Episode 13 — “The Ghost in Her Eyes”
927 Words
(Denver's POV)
I’ve learned to live with silence.
Not the peaceful kind — not the kind that comes after rain, or at the edge of a calm sea.
No. The silence I know is heavier. Sharper. The kind that fills the air after gunshots have stopped but the bodies are still warm. The kind that burrows into your bones and stays there, so deep you forget what it felt like before it moved in.
I’ve learned to function in that silence — to eat, to sleep, to command, to kill — but never to mistake it for peace.
Silence doesn’t mean peace.
It only means the ghosts have gone quiet for a while.
And ghosts… they always come back.
---
Last Night
It was 2:57 a.m. when the dream came again.
Same dream. Same chain around my neck.
Rain hammering the ground, turning dirt into red mud.
Screams ricocheting off broken walls.
And her.
A little girl, no older than Pari is now. Hair matted with rain, tiny hands reaching for me as rough arms dragged her away.
“Bhaiya!” she screamed.
And I…
I stayed hidden.
Frozen behind a shattered wall, my hands shaking so hard I could barely grip the brick.
I could have run after her. I could have tried.
But I didn’t.
I let her go.
Because I was afraid.
Because I was a coward.
That single moment split my life in two. Everything after that was built on top of a failure I never buried, only chained to my back.
No one knows about her. Not Veer, who’s taken bullets for me without flinching. Not Rohit, who’s dug graves beside me in the middle of the night.
Only Rhea.
Because she’s the only one who’s ever looked past the blood and the reputation — and seen the boy who failed.
---
When I woke, sweat was soaking through my shirt. My breathing was shallow, uneven.
Beside me, Rhea stirred. She didn’t need to ask, but she did anyway.
“The same dream?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
She sat up, running her fingers through my hair with that gentleness only she had the patience for. “It’s been years, Denver. You have to stop blaming yourself. You were just a child.”
I turned my face away, jaw locked. “So was she.”
Rhea didn’t speak again. She understood that sometimes silence is the only way to sit beside someone’s pain.
But what she didn’t know… was that the dream wasn’t just from the past this time.
It had been dragged into my present.
By her.
---
Neha.
The girl who stepped between me and a bullet without knowing who I was.
When I saw her lying there, blood blooming from her arm, I didn’t just see a stranger. I saw her. The little girl from my past. Same innocence. Same wide, terrified eyes.
And just like that day years ago, I froze.
But this time, I moved.
I carried her myself.
I shouted for help until my voice was raw.
I stayed by her side until I knew she’d live.
It should have brought me relief.
It didn’t.
Because saving her didn’t erase the failure burned into my blood.
And for the first time in years… I felt. Not numbness. Not calculation. Something raw enough to make me hate it.
---
Today, Veer reported that the warehouse was secured, and Aarav — the traitor — was being tracked. We’ve set up a mission so classified only four people know the full details.
And somehow… it’s already been leaked.
That means only one thing:
There’s a mole in my inner circle.
Veer’s on it. Rohit too. They’re the kind of men I’d die with, and they’d die for me.
But even while planning a counterstrike… my thoughts drift.
To her.
Neha.
The way her gaze locked onto mine before she collapsed — like she recognized me. Like she saw something in me no one else had ever dared to look for.
I’ve killed men for far less than a stare like that.
But her?
She stripped me bare without even trying.
---
Later That Night
The balcony outside my study overlooks the east gardens. I haven’t stood there in years. Tonight, I lit a cigarette, even though I’d quit ages ago. The first drag burned my lungs — the kind of burn you welcome when the alternative is thinking too much.
Footsteps behind me.
Rhea.
She didn’t speak at first, just stood beside me, looking out into the dark. “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
I didn’t bother to lie. “Yes.”
“She reminds you of the little girl,” she said softly.
I nodded once.
“She’s not her, Denver.”
“I know.”
“But you want to protect her anyway.”
I turned to face my wife — my anchor in a life built on storms. “It’s not about want, Rhea. I have to.”
She studied me for a long moment, then took my hand. “Then do it. But don’t lose yourself in the process.”
She walked away, leaving me alone with the cold wind and the burning cigarette.
But I wasn’t alone.
The ghost of that girl was still here.
The shadow of my failure still pressed against my chest.
And the blood on Neha’s arm still stained my mind.
This wasn’t just coincidence.
It wasn’t luck.
This was fate — handing me a second chance.
And this time…
I wouldn’t fail.
- Writer
