13: The Girl in Red

10 August 2000

The morning air that week hung heavily with the promise of the monsoon — and within Heritage FC’s training grounds, Bharath Hema had become more than a hopeful name. He was part of the tempo.

Coach Biswas’s barks had shifted from skepticism to command. No more grunts of disapproval — now it was “Again!”, “To Bharath!”, “Run the triangle — let him break it!” Arvind passed to him in tight drills without hesitation. Rafael slapped his back and muttered jokes between stretches. Even Madhavan — stony, distant Madhavan — gave him nods that meant: you’re one of us. Kofi was louder about it. “Half-bull, half-seer,” he laughed, watching Bharath win a ball mid-scrum. “Rams through defenders. Reads the future.”

And maybe he did.

His body moved like it knew what came next. Like some silent pattern had been unlocked inside him — not just tactics, but instinct. Power sharpened by purpose. It wasn’t just footwork anymore. It was flow.

Back in Ballygunge, the new apartment had begun to hum with routine — not yet domestic, but deeply lived-in. Bharath rose first each morning, barefoot in the kitchen, cobbling together halwa-toast or reheated sabzis into artful breakfasts. The aroma alone pulled the girls from their rooms, half-awake and smiling. Every plate came with a scrawled note.

Anya swooned and curled into his lap before her first bite. Priya rolled her eyes, called it “footballer romance theatre” — and then finished her share.

By midmorning, they scattered.

Bharath to the pitch, sleeves rolled, muscles sore, but mind sharp.
Anya to Rekha’s orbit — boutique launches, fundraisers, gallery viewings, always the radiant plus-one, wrapped in chiffon and secrets. She dazzled in front of cameras and murmured weaponized sweetness into champagne flutes, then came home to Bharath’s chest and cotton sheets, letting her armor fall one kiss at a time.

But after that last event, something had shifted.

She’d stood face-to-face with Rekha — beautiful, dangerous Rekha — and for the first time, hadn’t flinched. Her smile had turned into a blade. And she knew now: she could hold her own. Even if it meant pretending to play along with the “golden couple” charade a little longer.

Priya hunted.

Not for sport. Not for vanity.

She stalked salons, rooftop bars, club lounges, and whisper-heavy corridors of boutique hotels. She flirted with valets and gossiped with stylists. But she wasn’t chasing shadows — she was mapping them. Every nod, every slip of the tongue, every “she’s coming in tonight” went into the mental web she was building. And occasionally, when the moment allowed, she checked on her girls in the Bankra road house. Quietly. Discreetly. Making sure they still had options. Still had hope.

Her weapon wasn’t brute force. It was her sheer presence. Awareness. A camera slung casually across her chest and eyes that never stopped scanning.

Kim was changing.

Subtly. Daily. Irrevocably.

Her cheeks now stayed flushed. Her fingertips tingled constantly. Her lips were permanently pink. Her breath quickened at night without cause.

At first, she feared it was madness. A side effect. Hormonal overflow. But now...

Now she knew.

It was evolution.

She’d gotten the green light from the club, and her professor — barely — to pursue embedded observation. She hadn’t told them everything, of course. She couldn’t. Not about the dreams. Not about the moans that escaped her lips without touch. Not about the wetness that bloomed every time Bharath brushed past her on the way to training. She had cited somatic transference and emotional mirroring and the psychological effects of close-quarters recovery.

She had lied.

And she didn’t care.

Because she knew, in her gut, in her bones, that she had to be here. Not just as a researcher. Not even as a woman.

As something more.

She began cataloguing sensations alongside temperature, heart rate, and dream fragments. Bharath’s presence always coincided with an electrical spike in her lower back. Anya’s voice lingered in her psyche like sandalwood smoke. The dreams left her breathless and wet — and more curious than ever.

Her journals were filling up.

Charts. Symbols. Cross-referenced dates and drawings.

But the margin notes were no longer clinical.

They were cravings.

