'In the end even the stars take destruction over life'
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His own guilt
They were like a painting, he sat with her head rested on her lap, he had teared her away from the impact she'd have if she hit the floor, he'd caught her barely, before she fell, like he had barely protected her from his foes. He'd barely been with her today.
The man had bled out his veins, and died on him, he'd pulled the trigger and killed himself, before Maaz could interrogate him, they knew, all of their foes knew, people crumbled under his torture, and their secrets were way too precious, precious than their lives. At least, she was safe, although the stress had gotten the best of her, a gnawing feeling crawled over him, as he brushed his hands in her hair, he'd let her in this danger, anything could have happened, this was the least of control he had in his life. He'd deal with the bastards later, right now, her well being mattered more to him. He had called Shahzain, and made the dead body disappear before she woke up, he couldn't let her see the dead body of a man who killed himself.
Her eyes fluttered open, trying to get up, Maaz supported her back aiding her. Her mind was fuzzy at first, but then, poisoned memories seeped back in her brain cells, her eyes travelled to the gun he'd been holding, the gun she'd managed to ignore, and then the face of the murderer in front of her. Getting up from the road and looking for her stuff around stepping away from the pool of blood, stumbling again, Maaz got up to help her, but she shoved his hand away like it scorched her.
"Take me home," Ayat cried.
"I will take you home, you need to calm down, you are safe, nothing is going to hurt you," Maaz spoke trying to soothe her, although, he was butt hurt when she shoved his hand away looking at him in disgust, all the time she'd shoved anger didn't resemble this one pint.
"Take me home!" She screamed again. "I can't stand being around you,"
He charged forward, holding her in bruising grasp. "I will explain everything to you, and I promise that nothing like this will ever happen again, if only you calm down and listen to me,"
"You lied to me, you said you didn't do this, he was right, Ali was right, he knew men like you, you are the carrier of agony, you bring pain to souls, you destroy everything you touch,"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Confused, he grasped her firmly, thick tears fell down her face as she tried to breath through them.
"You killed him," Her voice cracked, her sentence barely making any sense to him. "I told you to stop...you still killed him,"
"Killed who?" He asked, and then it dawned on him what she was saying, she thought he had pulled the trigger, it wasn't entirely her fault because from her angle it might just be true.
"That man," She cried. "You killed that man, we could have handed him to the police, we could have..." she looked at his hand, and surge of anger passed down her spine. "Get your filthy hands off me,"
He held her face close to his own, his hand cupping her face. "Enough,"
She tried to resist him, to protest against his death grip, but he pulled her closer. "For goodness's sake, little dove, let me explain,"
But anything he said, she'd be met with a new reality, when she looked at the men passed out in front of her, she'd been in this mess because of him. All this mess, that had never been part of her, came at the cost of letting him in her life.
A black jeep arrived oozing in the silent night.
"It's covered up," Shahzain said not realizing his utterly bad timing.
"Your friend has covered your crime, your sin, you hid away in the cloak of charm, but I see right through you, I see a murderer, and I mean it this time, when I say, I hate you, nothing can convince me otherwise, I hate your voice, your eyes..." A swell formed in her throat, tears threatening to break loose. His eyes, that seemed homey, looked like those of a murderer, lethal.
"I hate you," She repeated and turned away, the temptation was high to look back at him for she won't see him ever again. Just one last time, look into that soul, she wanted to explore and understand, but she was wrong, he was beyond her understanding. He was too much for the world.
She tried to pull him away. "Damn it, Ayat, listen to me once, I didn't kill that bastard,"
"You bluffed with me, and I was dumb to get caught in your web of lies, but no more, I will not listen to one word that leaves your mouth now, not once," He knew she was stubborn, but her walls were as high as they could go right now.
"I love you," He spoke. "I'd be a breathing corpse,"
"I don't care, " She spat, and the look in her eyes scarred him so deep, he didn't know if it was mendable, his grip loosened, until she walked away from him.
