“Aarohi… listen to me,” Arnav whispered fiercely, staring at me from the floor, his face pale under the moonlight. “You have to choose right now. If you open that door and tell them I walked… you walk away free, but my enemies will hunt you down to eliminate the witness. If you want to survive the night, you have to help me hide this body and get me into that chair before they smash the lock.“
“I… I can’t…” I stammered, looking at the blood, the dead man, the shattered wardrobe.
“Decide!” he hissed, as a heavy shoulder slammed against the outside of the door, making the wood groan. “Are you my wife, or are you their next victim?“
My hands stopped shaking. A strange, cold clarity washed over me. I looked at the man who had just saved my life, and then at the door that was about to splinter open.
I scrambled across the floor, grabbing the heavy, dead weight of the assassin by his boots, dragging him into the deep shadows behind the velvet curtains. My red bridal sari was stained with the assassin’s blood. I rushed back to Arnav, grabbing him under his arms, using every ounce of my strength to haul his heavy, muscular frame back into the wheelchair.
Just as his limp legs settled onto the footrests, the lock gave way with a deafening CRACK.
