The newsroom smelled like old paper and body heat.
Rahul pushed through the door at seven forty-five—earlier than usual, earlier than necessary. The fluorescent tubes overhead buzzed in uneven intervals, casting everything in that flat, corporate white that made everyone look slightly dead.
Desks stretched across the floor in crooked rows. Twenty, maybe twenty-five reporters crammed into a space meant for fifteen. Typewriters clacked in rhythm with shuffling feet and scraping chairs. Someone laughed too loud near the back corner. A phone rang twice before someone picked up and started shouting into the receiver about a delayed shipment of ink.
Normal.
Everything was disgustingly, efficiently normal.
Rahul's eyes found Soma's desk before he could stop himself.
Empty.
The chair sat slightly askew, like Soma had just stepped away for tea and would be back any second. His notebook lay closed on the scarred wooden surface. A pen rested on top, cap off, ink dried on the tip. A coffee mug with a brown ring stained into the porcelain sat beside a stack of unfinished articles.
Rahul looked away.
He moved to his own desk—three rows back, window side—and dropped into the chair. The ceiling fan above him clicked with every rotation, the blade slightly bent, wobbling through the humid air that pressed down on everything.
His notebook sat exactly where he'd left it yesterday. Blank page staring up at him.
He picked up his pen.
Didn't write anything.
"Rajesh."
He looked up.
Meera from sports leaned against the edge of his desk, arms crossed, chewing gum with her mouth half-open. She wore the same yellow kurta she'd worn last week, coffee stain still visible near the collar.
"Where's Soma?" she asked. Casual. Like she was asking about the weather.
Rahul's throat tightened. He kept his face neutral. "Accident."
"What kind?"
"Bike. His hand went through some construction debris. Metal sheet." The lie came out smooth. Practiced. He'd rehearsed it seventeen times on the walk here.
Meera's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Shit. How bad?"
"Bad enough. He'll be out for a few weeks."
She made a sound—half sympathy, half annoyance. "Figures. Right when we're understaffed." She pushed off his desk, already turning away. "Tell him I said get better or whatever."
She was gone before Rahul could respond.
The typewriter three desks over kept clacking.
Someone dropped a file folder. Papers scattered. Nobody helped pick them up.
The phone rang again. Same reporter answered, still shouting about ink.
Rahul stared at Soma's empty chair.
The world didn't pause.
Didn't slow down.
Didn't care.
Two more colleagues walked past Soma's desk without looking at it. One of them—Prakash, crime beat—actually sat on the edge of it while he lit a cigarette, used Soma's coffee mug as an ashtray, then walked away trailing smoke.
Rahul's pen pressed harder against the blank page.
His hand didn't move.
The notebook stayed empty.
Rahul was staring at the blank page when he heard his name.
"Rajesh."
He looked up.
Prakash stood three desks away, cigarette dangling from his lips. He jerked his head toward Devaraj's cabin. "Boss wants you."
Rahul's stomach tightened.
He closed his notebook. Still blank.
He stood and crossed the newsroom. Eyes followed him—brief, uninterested glances that slid away the moment he looked back. The door to Devaraj's cabin stood half-open. Smoke drifted out into the main room, thick and gray.
Rahul knocked once.
"Come."
He stepped inside.
The cabin was smaller than it looked from outside. A single desk dominated the space, covered in ashtrays, file folders, and loose sheets marked with red ink. The blinds behind Devaraj's chair hung crooked, filtering dusty sunlight into thin golden bars across the floor. The air smelled like cigarettes and old wood—teak, maybe, or something darker.
Devaraj sat with his back to the window, cigarette balanced between two fingers. Smoke curled upward, disappearing into the ceiling fan's slow rotation.
He didn't look up.
"Close the door."
Rahul obeyed.
Silence filled the space between them. Not uncomfortable. Just... heavy.
Devaraj finally raised his eyes. Studied Rahul's face like he was reading copy, looking for errors. He took a long drag from his cigarette, held it, then exhaled slowly.
Ash fell onto the desk. He didn't brush it away.
"Soma will recover," Devaraj said. Flat. Matter-of-fact. "Doctor says three weeks minimum. Maybe four."
Rahul's jaw tightened. He nodded once.
"His hand won't work the same," Devaraj continued. "Nerve damage. He'll write slower. Type slower." Another drag. More ash. "But he'll live."
The words hung in the air.
He'll live.
Rahul's fingernails dug into his palms.
Devaraj leaned back in his chair. It creaked under his weight. "You know what control is, Rajesh?"
The question came out of nowhere.
Rahul blinked. "Sir?"