"He didn't do it," Shahzain said one last time. "Please, that man killed himself,"
"You murderers would say anything to be better than you are, but you will stay what you are, in your natural state, disgusting people,"
She had always been manipulated by them, and she wouldn't let him manipulate her again. Those were all lies; she had seen it in front of her eyes. She wouldn't trust him, never again.
"Don't worry, she will come around, we will explain it to her, but right now there is someone who needs you more," Shahzain said.
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P R E V I O U S L Y
Maaz was in the gym, he wanted to have a normal day, like all the boys around him, he wanted to live and love like them, and he wanted to be like them, for her. He smiled to himself in the mirror; his self-hate could wait for a little while, his bruises from hitting himself several times could heal for once.
Her smile made the day better, the way her eyes glittered when she saw something she liked and how his little dove posed for a picture, her dimples adorning her chubby cheeks. He could spend lifetimes watching her.
He'd put the weights down and went to her room, for a shower, before they practiced out in the field. He took a quick shower, in a good mood for once, not like all those other times when he tried to bruise himself, or hit himself with something while he stood naked under the shower, he didn't try to kill himself, didn't need to harm himself for once, because he knew she won't like it. He knew she didn't like it when she heard that he inflicted harm on himself by choice, so he wouldn't do it.
His phone ringed, he finished showering and attended.
"What?" He said returning back to his sour tone, only if this matter was solved, he could spend more time with his dove, than these imbeciles that worked for him, and were close to useless.
"Did you find it?" He asked eagerly crackling his knuckles with one hand.
"No,"
"What the fuck do I pay you for?"
"We all tried every graveyard in Punjab, checked every record," He spoke, a little scattered, they knew how angry Maaz got, but they had spend the last months only looking for one name in all the graveyards around Punjab. Zara Farooq Chaudhry. His mother, but they couldn't find her anywhere, what had happened to her body? Where was she buried? He'd tried asking his father, but he didn't say a word, he'd even put a gun to his head, all his life he'd spent dwelling on things he didn't have any control over, so morality flowed out when it came to finding her mother, solving one mystery at a time, but her father didn't say anything, he didn't know where she was, because he was too happy sipping margaritas in Japan while her mother died in Pakistan.
"And you know how long have I been doing the same?!" He said immediately his blood boiling. "Trying? I have been trying for the last 4 years of my life, and no one else tried,"
"Chaudhry's sahib was mourning for his wife," These men not only worked for Maaz, but they had worked for their family as long as he could remember, maids, and workers, that is all he could remember, his own uncle hadn't tried to take him in when his father refused to come to Pakistan, and his father never tried to pull him abroad, as if he wanted to put infinite amounts of distance between them.
His uncle was dead, or he would have tried him as well, her mother was living at her uncle's house when he was born, and he had two cousins, but they must have been too young to know what went around, but he'd still try, if only he knew where they were. He hadn't met his family, ever.
"Don't give me that shit, who doesn't cares to know where his wife went? He doesn't care, or he is just a coward to know because he wasn't there when she needed him the most, he was in fucking England having the time of his life,"
"Sir, I did locate your cousins, one lives in Karachi and the other here in Lahore," The man informed, he sighed, a little relief coming through. "Khawar lives in Lahore and Danial lives in Karachi,"
"Ok, now cut the call and get to something more useful," he spat.
He crashed his phone on the floor until it broke into pieces, He couldn't rest until he found out where was her mother's body laid to rest, and what the fuck was she terrified from? It wasn't a normal death, he knew it. She'd been terrified of something, and he was itching to find out what, so he'd kill it, if it was anything being near human.
.
.
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Maaz was dumping his clothes in a duffle bag when a knock interrupted him. "Maaz, there is a call for you, it is your friend, Shahzain, he said you weren't picking up your phone,"
One of his fellow club players, trudged the phone to him. He took the phone an put it to the ear waiting for Shahzain to talk.
"Maaz, Farooq Uncle got shot, he is in the hospital," Earth slipped from under his feet. Got shot? Who was it? Who dared shot his father on his watch.