“Touch triggered at the base of spine. Eye contact + proximity = loss of time perception. Mutual climax always arrives before full narrative arc completes. Feels ... destined.”

She read her own words and bit her lip.

What scared her most wasn’t that she was just documenting something divine.

It was that she didn’t want to stop.

But not everything was glowing.

Celina hadn’t been seen in three days since the Gala. Anya and Bharath tried not to worry, but the tension hung in the air.

Anya asked around in the modeling circle. Priya had asked a contact to check in on the guest list. The girl had become a ghost. Noone knew where she was. Bharath had frowned but said nothing — trusting the women to handle it.

Only Kim had dared whisper the obvious, as she lay curled in Bharath’s lap in their dream that night.

“She’s not okay, is she?”

Anya didn’t answer as she tried to kiss the tension in Bharath’s shoulders away.

The moment the red dress touched her skin, Celina knew something was wrong.

It wasn’t the way it shimmered — too slick, too loud — or the way it clung like static to her thighs. It was the weight of it. Like shame sewn into silk. No hanger. No tag. No designer’s name whispered behind its stitching. Just a garment handed to her on a velvet tray, as if she were being offered a noose spun from rubies.

“This isn’t ... this isn’t for the ramp, is it?” she asked, her voice thinner than she expected.

Rekha didn’t answer at first. Just watched her. A flicker of annoyance behind that trademark smile. “You’ll look divine,” she said, adjusting Celina’s hair at the nape. “Remember — you’re not selling a brand. You are the brand. A mood. A promise. A fantasy.”

Celina stared at herself in the mirror. The girl looking back had hollowed eyes rimmed in smoke. Her lips were bloodstained. Her cheeks glowed, but it wasn’t youth. It was polish. Over-preparedness. Her body looked poised. Her soul looked missing.

“Where’s the show?” she asked again, slower now.

Rekha turned away. “Lounge level. You’ll be escorted. Here—” She handed her a small blue pill in a silver blister pack. “Take it. Just a little help for the nerves.”

Celina stared at the tablet.

Something in her stomach twisted.

She pretended to swallow it, tucking it under her tongue, then slipping it into the corner of her makeup pouch the moment Rekha turned her back.

No. Not tonight. Not until she knew what this was.

The corridor outside was silent. Too silent. Two other girls waited near the elevator. Barely older than teenagers. One fiddled with a gold bangle, eyes wide. The other muttered something over and over like a mantra — her name, maybe, or a prayer. Neither made eye contact.

The elevator doors opened with a sterile chime.

Descent.

As they rode down, Celina tried to breathe evenly. Tried to play it cool, detached, like she always did before a casting. But the silence was different. It wasn’t anticipation.

It was dread.

The doors opened to low lighting. A strange, air-conditioned hush. No photographers. No music. No stylists fluttering around. Just ... chairs. Leather. Arranged in a semi-circle.

And men.

Older. Wealthier. Wearing boredom like cufflinks. Folders open in their laps. Not a camera in sight. Just drinks. Smirks. Eyes that appraised and dismissed in the same breath.

Rekha’s voice floated in like perfume. “Gentlemen ... tonight’s showcase.”

Celina took a step forward.

Every instinct screamed at her to stop.

But her body obeyed the muscle memory. Chin high. Shoulders back. One foot after the other, like she had walked a thousand runways before. But this wasn’t a runway.

This was a catalog.

A showroom.

A meat market.

Celina’s heels clicked softly across the marble, each step echoing louder in her ears than it should have. She could feel the men watching her — not with admiration, but with calculation. Each gaze was a scalpel, stripping her bare. They weren’t seeing her. They were seeing price tags.

She was Celina Singh. Her face had graced magazine covers. Her name had once been whispered in ad agency conference rooms with urgency. She had turned down endorsements, walked exclusive shows in Bombay, Singapore, even Hong Kong. Photographers had fought to shoot her. Designers had sent her roses after fittings.

But here — no one said her name.

No one cared.

