Chapter 7

Anshul stood up with a jerk and again feeling the sharp pain in his legs, glanced down and noticed the many layers of bandage tightly wrapped on his thigh. He saw the bandage but didn’t really register it because his mind was swarming with whatever had happened.

Retreating to the side and leaning against the wall, he slid down to the floor and put his head in his hands to sort it out.

“Son,” A deep voice called which was quickly shushed by another voice, “The kid seems to have remembered everything suddenly. Give him some time to process it. You are a police officer; you should know that this is a traumatizing experience he has gone through. The kid-”

Anshul heard all that was being said but it seemed to come from far away and he never even tried to understand what they were saying. Suddenly, he felt a warm body snuggle up to him and as he put his arm around it, he gave in to the tears that had gathered in his eyes. Sobs wracked his body and he felt the body wrap itself tighter around him and he held it tightly to him too as he managed to put all the events that had happened in order. More and more tears fell from his eyes.

*****

It had been a bright sunny morning. He had been out with his friends and they had been visiting a mall. The group had been about to leave when he told his friends to go and get their scootys while he went to the restroom. Since they all lived nearby, his friends bid him goodbye and left. When he was done, Anshul had left the mall and had been checking something on his scooty.

He failed to notice that the streets were quite empty and was not alert at all so even when he was suddenly knocked out with a blow to his head, he didn’t even feel it.

The teenager had woken up in an alley, where around seven kids besides him were present. A girl with dyed hair was taking care of him.

Anshul smiled when he remembered how much he had scared Avni with his waking up shouting, “Ahhhhhhhhh”.

He recalled being introduced to the four eldest kids there who were around his age- Matthew, Avni, Dae and Aroon. He also remembered the youngest kid, Nia staring at him with big wondrous eyes and a kid with a bandana called Varun waving a stick at him, grinning.

That day he learnt that he had been captured by a gang that was involved in human trafficking. And that night, fear had been engraved into his very being when he had been beaten, viciously, ruthlessly and without reason by the head of the gang, Adheash. The beating had been so brutal that he had been unable to move for the following two days and again Avni had taken care of him.

A month had passed as they lived in the alleyway and the number of kids had increased from eight to sixteen. Many times, they had been beaten unreasonably and just for the fun of their captors. Once, one of their captors had beaten a boy so badly that his legs had been broken.

Adheash had been furious that day. He had raved on and on about “spoiled goods” and had beaten the man to a pulp. Then dragging him to the boy whose legs had been broken, Adheash offered the boy a knife and told him to kill the man.

The boy, after taking one look at the head of the gang, had driven the knife with trembling hands into the man’s heart. As the man lay dead, Adheash stood up, drew his gun and without a second look, blew the boy’s brains out.

The blood had splattered over the kids nearby and they had started screaming...

Adheash shot another round into the sky, snapping at them to keep quiet and ordering his men to dispose of the bodies.

Anshul shuddered as he remembered that day; it had been the first time he had seen someone die and the gruesomeness had nearly made him vomit then and it made him feel like puking even now.

As the days had passed, the five eldest kids planned many ways of escape but didn’t dare to act on even one of them.

And then tonight arrived.

The youngster smiled grimly.