Chhayika's POV
Tunis smelled of salt and secrets.
The plane had barely touched the tarmac before I was on my feet, hand gripping the strap of my travel bag like it held answers. My boots hit the ground with purpose. No time wasted. No backup. No warnings sent.
Not even to Giriraj.
Rule one: Inform him before engagement.
Rule two: Never go in blind.
Today, both rules were bleeding out at my feet.
And I hadn't even cleared customs.
My rudraksha beads rested against my collarbone, heavy, grounding - a reminder of who I am beneath the rage. Shiva's clarity. Hanuman's courage. I carried both like weapons.
But today, I was a woman made of wildfire.
The heat clung to the back of my neck as I crossed the crowded street outside Carthage Airport. The air buzzed with tension. Or maybe that was just me, vibrating with fury, chasing a ghost who dared to wear my face and sell my scars.
I didn't need a dossier.
I didn't need Giriraj's voice of reason in my ear.
I needed blood.
The lead Rasmi gave me was weak, a name whispered by men who bought lives in bulk, operating out of an old glass factory on the outskirts of the city. But the moment I stepped into that space, I'd know if she was close.
I always did.
The taxi ride was silent. My fingers never left the beads around my neck, turning them slowly, as if every motion could burn off the edge that threatened to make me reckless.
But recklessness was already here.
It wore my body like armor.
By the time I reached the old quarter and slipped through a rusted gate behind the factory, the storm inside me had grown loud. There was no plan. No waiting for a green signal.
Only instinct.
I pulled my scarf tighter around my face and stepped into the shadows.
And then - the first shot rang out.
Not mine.
The trap had already been laid.
And I had walked straight into it.
Author's POV
New Delhi - 04:37 PM IST
Giriraj tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the quiet hum of static on the comms line.
She hadn't checked in.
Not once.
He stared at the blinking cursor on his laptop screen, the last encrypted message from Chhayika sitting unopened.
"Don't worry. I've got this."
No coordinates. No timeline. Just that sentence. Arrogant. Final. And so her.
His jaw locked.
Rule one. Broken.
He leaned back in the leather chair, knuckles pressing into the desk until they went pale. The room buzzed with silent tension, the kind that coils in a soldier's gut before an ambush. He tried to will it away. Logic told him she was fine. Emotion said you've felt this before - right before Arvind didn't come home.
A sharp pulse hit behind his eyes.
He reached for his tea, then stopped.
The string of rudraksha beads, the exact match of hers, lay beside the mug. The moment his fingers touched them, he felt it.
Something's wrong.
He stood up.
She never broke two rules.
Tunis - 01:10 PM Local Time
The air smells like brass and silence.
She doesn't flinch when her boot lands on the mosaic tile. Her rudraksha beads, damp with sweat, kiss her collarbone in rhythm. Beneath her coat: blades, breath, bone.
She sensed it the second her shadow touched the alley mouth.
A silence that didn't belong.
One sniper at 2 o'clock, another on the south roof. A scope flicker: east, behind the lattice.
Five. Maybe six. She stopped counting. She didn't need to.
Chhayika Mishra doesn't walk blind into storms. She is the storm.
The plan rewrote itself mid-step.
Exit routes gone. Entry compromised. Objective irrelevant.
But death? Still very much on the menu.
They wanted a ghost. She gave them a goddamn myth.
She moves like poetry. Steel in her hand. Fire in her eyes.
First target drops with a sliced artery before he could radio in.
Second, elbow to throat, wrist to chin, gun turned inward. One shot. Clean.
The third stabs from behind, she lets him.
She lets him.
A glancing pierce to the back, shallow, non-fatal. She wanted him close.
Her twist sends him flying, spine-first into stone. Gun stolen mid-air.
Three down. She's bleeding, not hurting. She's always been comfortable with blood, as long as it was her own.
And then,
A whisper in the air. Not wind.
Timing off. Two seconds too early. East sniper got nervous.
She was about to roll. Take the shot to the shoulder, maybe rib. Let it pass through and neutralize the nest by flanking blind.
Her hand was already moving.
But,
She doesn't feel the bullet.