They didn’t see her as famous. Or desirable. Or iconic.

They saw her as a product.

She felt it now, the tilt of the world beneath her stilettos — a slow unraveling of everything she thought she understood about power. Her power. Beauty, in this room, wasn’t glory. It was just another commodity.

And they were here to spend.

She passed the first man. His eyes didn’t move. He made a mark in the folder on his lap. Cold. Bored. Like he was grading a slab of marble for polish and vein pattern.

The next man licked his lips. Not lasciviously — worse. Like he was assessing flavor.

She felt bile rise but kept her smile fixed. Eyes soft. Walk poised.

By the third chair, something snapped into place.

If this was a game — she’d play it.

You want a fantasy? she thought, spine straightening, chin tilting just a touch higher. Fine.

But you don’t get to buy me cheap.

She flipped her hair with practiced grace. Slowed her steps. Let the fabric slither against her thighs with every calculated pivot. Her eyes flared not with seduction — but with challenge. She had seduced men before, but never like this. Never like a loaded weapon.

“Do we bid?” someone finally murmured.

A ripple of interest.

“Open floor,” Rekha purred from the side, her voice smooth like antique velvet.

And just like that — Celina felt the room change.

The silence turned electric.

The men leaned forward.

“Fifty,” one of them said casually.

“Eighty,” another followed, not even looking up from his file.

A third voice, amused: “A hundred. I know the face. She’s done Lakmé twice. I want her.”

Someone else: “Hundred-twenty. For the night.”

Laughter. The kind that smells like cigars and power.

Celina’s heart pounded, but she didn’t blink. Her face was a mask. A porcelain queen watching peasants squabble over her dowry.

This was grotesque.

But it was also a strange, terrible confirmation of her worth — not the worth she wanted, but the one they believed in. The way she filled that dress, the way she walked, the illusion she could project ... it made them hunger. And hunger made them pay.

She stood under the lights, a goddess in disguise, and watched them barter.

They think they own the world, she thought. But I’ve owned rooms bigger than this. I’ve commanded attention on runways ten times brighter.

They don’t know who I am.

They don’t know who they’re buying.

She locked eyes with Rekha then — who was watching from the corner, arms folded, expression unreadable.

But beneath the surface, Celina could see it now.

Satisfaction.

This wasn’t a test. It was a trap.

And she had passed — but not in the way she wanted.

She had drawn blood. At a price.

Rekha moved to close the round. “One-thirty. Final.”

“No,” Celina said, softly but clearly, turning to face the room.

The silence rippled again.

Rekha’s head tilted, feline and amused. “Pardon?”

Celina smiled — a slow, dangerous thing. “They haven’t seen me walk yet.”

And with that, she strutted once more. Not for the men. Not for Rekha.

For herself.

Every step screamed: You will not forget me.

But inside — deep inside — something was breaking. Cracking. A mirror warping under heat.

Because no matter how strong her walk, how steady her glare...

She was still standing on a stage where women were sold.

And her name hadn’t been called once.

“One-eighty, final,” Rekha repeated.

And this time, no one countered.

There was a brief silence — cold and dry — before a hand rose lazily from the second row. A man in a steel-grey Nehru jacket. Sharp features. Monogrammed cufflinks. Bored eyes.

“This one,” he said, not even looking at her as he gestured. “Have the car ready.”

Celina’s blood turned to ice.

She stood still, spine perfectly aligned, even as her thoughts screamed. She forced her lips into a smile and walked toward him, heart hammering, legs fluid, gaze half-lidded. The mask had to hold. For now.

The man didn’t speak to her. Not directly. His assistant came forward — a tall man with slicked hair and a earpiece, who gave her a once-over like she was a showroom vehicle.

“This way.”

Celina walked behind him. Step by step. Silken dress whispering betrayal against her legs. She glanced back once. Rekha was already turning to the next girl, clipboard in hand, lips curling as another bid was placed.

Not a backward glance.

Not a second thought.