Maaz drove like a maniac, over speeding to the point if a speed breaker came it could put his car flying into heavens, or hell, he supposed, he had to get back to the city, it was the first time something like this happened to his dad, it got his heart sunk, he knew he'd only been growing his enemies day by day, but it would get to this point where his father would be targeted was beyond him. Politics was dirty, he knew that, and getting involved with Shahzain, and putting his enemies down would be risky, and he took that risk, but he couldn't have guessed, the enemy that had targeted his father wasn't from politics, it was personal, so personal he couldn't have guessed.
He was near the city hospital when another call got him on alert, he had only borrowed a phone from a fellow, which they had to give, no matter how much Maaz was a bastard to them, and they couldn't be insensitive.
It was Shahzain again. "Hello, Maaz?"
"What now?"
He was agitated. "It's Ayat,"
His heart sunk down a few more feet, whoever it was, was drawing more blood from Maaz than he had. "She is in the Alley. They are our enemies and they treat women like cavemen's, if your number hadn't been switched off, you would have seen the threat, and they sent it to me after waiting for your reply..."
"No!" He hit the steering wheel.
She was clouding his judgment, his decisions, and all sane thoughts had evaporated in the wind. He was fuming in pure rage. He would kill them if they touch her. His enemies couldn't hurt her. They were his to deal with; they couldn't play with her.
The car halted to a stop, and the way her eyes were squeezed shut with tears streaming down. It turned a few more than one live thought. She needed him. The U turn he took was and wasn't the most smartest decision of his life. He'd left her father alone, and he was chasing after her.
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Ayat fell to the ground, and Maaz pulled the trigger in shock looking at her, he had over stressed her. He aimed the wrong direction, and if Ayat had been conscious she'd say the right direction, the bullet made a burning hole in the unhinged rotting wooden door.
His pupils dilated like an evil pawn, and he shifted his gaze back to the man.
"Tell me! Who was it? It couldn't be that fucking coward boss of yours to send such an order, he got the point when I tortured him last, and so who was it?"
"I wouldn't be living if I tell you,"
"You won't be living if you don't," He said "So spit,"
"It's Khawar Javed Chaudhry," A smile etched on the man's lips, for the shock he was to deliver to Maaz. "Your cousin, you bastard,"
He felt taken back by the news, his cousin? What the hell did he want from him? Guess his entire family was insane.
"So you all were his men, walking the Alley as if you owned it, what the fuck does your boss want from me? Is he the one that shot my father?" He was seething. "Speak!"
"I can't say anything else,"
"I will kill you!" He said.
"I cant say no more,"
"It's your last warning," Maaz seethed, and what the man did next made Maaz go bonkers, he pulled the trigger from Maaz's gun as the gun shot made its way through the man's throat and he gagged and gagged until all blood drained out of his system.
"Bastard!"
Shahzain exited the car he came in several men came along in rows of cars behind. But Maaz sat along a dead body and several other unconscious human beings, including her.
"The bastard killed himself," Maaz said before Shahzain could ask. The fight seemed to be over. "My cousin Khawar is behind all this, and I don't know why, why would he target her, I think he is behind my father's shooting as well,"
It was so hard to tell him this news, but he had to. "Maaz, your father couldn't survive,"
He felt the Earth swallow him, and didn't know how to get out of that hole. If his cousin had killed his father, and sent goons after her in the course of a day, rendering him helpless, what else could he destroy? He looked at the girl in her lap he couldn't let her suffer the same fate, he'd protect her until he solved everything, until she was perfectly protected, not semi, not partly, but little did he know when she woke up, she'd take away his will to live.
...
Greetings fellas!
Here is a new chapter, officially an end to an era for Maaz and Ayat. Stay tuned for what life brings them later in life.
Kudos for you'll for sticking around till here.
Who else loves a good old time lapse?
Anyways guess you know what to do already,
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Stay happy and smiling!