with far too much power.

"Restricted for whom? I live here now, remember?" My voice edges on desperation. I just need a fucking distraction. A reckless adventure for the dopamine hit.

"Orders Ma'am. No one is allowed there."

"Order from whom?" I ask, shoving my hands deep into my hoodie pockets. I already know the answer but I want to hear it aloud, to make it real. To test the limits of his power in his own house.

He looks straight ahead, past my shoulder. "Orders from Mr. Accardi, ma'am ."

"Well," I say sweetly, "tell Mr. Accardi his mansion has a very confusing sense of hospitality."

And before he can respond, I turn on my heel. I need to look like I've retreated, even though I've only just begun. I have to know what's behind that door, or I'll go insane.

A locked door with a guard out is all the invitation I need.

My defeated footsteps fade down the courtyard until the fountain greets me with a low, gurgling sound that feels like a mocking laughter of my failed plan to enter the left wing.

I'm not just looking at a fountain, I'm drowning in the thoughts of that new, forbidden mystery of the left wing.

Restricted area. The words still burn at the back of my mind. What kind of absurdity is that? In his own house?

It's not a vault or a secret military base, it's just a wing with some rooms. My eyes narrow, tracking the hypnotic arc of the water. What could possibly be so sensitive, so secret, that one can't even walk past the threshold?

I mean, it's like he's hiding something or someone.

It's personal and it's dark.

Or some room full of things he doesn't want people to see. Maybe he doesn't want himself to see it.

​I sigh, the sound barely audible above the distant, rhythmic thump-thump breaking through the noises in my head, the familiar sound of a certain morning runner.

Unlike my own desperate, frantic heart, I don't turn behind immediately to see him, stubbornly staring at the water.

Alonzo appears from the stairs beside the fountain, the white t-shirt damp with sweat, outlining the strong, defined slope of his chest and abs underneath. His hairs are damp like dew drops on leaves, curls falling over his forehead.

Thin gold light from the sunrise rises behind him, haloing the broad shoulders and something almost ruinous in how effortlessly beautiful he looks, undone by dawn.

He stares at my face for a long, long moment like dissecting my wrecked emotions or reading what's written in them.

Although I should look away but this time I feel a thrill of pure, rebellious heat uncurl in my chest, and I meet his stare with an equal, terrifying intensity, almost challenging on who blinks away first.

Those impossible green eyes look heavier than usual, exhaustion sitting beneath them.

We hold eye contact for a moment before Alonzo looks away, heaving a sigh of pure annoyance.

Iraanya-one, Alonzo-zero. Yayy.

Alonzo drops heavily onto the marble edge beside me, his knee brushing mine.

The nightmare of an hour ago, makes me jerk back an inch from the contact of sheer mass of human skin.

The situation being different and I would've blushed from the radiating heat.

His expression shutters instantly. The annoyance he'd been broadcasting a second ago vanishes, replaced by blankness. He saw the sudden twitch of my leg and the way my entire body went rigid.

"It was not because of you." My mind screams.

He stares at me before shifting, not away entirely, but just enough so there's a small gap between us.

"You don't even greet your elders anymore." His deep voice stirs, chest rising and falling, breath ragged from the run.

What, his majesty got offended? Elders. You're just eight years older than me. Or maybe, Iraanya, What if he liked hearing you say good morning?

My stomach flips at the thought. No. He doesn't care. He's just like attention, of being acknowledged like a king.

I lift my brow, a teasing smile that reaches my eyes. "Are you by chance upset by the thought that I didn't wish you good morning?"

He ignores the question, looking at my side to the spilling water, his jaw working, a muscle ticking near his ear. "As a wise mentor, I'm reminding you of manners."

I bark out a short, ungraceful laugh.

"Yeah, sure. Wise people don't sulk because someone forgot to say good morning."

"Forgot?" He tilts his head, the light cutting through his perfect jawline. "It's been a week, Iraanya."

​Stop saying my name like that. Stop it!! It shouldn't feel like a hand gripping my throat, pulling me under. A sudden, dizzying wave of longing hits me, hot and sickening, quickly replaced by white-hot hate… hate for him, hate for his control, and most of all, hate for the fact that my body reacts to him like this.

I hate that my name sounds like a stolen code of secret on his tongue. I'm not supposed to want anything from an arrogant man like him yet I want him to say it again.

He drags the towel from his neck, wiping the sweat from his temple. "I heard you offer your sweet little morning wishes to the gardener, but somehow, they stopped at me."

Wait. When did he hear me interacting with the gardener? And why does he sounds like a child whose favorite toy is ignored.

I don't say anything for a while. Because he's right. I stopped greeting him after that tutoring session where he looked at me too long, too quietly that I couldn't unhear the sound of my heartbeat after. I was so struck by his captivating gaze that everything around me started fading away.

It would be a lie if I say that Alonzo Accardi is not a distracting man. He distracts me in even the simplest of actions whether it is while eating breakfast, marking on my test paper or simply sitting beside me.

