the once crore Deal

Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Price of Survival

"Esfand!"

Zartash shrieked, her voice cracking as she threw herself forward, catching his collapsing weight before he hit the floor. "Oh God, what happened to you?! What is this?!"

"I'm... I'm fine," he groaned, his voice weak and raspy as he leaned heavily against her, using her small frame as a crutch.

"How did this happen? Who did this to you?!" Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably as her trembling hands mapped the extent of his injuries, coming away slick and hot with crimson blood. She dragged him toward the sofa, forcing him down, and slammed the heavy front door shut against the freezing night.

"Get... get the medical box," he gasped, clutching his shoulder as he leaned back against the cushions. "A bullet... there's a bullet in my back."

"A bullet?!" Zartash shrieked, the word tearing through her like shrapnel. She bolted across the room, snatching the emergency medical kit from the shelf and dropping to her knees beside him. "Where? Where is it?!"

"Right... right behind my right shoulder blade," he instructed through gritted teeth, his face pale from blood loss. He handed her a sterilized medical clamp. "You have to dig it out."

"Me?!" Her eyes widened in absolute horror. She stared at the cold metal instrument in her hand as if it were a venomous snake. "Are you out of your mind?! I can't do this! I've never even seen a wound this bad, let alone—"

"Zartash, listen to me!" Esfand hissed, his grip on her wrist tightening with desperate urgency, transferring his blood onto her skin. "I couldn't go to a hospital. If I did, we'd both be dead within the hour. You have to do this. There is no one else."

"Esfand, please, I can't—I'll pass out, I'm going to throw up—" She was hyperventilating, her entire body shaking so violently she could barely hold the tools. The mere sight of a minor scratch usually made her dizzy; extracting hot lead from human flesh was a nightmare beyond her worst terrors.

"You can do this," he whispered, his voice dangerously soft, his eyes locking onto hers with absolute, unwavering trust. "Just follow my voice. Don't look at the blood. Focus on me."

Swallowing a choking sob, Zartash forced her trembling hands to obey. With eyes squeezed shut against the grotesque reality of the task, she ripped open the back of his blood-soaked shirt, exposing the ragged, torn flesh where the bullet was embedded.

"Cut... cut the tissue right around the entry point," he instructed, his breath coming in shallow, painful hitches. "Then grab the metal tip with the clamp... and pull it out in one sharp yank."

"I can't, I can't..." she whimpered, tears blinding her vision.

"Zartash! Now! Before the tissue swells!"

With a cry of sheer terror and desperate resolve, she drove the clamp into the wound. Esfand let out a guttural, agonizing roar that echoed off the wooden walls—a sound that tore straight through Zartash’s heart. Matching his pain with her own desperate strength, she gave the clamp a violent wrench.

Clink.

The bloodied bullet fell from the wound, bouncing off the wooden floor with a hollow metallic sound.

Esfand slumped forward, gasping for air, while Zartash dropped the instrument, her hands entirely coated in his blood. Without pausing to catch her breath, she grabbed the antiseptics, cleaned the gaping wound with shaking hands, tightly bandaged his shoulder, and forced him to swallow a heavy dose of painkillers and antibiotics.

Exhausted beyond human limits, Esfand managed to drag himself over to the sofa. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a specialized medical syringe, and injected a powerful sedative directly into his own arm. Within moments, the heavy drug dragged him down into a deep, chemical unconsciousness.

The cabin fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.

Zartash sat on the floor beside the sofa, staring blankly at her blood-stained hands, the adrenaline slowly draining out of her to leave behind a hollow, numbing shock. How had her quiet life come to this? Who were these monsters hunting him? Could he ever live a normal life, free from this bloodshed?

Right then, the quiet hum of Esfand’s mobile phone broke the silence.

Zartash jolted. She scrambled across the floor to where his phone lay discarded, picking it up to silence it before the noise could wake him. The screen flashed with an incoming call. Thinking it might be important—perhaps someone checking on him—she swiped to answer, raising it to her ear.

Before she could even utter a syllable, a harsh, mocking voice snarled from the other end of the line:

"Well, well, well... Esfand, my boy. Did you really think you could slip away from us and hide out in the wilderness? Let me spell it out for you: we are never going to let that girl go. You are throwing your life away, getting yourself butchered over some useless civilian!"

Zartash froze, her breath catching in her throat.

The voice on the other end continued, dripping with venom and cruel amusement. "Next time, Esfand Yar Wali—the legendary shooter boy of the underworld—won't just crawl back with a bullet in his back. Next time, your dead body will vanish so completely that not even your little girlfriend will know where to scatter your ashes. Drop her, or prepare to die for her!"

Click.

The line went dead.

The phone slipped from Zartash’s numb fingers, clattering softly against the rug.

Because of me.

The words echoed in her mind like a death sentence. Esfand—the fierce, dangerous man who feared no one—was bleeding to death, hunted like an animal, all because she was tethered to his life.

She turned her gaze toward the sofa. Esfand lay there, pale, battered, broken, and completely defenseless.

"I never wanted this," she whispered, hot tears finally breaking free, carving clean tracks through the blood smeared across her cheeks. "I never wanted my existence to become a weapon against you."

A heavy, agonizing resolve settled over her heart. She couldn't let him die for her. She couldn't allow her presence to be the executioner's axe hanging over his neck.

Moving like a ghost in the dark, she crept into the bedroom. She picked up a small travel bag, threw in a few absolute essentials, pulled on her heavy winter jacket, and secured her shawl tightly around her head.

She walked back into the living room, casting one final, agonizingly long look at the sleeping man who had become her entire world. Her heart screamed at her to stay, to crawl back into his arms and pretend the world outside didn't exist. But love, true and sacrificial, meant letting go so he could live.

With silent steps, she unlocked the front door and stepped out into the freezing, unforgiving night.

She knew the dangers lurking out there—she knew wild, predatory beasts roamed these isolated woods in the dead of winter. But for the first time since she had arrived here, fear was entirely absent from her soul. She walked away into the dark snow, stepping out of Esfand’s life forever, carrying his heartbeat away with her so that his could keep on beating.