The walls had grown suffocating.
It had been a week since her parents had tightened the leash. No phone. No time outside of class. No friends allowed home unless approved. Her father's sharp eyes and her mother's silent scrutiny shadowed her every step.
But Ananya had always been clever in small ways. It was the only way she'd survived in this house that demanded obedience in every breath.
And tonight, she would not break—she would bend the rules until they gave her room to breathe.
The evening air hummed with insects as Ananya sat at her study table, pencil scratching over a page she wasn't really reading. Her mother's footsteps passed the door twice before fading toward the kitchen. Her father's muffled cough drifted from the living room. The cousin planted in her room had fallen asleep, sprawled across the floor with a comic book over his chest.
Her pulse quickened.
Now.
She slid the window latch open silently, her heart hammering at the creak of the hinges. The small balcony was only one floor up. She had tested the climb in her imagination every night since they'd taken her freedom. She'd mapped it in the dark—the pipe running down the side, the ledge that could take her feet, the bush below that would muffle her landing.
Her breath shook, but she pressed her palms against the iron railing and swung her legs over. For a heartbeat, she dangled above the shadows, terrified. And then she forced herself down, inch by inch, until her feet hit solid ground.
The world smelled different outside her cage—dust and rain-soaked earth, jasmine from a neighbor's garden. It felt like oxygen after weeks of drowning.
She pulled her dupatta tighter around her and slipped through the alley, each step a drumbeat of rebellion.
When she reached the tea stall near the college gates—the one they'd used once before as a meeting point—her chest was burning from both fear and exhilaration.
And he was there.
Riyan leaned against the shuttered stall, hands shoved into his pockets, jaw tight in the dim glow of a streetlamp. He looked like a storm trapped in human form. But when his eyes caught hers, the storm cracked. Relief softened the edges of his anger, just for a moment.
"God, Ananya." His voice was rough, as if he hadn't spoken in days. "Do you have any idea—"
She didn't let him finish. She all but ran into him, her hands clutching his shirt like she'd been holding her breath for weeks. His arms closed around her instantly, crushing, desperate, grounding her against his chest.
For a moment, there was nothing else. No parents. No walls. No suspicion. Just his heartbeat thundering against hers, his warmth anchoring her trembling body.
"You disappeared," he whispered into her hair. "You didn't call. You didn't come. I thought—" His voice broke. He pulled back just enough to search her face. "They've caged you, haven't they?"
Her throat tightened. She nodded, unable to hold back the tears that had been building all week.
"I had no phone," she whispered. "They watch me constantly. I can't… breathe, Riyan. I thought I'd go mad."
The muscles in his jaw clenched, and his hands fisted in her dupatta. "I'll kill them for this. How dare they—"
"Don't." She pressed her palm against his chest, her voice urgent. "Don't say that. I can't… I can't risk them finding out about us. If they even suspect—"
"They already suspect," he cut in harshly. "Why else would they lock you down like this? They know something. And they're trying to strangle it before it blooms."
Her silence was answer enough.
His chest rose and fell, ragged. Then, softer: "And yet you came."
She swallowed hard. "Because if I didn't, I'd break."
Their foreheads touched, and for a long moment, they just breathed each other in, like two souls tethered across impossible odds. His thumb brushed away her tears, slow and reverent, as though touching her steadied him as much as it saved her.
The kiss that followed was nothing like the heat of their last stolen moments. This one was trembling, almost fragile. A promise whispered in the quiet of rebellion. His lips moved against hers like he was memorizing her, storing her in every nerve for the storms ahead.
And yet, fire stirred quickly under tenderness. Her fingers gripped his shirt tighter, pulling him closer, desperate for more, desperate to drown in the taste of freedom and him.
They broke apart only when headlights swept across the lane, forcing them to stumble deeper into shadow. Breathless, cheeks flushed, they clung to each other like fugitives who'd found sanctuary in a single stolen moment.
"I'll find a way," Riyan whispered fiercely. "I don't care how. I'll pull you out of that house if I have to tear it down brick by brick."
Her heart ached with both terror and fierce hope. She wanted to believe him, to believe that someone in this world would fight for her, even if the cost was ruin.
But for tonight, she only had minutes left before suspicion swallowed her absence. She pulled away with trembling reluctance, whispering, "I have to go."
He caught her wrist, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Come back to me again. Whatever it takes."
She nodded, the weight of the promise heavy between them, and then she was gone into the night.
After she vanished into the shadows, Riyan stood frozen in the dark, fists clenched at his sides.
He had thought he knew anger before. He'd thought jealousy had taught him fury, that watching her laugh with Aarav, hearing her name tangled in campus gossip, had carved him raw.
But this—this knowledge that her own blood was trapping her, clipping her wings, caging her spirit—this was worse than anything.
He wanted to storm into her house, rip her phone back from her mother's grip, drag her out into the open where she could breathe freely. He wanted to tear down the walls her father had built, brick by brick, until there was nothing left but her smile in the sunlight.
But rash anger would destroy her.
So instead, he paced, breath harsh in the cool night, forcing himself to think.
They had escalated. They had tightened her world until it bled. Which meant time was short. Her parents would only press harder if they sensed even a whiff of rebellion. Which meant he had to act carefully—but decisively.
He pulled out his phone, thumbs flying as he messaged his closest friend, Kabir:
Need your help. No questions. It's about her.
Kabir's reply was instant: Always. What do you need?
Riyan's jaw tightened. What he needed was simple. Access. A chain of messages. A way to pass letters, to plan meetings, to make sure she was never completely alone in that suffocating prison.
And beyond that—he needed a plan big enough to tear her free once and for all.
He tipped his head back, staring at the strip of moon above the rooftops.
"They won't break you," he whispered, imagining her eyes when she said she'd rather risk everything than suffocate. His voice grew steadier, sharper, as if the words themselves were steel. "They won't break us."
Riyan didn't know yet how he would do it. Whether it would be small rebellions strung together like beads, or one reckless strike that shattered everything.
But he knew this: the war had started.
And he had no intention of losing.