Instead, she hears it, and another. Two loud cracks. Two precise takedowns. A pause. And a chill.
She doesn't turn yet. Her breath catches before her mind does.
She knows that rhythm.
One man moves like that.
She whirls just in time to see the figure limp through the smoke. No mask. No words. Just presence.
Ariz.
He doesn't wave. Doesn't reach out. He simply nods once. Not at her, but at the trail of bodies behind her.
"You would've taken two bullets. Unnecessary."
And then he's gone.
Not disappeared. Not retreated.
Just... gone. Like he was never supposed to be there.
Chhayika touches the rudraksha at her throat. It's still warm. Still alive.
And so is she.
Unknown POVUndisclosed Location
"Pause the feed."
The screen froze on her face — eyes blazing, blood on her cheek, defiance still in the arch of her mouth.
A slow clap echoed in the chamber. The sound wasn't mocking. It was... appreciative.
"She's better than expected."
"She's unstable," came a second voice, crisp, female, older. "That's the flaw."
"That's the art," said the first. "You don't study a wolf for its manners."
Dozens of feeds buzzed to life again — infrared, drone visuals, heartbeat monitors. All centered on her. One screen even had a split scan: vitals, body heat, gait pattern.
"Shall we initiate the next phase?" the woman asked.
The man leaned forward, a crooked smile tugging at his lip.
"No. Let her run."
The woman frowned. "She survived contact with him again."
"Exactly. We're measuring impact. She's still unraveling. This... was the hypothesis."
"And Giriraj?"
"Predictable. Loyal. Easy to manipulate. He'll protect her. And that makes him vulnerable."
The man tapped the screen where Chhayika's bloodied silhouette flickered.
"She doesn't know it yet. But she just passed the entrance exam."
Silence fell.
Then the final words, spoken like a death knell.
"Activate Project Mrityu."
Author's POV
Tunis - 01:10 PM Local Time
The ghost of Ariz was gone. What lingered now was not safety. It was silence. The wrong kind.
She took one measured breath.
And that's when it came.
Not a scream, not a cry - just a whisper from the air.
A bullet.
Too clean. Too close. It cracked the earth beside her heel, splintering stone into sharp, accusing fragments. Not a miss. A message.
You're in our cage now.
She didn't flinch. Didn't move. She just blinked once. Slowly.
She'd already sensed the trap the moment she stepped onto the terrace. The tension in the wind. The static in her bones. There were eyes watching - not one, not two; at least five. Trained. Coordinated.
But five were never the real problem.
Her fingers brushed the rudraksha at her throat, grounding her. Not for calm. For focus. Precision was her weapon, not rage.
Another bullet hissed. This time for her knee.
She pivoted mid-step, let it graze her salwar. Fabric torn. Flesh untouched.
And then,
A shadow lunged from behind. Silent. Foolish.
She didn't need to see him. Her elbow snapped backward, jaw cracked.
He dropped before she turned.
She ducked just in time to let a knife miss her ribs. But it didn't miss her thigh. Steel kissed skin - shallow, stinging. She didn't wince.
One hand grabbed for her throat. Wrong move.
She snapped the wrist clean, pivoted, used the body as a shield just in time to absorb the next sniper's shot. The man jerked in her arms, dead weight.
Three seconds. Three bodies.
And yet she knew: this was choreographed.
They weren't trying to kill her fast. They were testing the limits of her endurance, and her silence.
This wasn't a hunt. It was an exam. And someone, somewhere, was taking notes.
She wasn't being ambushed.
She was being studied.
No time for breath. No space for doubt.
The pain in her thigh was spreading, but her mind was sharper now, honed like a blade that had tasted betrayal before.
She moved.
Low. Fast. Unpredictable. A blur between cover and kill zones. Her first throw was blind, aimed at instinct.
The blade sank into a throat. One sniper - gone. The silence of his fall said everything. They didn't expect her to last this long.
Idiots.
A glint of metal above,
She dove into the sand, rolled into shadow, grabbed a discarded rifle, flipped it.
Crack. One shot.
The second sniper's head jerked back. Gone.
A whistle cut the wind. Third one's bullet missed.