"Control." Devaraj tapped ash into an already-full tray. "Not doing every stupid thing your brain tells you to do. Not chasing every lead like a dog with a bone." His eyes locked onto Rahul's. "Not getting other people hurt because you can't sit still."
The words landed like punches.
Rahul's breath caught.
Devaraj's expression didn't change. "You're a good reporter. Smart. Maybe too smart. But smart doesn't mean safe." He gestured with the cigarette, trailing smoke. "You stay visible. You stay on assignments I give you. You don't go digging into things that don't concern you."
A pause.
Then, quieter: "Understood?"
Rahul's throat felt tight. He wanted to argue. Wanted to say something—anything—that would push back against the cage closing around him.
But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, he nodded.
"Good." Devaraj stubbed out his cigarette. The ember died with a soft hiss. "Soma saved your life. Don't make it meaningless."
The silence stretched longer this time.
Devaraj waved a hand. Dismissal.
Rahul turned toward the door.
"Rajesh."
He stopped. Looked back.
Devaraj's face was unreadable. "Don't act alone again."
It wasn't a suggestion.
Rahul left the cabin without responding.
The door clicked shut behind him.
The afternoon bled into itself.
Rahul sat at his desk with a red pen and a stack of copy that nobody else wanted to touch. Municipal corruption—ward twelve, sewage contracts, kickbacks so small they barely qualified as crime. He circled typos. Corrected dates. Rewrote sentences that said nothing in slightly better ways.
His tea went cold in the mug beside him.
He didn't drink it.
The typewriter two desks over kept clacking. Same rhythm as this morning. Same reporter. Same story, probably.
Rahul's eyes drifted to Soma's desk.
Still empty.
He looked back down at the copy. A councilman had accepted fifteen thousand rupees to approve a contract. The article made it sound like news. It wasn't. It happened every month. Different councilman. Same amount. Same outcome.
Rahul crossed out a paragraph. Rewrote it. Crossed it out again.
His hand moved mechanically.
Brain somewhere else.
At three-fifteen, the printer jammed. Someone swore loudly. Metal scraped against metal as they yanked the paper tray free. The machine started again, slower, grinding like it resented the work.
Rahul edited another article. Traffic violations near the railway station. Fines issued. Nobody paid them.
Routine corruption.
Safe stories.
Nothing that mattered.
His pen hovered over a sentence about bribe amounts. He stared at the words until they stopped meaning anything.
Four o'clock light slanted through the windows—gold turning orange, shadows stretching across the newsroom floor. People started packing up. Conversations got louder. Someone made plans for chai.
Rahul glanced at Soma's desk again.
The coffee mug was gone. Someone had cleaned it. Probably used it themselves.
He looked away.
At five-thirty, he closed his notebook.
Still mostly blank.
He stood, tucked the notebook under his arm, and walked toward the door. Nobody stopped him. Nobody asked where he was going.
For once, he was leaving on time.
It felt like dying slowly.
The clinic looked worse in evening.
Rahul stood across the street, watching the entrance. Cracked concrete steps. Peeling paint on the doorframe. A sign that read Patel Medical Center in faded red letters, half of them missing.
He crossed the street.
Reached the bottom step.
The door opened.
Priya walked out.
Rahul stopped.
She wore a gray salwar kameez, bag slung over one shoulder, notebook tucked under her arm. Her hair was pulled back tight. No makeup. She looked tired—the kind of tired that came from not sleeping, not from working.
Their eyes met.
One second. Maybe two.
Priya's expression didn't change. No surprise. No acknowledgment. Just recognition.
She descended the steps, passed within three feet of him, and kept walking.
Rahul watched her disappear around the corner.
She came to check on Soma.
He climbed the steps.
Inside, the smell hit him immediately. Disinfectant and damp walls, antiseptic trying to cover mold that had been there for years. The reception area was empty except for a nurse folding bandages at a metal desk.
She glanced up. "Visiting?"
"Soma Chatterjee."
She pointed down the corridor. "Third door."
Rahul walked.
The floor was stained linoleum. His shoes squeaked with every step. A ceiling fan hummed overhead, wobbling slightly. Outside noise leaked through the walls—scooters, vendors shouting, someone hammering metal in a shop nearby.
He reached the third door.
Pushed it open.
Soma lay in a narrow bed near the window. His left hand was wrapped in thick white bandages, elevated on a pillow. An IV drip hung beside him, tube running into his right arm. He looked smaller than he had two nights ago. Paler.
But alive.
Soma's eyes opened when Rahul stepped inside. He smiled—weak, but real. "Rajesh."
Rahul closed the door behind him. "How are you?"