Celina had been sold.

The car was sleek, tinted, discreet. She sat in the back, next to the man who now “owned” her for the night. His cologne was sharp — expensive and heavy. He offered her a glass of something amber.

She accepted it. Took a sip.

Then leaned in slightly, letting her shoulder brush his arm.

“Are you always this quiet?” she asked, voice velvet.

He smiled faintly. “No need for small talk. We both know the script.”

She let her fingers trail lightly across his wrist. “Scripts can change.”

He glanced at her then — truly looked — and smirked. “You’re a bold one.”

“Only when I want to be remembered,” she whispered.

That made him chuckle. “I like you. We’ll go to a quieter hotel. More ... privacy.”

He gave the driver a new name. Not the big five-stars. It was one of the designer boutique spots. This was a mid-tier business hotel tucked between flyovers — easy check-ins, discreet staff, no questions.

Celina’s pulse slowed, but her focus sharpened.

This is your chance.

Get him comfortable. Make him drop his guard.

By the time they reached the room, she was practically coiled against him, laughing at his dry jokes, her fingertips lightly brushing his chest. He opened the door, dimmed the lights, and poured them both a drink.

He took his coat off. Loosened his shirt.

“Do you ever get tired of men looking at you like a product?” he asked.

She tilted her head. “Only when they forget I have teeth.”

He laughed. Pleased. Sipped his drink. Sat on the edge of the bed.

She joined him — slow, deliberate. Her knee touched his thigh. She ran her fingers up to the collar of his shirt.

“I want this to be ... slow,” she whispered.

He nodded, eyes glassy with lust and liquor.

Perfect.

Her hand slid behind his neck. Her lips brushed his ear.

Then she pushed.

Hard.

He fell back, caught off guard, nearly tumbling off the bed.

Celina spun.

Three steps to the nightstand. One breath.

She grabbed the lamp — heavy, brass, brutal — and swung.

CRACK

It connected with the side of his temple. He grunted, arms flailing. Blood burst like ink from his eyebrow. She hit him again. And again until he fell like a bloody meatsack on the floor.

Then she ran.

The door wasn’t locked. She flung it open, heart thundering, lungs ready to scream.

Freedom.

Corridor. Light. Exit signs.

She took two steps—and slammed into them.

Two men in black jackets. Silent. Smooth. Waiting.

They didn’t hesitate.

One grabbed her arms. The other caught her legs as she kicked.

“NO!” she shrieked. “LET GO OF ME! BACHAO! HELP—!”

A large hand covered her mouth.

The hallway swallowed her screams.

She twisted, thrashed, bit one of them. He swore, punched her ribs.

Pain bloomed.

They dragged her into a stairwell. One of them pulled out a syringe.

“No,” she gasped, sobbing now. “Please. Please don’t—”

She barely felt the prick.

Darkness swept in like water over her lungs.

And just before she blacked out, she heard one of them say:

“Fucking Rekha said she was wild. Should’ve dosed her harder.”

She woke up cold.

Not the kind that made you shiver — the kind that soaked into your bones. That told you you weren’t meant to wake up warm ever again.

Her cheek stuck to rough concrete. Her lips were split. Her wrists—burning. Shackled. Something crusted and tacky matted her hair to her scalp. Blood. Maybe sweat. Maybe both.

She blinked.

Nothing. No window. No light. Just the rhythmic hum of a generator far away and the sound of her own breath, uneven and hoarse.

She tried to scream.

Nothing came out.

Then—heels. Sharp. Measured. Deliberate.

Her stomach dropped before she even saw the shadow glide through the reinforced steel door.

Rekha.

Pristine. Immaculate. Unbothered. In a powder blue sari that whispered wealth with every step, she looked like she was visiting a boutique, not a prison.

Celina’s mouth opened, but no words formed. Just pain.

Rekha crouched, the picture of gentle curiosity. Like she was examining a damaged handbag.

“You were supposed to obey,” she said, voice silk over steel.