So, I've come up with solutions to dodge these distractions.

Number one– Avoid Alonzo Accardi.

Number two– when he's at the dining table with me, use mobile phone.

Number three– When he's sitting beside you….wait… I haven't figured out number three yet.

I shift slightly, and the marble is cold beneath my bare skin. My movement causes my elbow to briefly graze his hip, creating a spark of unwelcome heat. He tenses, and I feel the hard ridge of muscle under the thin, wet cotton.

I look at him and my heart stops to beat for a moment at his intense gaze on me. "Umm… Maybe I just assumed greetings are optional for… cohabitants."

I internally cringe at myself. Cohabitants? Really, Iraanya? What next? Existing organisms? Shared oxygen consumer?

"Cohabitants," he repeats, like tasting the word, and it sounds even more ridiculous when he says it in that low Italian-accented tone. "I'm not your roommate, Iraanya."

I smile, the deliberate mocking smile designed purely to annoy him. "Could've fooled me. You act like one. Always nosing around."

​He leans a little closer, one arm flopping behind me on the stone. Up close like this, I could count the flecks of gold created by sunlight in his irises and the utter lack of discernible human emotion in them.

"That's because." His eyes, like chips of green ice glint, slight amusement flickering there. His fingers drum lightly on the stone just centimeters from the small of my back. "You keep doing things that need…. supervision."

God, the nerve. Supervision. Like I'm a child or a prisoner. I want to scream that I saw more death and darkness before I turned eighteen than he will see in his whole carefully managed life. He doesn't know what I need. I need to be free. Free from demons clawing my skull every night.

I meet his gaze, ignoring the warmth of his proximity. "By the way your guard refused me to enter the Left wing." I rush out, feeling the need to change the topic to push back the suffocating closeness between us.

He looks at me, thin line forming his lips. "Another reason why you need supervision. It's called respecting the boundaries of the people who shelter you."

Boundaries. My foot. Your lips are practically centimetres away from mine.

"Why? Are you hiding a secret lover of yours there?" I didn't mean it to sound so much like a desperate probe, but it came out like that.

He lifts his eyebrow, amusingly, a slight twitch in the corner of his eye. "Getting jealous already Miss. Kashyap?"

My ears burn, the physical betrayal of embarrassment making my neck flush hot. I look away, forcing a nonchalant shrug. "Just a small judgment drawn out of your charming personality."

He hums. "You caught me." He drawls. "How tragic, I'll have to relocate her now."

He lets the lie hang, watching me squirm under the embarrassment, drawing pleasure from it. The worst part is, I believe the lie. And the thought of another woman makes me want to push him into the fountain.

"Iraanya, you shouldn't wander," he says finally, his voice stripping itself of all games. Within a second all the easiness, the comfort in his voice is gone, taking a turn to seriousness and coldness. "There are walls that don't like being disturbed."

"I thought the walls didn't care who walked past them."

"They do," he replies slowly, his eyes fixed on me yet a distant, haunting look drawn within them, like recalling a terrible memory. "If they've burned something."

​Burned. The word hits me like a physical blow. The smell of smoke from the nightmare is suddenly in my lungs. My heart stops as I recall the twisted metal, the awful silence after the crash, the way everything was just… gone. Does he know that feeling too? He's felt the fire too? What did he burn? Was it a person? Was it a secret? I look at him, my fear suddenly raw and  laced with curiosity.

I fix my eyes on him, gathering the last shred of my recklessness, the need to defy him overriding my fear. "And what if I still defy you?"

Alonzo's eyes darken, all the gold flecks seeming to burn. He inhales sharply, getting up, his large figure towering over me. He's so close, I've to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, the sunrays flickering over him like a dark unholy figure brought to life.

​He lifts his large hand slowly and deliberately, moving toward my neck. I involuntarily suck in a breath, my body freezing, anticipating the heat of his skin.

His gaze dips briefly to my lips before returning to my eyes. "Then you'll understand what I meant by burned things. Better stay away, Iraanya." The tip of his forefinger meets my hoodie's collar. He brushes off the dry leaf from there, the contact is minute yet it feels like an eternity.

He turns to leave, and I catch the faintest glimpse of something on his neck: a scar. It's a jagged, pale line disappearing beneath the edge his t-shirt.

It looks like an old, forgotten mark. The primal urge to know the story behind is overwhelming.

And for some reason, I look back toward the left wing. The shadows there look thicker now, the air colder. But my heart beats louder. Oscar Brown is still standing there with another guard on the other side.

I know this is going to land me in huge trouble if I attempt to go there. This is totally wrong, zero manners, total disrespect to my host, but what if it's something really big, something interesting?

Some places are forbidden.

Some people too.

And yet, I've always believed, it's the forbidden that teaches you what freedom costs. It's the forbidden that brings adventure and the thrill of being alive.

And if Alonzo Accardi– my tutor, my nemesis, the man with a secret scar says, "Don't go there."

I definitely, absolutely will.

Happy reading<3