She was already running.
She scaled a crumbling wall like she belonged to it, pain screaming in her leg but her body not daring to slow. Third sniper - high perch, lazy aim. She didn't shoot.
She climbed.
He saw her too late.
By the time he lifted the barrel again, she was already up, already in his breath, her fist wrapped around his windpipe.
She didn't stab.
She choked him.
Quiet. Slow.
Now only two.
She didn't have to look. Some part of her always knew.
From a rooftop across the alley, one last bullet flew. Not meant to kill. Just meant to stop her.
It hit her shoulder - a scream of metal on bone. Her body jerked. She slipped.
Fell.
But landed hard. Rolled. And rose again, staggering.
She laughed. Not out of madness.
Out of clarity.
Because death didn't scare her.
But being understood, even once, did.
"You should've aimed for the head," she muttered.
The fifth man came from behind. Charging with a blade, no sound, no breath. Not to kill her, but to grab her, chain her. He believed the second bullet might have finished her.
Foolish.
She didn't turn. Just waited for the sound of gravel shifting,
Then spun.
Elbow to temple.
Palm to chest.
Knife from her boot, up through his ribs.
Silence again.
Only one left.
And now,
A gunshot cut the wind. Sharp. Singular. Final.
The sixth sniper slumped on his perch, lifeless.
Chhayika didn't need to look.
She knew that marksmanship. That silence.
And when she turned, slowly, bloodied but unbent,
Giriraj stood there.
Rifle smoking. Eyes burning.
He didn't say a word.
Not at first.
He just walked to her, deliberate, as if every step was a lecture.
When he stopped before her, his voice was low. Too calm.
"You broke the rule," he said.
She stared back, eyes hollow, fury drained.
"I had to."
"You nearly died."
"I knew I wouldn't."
"Chhayika..."
"I'm not hiding," she interrupted, too fast.
That's when he narrowed his eyes.
"You are," he said. "From me."
Giriraj watched her too long. Like he was counting the breaths she wasn't taking."You're not just wounded," he said quietly. "You're tangled."
She didn't respond. If he knew more, he would ask less.
Her breath caught. Not from pain. From truth.
And for the first time, she had no answer.
She looked at him then. He deserved that much. But she did not answer.
She should have told Giriraj.
About the sniper's rhythm. The way the smoke parted. The silence that felt too familiar.
About Aariz.
She should have told him everything.
Especially because Giriraj had already said it — Azhar Khan's people were circling her. This was not an unknown enemy anymore. This was bloodline turned to smoke. And still, Aariz had saved her.
Twice now.
She did not know if that made him a traitor or just a contradiction.
But she said nothing.
Not because she did not trust Giriraj — she did, more than anyone.
But trust did not always equal truth.
And some truths, once spoken aloud, became more dangerous than lies.
Three rules.
Broken.
And no sniper left to shoot her now.
Only the consequences.
She had crossed borders with nothing but a name and a face. She had outrun assassins, rewritten aliases in blood. But she could not outrun this - the slow erosion of certainty.Aariz should not have been there.Azhar should not have been close.The line between memory and mission was beginning to blur.
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Author's Note:
Truth is never a single thread. It's woven through deception, ambition, and unspoken loyalties. In this chapter, the shadows of manipulation grow darker, and the choices made long ago begin to echo with unsettling clarity. Sometimes, the most dangerous players aren't those in the open, but those hidden behind veils of silence and strategy.
This chapter marks a turning point. The game is no longer just about surviving: it's about understanding the game itself. The question isn't who is pulling the strings, but who really controls the puppets.
A hint for you all by my side( Come on, we all know thrillers are nothing without clues and guesses): As Chhayika and Giriraj continue their pursuit, they will realize that the greatest enemy is no longer just the one they see, but also the ones they never suspected. They couldn't.
If you liked the story, a vote would make my day.If you felt something was missing or could be better, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, I'm here to grow.Both kind words and honest critiques are valued equally. Thank you for being here.Even a short comment like "I liked this part" or "This confused me" can help a lot , your voice matters.
Thank you for following Chhayika's journey, where every step she takes pushes her closer to uncovering the truth.