The next morning arrived with no gentleness.
Just the sound of her mother banging the steel plate on the counter and yelling at Chhavi for spilling tea.
Aarohi opened her eyes to the same ceiling crack she had stared at for years — the one shaped like a lightning bolt. Maybe it was fate mocking her. Telling her storms would always find her.
Her limbs ached. Her left wrist was sore from where the masked man had grabbed her. Her neck was stiff from sleeping hunched around Chhavi, shielding her like a human wall all night.
She sat up slowly, careful not to wake her little sister. Chhavi looked peaceful in her sleep, cheeks soft, lips parted slightly. Only in sleep did she look like a child — like someone untouched by the weight Aarohi carried alone.
Aarohi kissed her forehead and whispered, “Be good. I’ll come back soon.”
Her mother’s voice rang again from the kitchen. “If you’re late again, don’t bother coming back!”
Aarohi didn’t answer.
She slipped out of the house without breakfast, clutching her worn medical bag, half-hoping the roads would stay quiet. Half-hoping they wouldn’t.
---
The hospital was always cold in the morning — not the sterile chill of medicine, but a sort of impersonal indifference.
No one smiled at her as she walked in.
A few nurses nodded, one of the resident doctors barked at a junior, and a sweeper mopped the same corner he did every day at the exact same time. Routine made people feel safe. Aarohi envied them for it.
Inside the locker room, she unzipped her bag and changed into her coat. Her fingers hesitated near the mirror. Her lower lip was still slightly swollen. She dabbed some lip balm over it and tied her hair into a low bun, pulling strands around her face to hide the faint mark near her jaw.
The hospital name tag — A. Sharma, Intern — hung crooked. She straightened it.
Then she took a breath and walked into Ward 5C.
---
The pediatric ward was filled with morning chaos.
Children cried. Nurses wheeled carts. Parents complained.
But it was also where Aarohi felt the most invisible. Where she could fade behind charts and check-ups and not be a girl from the slums, not a girl with bruises — just a med student trying to survive.
She checked on Arav, the six-year-old with a broken femur. He grinned at her with missing teeth and held up a crayon drawing of what looked like a green bear.
“Is that a doctor?” she asked, smiling gently.
“No,” he said proudly. “That’s you. You have a sword.”
Her throat tightened, but she laughed. “A sword, huh? I’ll need it today.”
By 10:00 a.m., she was on her third round of vitals. Her head buzzed from lack of sleep, but she kept going. Kept breathing. Kept walking.
Until she saw the file.
It was on the nurses' desk. A patient she’d checked two days ago — one of the pediatric girls admitted with dehydration.
But the dosage had changed.
She flipped back two pages. Compared notes. The order had been updated yesterday — under her name.
She hadn’t touched it.
Her hand clenched the folder tighter.
This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Subtle errors. Signatures that looked like hers. Dosage changes. Wrong supplier names.
She felt it again.
> That creeping, sickening realization.
Someone was trying to erase her — or frame her.
---
In the hallway, she spotted the delivery man leaving the back office. She froze.
On his hand-cart was a box labelled Saras Distributors.
Her blood ran cold.
The same name. Again.
She forced herself to stay still, let him pass, and walked straight to the back supply register.
It had been signed just twenty minutes ago.
By “A. Sharma.”
Her breath hitched. “No…”
Someone was forging her involvement. Burying her deeper into something criminal.
And then came the whisper — not from her head, but reality:
> “Be careful who you trust. They already know.”
She remembered the note in her locker yesterday. The way it was folded. No signature, just “R.”
She had thought it was cryptic.
Now it felt like a warning carved into stone.
---
Later that morning, she stood near the edge of the courtyard behind the canteen. Her hands trembled. Not from fear — from fury.
What the hell was going on?
Who was watching her?
Why her?
She wasn’t rich. She wasn’t powerful. She was just a girl from the slums who wanted to be a doctor and save her sister. Was that too much to ask?
And then—
> “Do you always forget to check if you’re being followed?”
Her breath caught in her chest. She spun around.
There he was.
Raghav Rathore.
Black shirt. Unbothered. Sharp-jawed. Calm like a god and terrifying like the devil.
“You—” she started.
He raised a brow. “Me.”
“You’ve been following me.”
He stepped forward. “No. Watching. From a distance.”
“Why?” Her voice cracked. “What do you want from me?”
His eyes raked over her face, unreadable. “You looked at a locked door and decided to pick the lock. That got you noticed.”
“I didn’t ask to be part of anything.”
“You signed a shipment.”
“I didn’t know what was in it!”
He paused. Then said, more gently, “I believe you. But they won’t.”
“Who are they?”
His jaw tightened. “The kind who won’t ask questions before pulling a trigger.”
She swallowed hard, trying not to show fear. “Are you threatening me?”
“No.”
He stepped even closer.
“I’m protecting you.”
She scoffed. “Protecting me? By what — having strange men tail me? By leaving cryptic notes in my locker?”
“Better cryptic than a toe tag.”
Silence fell between them. Heavy. Electric.
Then he looked past her shoulder for a moment. She could feel his control like gravity.
> “You don’t realize how close you came to dying two nights ago, do you?”
“I didn’t need your help.”
“You didn’t even see him coming.”
She bristled. “You don’t know me.”
> “I know you don’t scream when you should. I know you take pain like you were born into it. I know your bruises aren’t all from strangers.”
Her blood ran cold.
He looked at her, softer now. But still dangerous.
> “You’re more fire than flesh, Aarohi. But fire burns things. Especially the ones it tries to protect.”
Aarohi’s breath caught.
He wasn’t yelling. He didn’t need to.
His words held the weight of kings.
> “They’ve marked you. I marked you first.”
> “Now you’re mine to protect. Whether you like it or not.”
She shook her head. “I’m not yours. You don’t get to decide that.”
Raghav smiled, slow. Almost sad.
> “You think this is about choice?”
Then he turned and walked away, leaving her spi
ne chilled and her soul burning.
And in that moment, Aarohi understood something terrifying:
> She wasn’t just being followed.
She was being claimed.
---
End of Chapter Four
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