"Better than I should be." Soma's voice was hoarse. He gestured vaguely at his bandaged hand. "Doctor says I'll keep the fingers. Probably."
Rahul's throat tightened. He moved closer, stopped at the foot of the bed. "Priya was here."
"Yeah. Ten minutes ago." Soma shifted slightly, winced. "She wanted to see if I was actually alive. Brought me cigarettes I can't smoke."
Rahul almost smiled. Almost.
Silence settled between them.
Soma studied Rahul's face. "You look worse than I do."
"I'm not the one in a hospital bed."
"No. You're just the one who can't sleep." Soma's eyes stayed steady. "How bad is it?"
Rahul looked away. Focused on the IV drip. Clear liquid falling one drop at a time into the tube.
"That bad," Soma said quietly.
"I didn't see him coming," Rahul said. The words came out flat. Empty. " You grabbed my shoulder. Pulled me back. The knife went through your hand instead."
Soma was quiet for a moment. Then: "Better my hand than your throat."
Rahul's jaw tightened. "You shouldn't have been there."
"Maybe." Soma adjusted his bandaged hand, careful not to pull the IV. "But we got something, didn't we? Before he showed up?"
Rahul hesitated. "We got interrupted."
"Not enough."
Soma leaned his head back against the thin pillow. Stared at the ceiling. "Whoever he was... he wasn't random. He knew we were there. Knew what we were looking for."
"I know."
"So someone's watching." Soma turned his head, looked at Rahul directly. "Which means we need to be more careful. Not less."
Rahul didn't answer.
"Rajesh." Soma's voice dropped lower. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm stuck in this bed."
Rahul's hands curled into fists at his sides. "I won't."
"You're lying."
"I know."
Soma held his gaze for three long seconds. Then he closed his eyes. "Just... try not to die. I can't save you from here."
Rahul stayed five more minutes. They didn't talk about the alley again. Didn't talk about the knife. Soma asked about the newsroom—who was covering his assignments, whether anyone had noticed he was gone.
Rahul lied and said everything was fine.
When he left, Soma was already drifting back to sleep.
Rahul walked down the corridor, past the nurse, out into the late afternoon heat.
His shoulder still ached where Soma had grabbed him.
The bus smelled like sweat and diesel.
Rahul sat near the back, shoulder pressed against the window. The engine vibrated through the metal frame, rattling his bones. Outside, the city scrolled past—shops closing for the evening, vendors packing up carts, streetlights flickering on one by one in uneven intervals.
People moved through their routines.
Buying vegetables. Arguing over prices. Laughing at something a friend said.
Life resumed.
Normal. Indifferent. Efficient.
Rahul watched a man help his daughter onto a scooter, helmet too big for her head. They drove off, weaving through traffic. Gone in seconds.
The bus jerked to a stop. Passengers shuffled off. New ones climbed on.
The world kept turning.
Soma was in a clinic bed because of him.
The world didn't care.
Rahul's hands rested on his knees. Perfectly still.
Waiting is also a choice, he thought.
The bus lurched forward again.
Twenty minutes later, he climbed off at the stop near Shanti Apartments. The street was quieter here—fewer shops, fewer people. Stray dogs slept near a trash pile. A single streetlight buzzed overhead, casting everything in sickly yellow.
Rahul crossed the street.
The stairwell smelled like damp concrete and old cooking oil. He climbed slowly, each step echoing in the narrow space. First floor. Second floor. Third.
Room 304 sat at the end of the corridor.
He unlocked the door.
Stepped inside.
Darkness swallowed him.
He didn't turn on the light.
Just closed the door and stood there, letting his eyes adjust. The room emerged slowly—bed, table, chair, single window with curtains drawn. A clock ticked somewhere in the corner. Too loud. Each second distinct and deliberate.
Rahul moved to the table. Sat down.
His notebook lay where he'd left it this morning.
He opened it.
Blank pages stared back at him.
Devaraj's warning echoed in his skull: Stay visible. Stay on assignments I give you. Don't go digging.
Rahul's pen hovered over the page.
He could wait. Follow orders. Edit safe stories about sewage contracts and traffic fines until Soma recovered. Until Devaraj decided he could be trusted again.
Or.
He could take leave.
Not to rest.
To go back. Quietly. Alone.
To Ananya's last movements. The places she'd been. The people she'd seen. The hours before someone turned her into evidence.
His pen touched the page.
He wrote three words:
Request for leave.
The clock kept ticking.
Outside, a scooter engine roared past, faded into the distance.
Rahul closed the notebook.
The darkness pressed closer.
He didn't move.
Didn't feel relief. Didn't feel resolve.
Just inevitability.