Celina choked out a sound. “You said ... a show...”

Rekha smiled. “It was. Just not for you.”

She brushed a strand of hair from Celina’s battered forehead, then flicked the blood from her fingertips like it offended her.

“You were sold, darling.”

The words dropped like stones.

“No...” Celina’s voice cracked. Her throat ached with dryness and dread. “No, that’s not...”

“You didn’t ask why you were chosen, did you? You never do. You girls just preen. Pose. Pout. And when you’re finally packaged to be unwrapped, you’re surprised.”

Celina’s chest rose and fell with uneven gulps. Her arms trembled against the cuffs. Her whole body felt like it had been put through a shredder.

“Where ... where’s my uncle?” she asked, voice barely audible.

Rekha’s smile faded. “Ah, yes. Your dear uncle.”

Celina’s eyes widened.

“He tried, you know,” Rekha said conversationally. “Poor thing showed up at the wrong time. Raised his voice. Demanded to see you.”

Celina shook her head slowly, as if denying it would make time reverse.

“He screamed so sweetly,” Rekha continued, eyes glittering. “They beat him until he stopped.”

“No...”

“He’s in Mumbai. In some ICU. Coma, I believe.” Rekha’s gaze flicked over her face. “He hasn’t woken since the night before your little photoshoot.”

Celina’s world tilted. She felt the scream rise in her throat, but it never made it out. Just a raw, empty sob.

“You’re lying,” she rasped. “You’re fucking lying—”

Rekha stood. “I never lie. I curate.”

She turned her back to Celina, adjusted a crease in her sari. “He didn’t sell you, Celina. But you were sold anyway. Because beautiful things don’t belong to themselves. They are displayed. And then they are bought.”

Celina’s body shook. Rage. Fear. Shame. Grief.

She thought of Bharath.

His eyes. His mouth. The way he never looked at her again after Anya returned. The way he touched Anya like she was holy.

She had no one.

She thought of her uncle’s laughter. The way he’d called her pari when no one else was around. The only person who truly saw her. Gone. Beaten. Forgotten in some sterile ICU.

Rekha was at the door now.

“And now,” she said, not looking back, “you’re mine. If you behave.”

The lock clicked shut behind her.

Celina lay there, gasping, the pain pressing in from all sides — her body wrecked, her heart crushed under the weight of betrayal and loss. Her wrists bled. Her lip pulsed. Her mind ... frayed.

She tried to curl into herself, but even that hurt. Even the fetal position was a memory now.

She had nothing.

Not a face left in the world that would come for her.

And for the first time in her life, proud, fierce, storm-eyed Celina ... broke.

Completely.

Her sobs came silent and wet, leaking from her like her last pieces.

In the dark, in the cold, she whispered one name.

Not Rekha’s.

Not her uncle’s.

Not even her own.She didn’t mean to summon him.

—

Celina didn’t even know she could.

Her body in the real world was still — curled like a discarded doll on cold concrete, ribs sore from where the boots had landed, wrists raw from steel. Her lip was split. Her knees bruised. Her hair sticky with blood and spit. Her breath was shallow. Her voice had long since been screamed hoarse.

But inside — somewhere deeper than pain, deeper than memory — something gave.

Not a cry.

A rupture.

Like a cracked mirror under pressure, her soul buckled. And in that fracture, something old and luminous listened.

The yantra heard.

Darkness folded around her.

No corridor. No cell. No shackles. Just the emptiness between thought and dream, where broken spirits sometimes fall.

She landed in it without grace — knees slamming into red dust, hands trembling, vision unfocused. The sky above her pulsed with a sickly crimson haze, like a wound that refused to close. There was no sound but her breath — ragged, unsure. Her limbs weren’t heavy now, but they weren’t hers either. The bruises had followed her. So had the blood.

She looked down at her arms — and saw that they shimmered faintly, like something trying to disappear.

She didn’t scream.

There was no voice left in her.

But somewhere in her mind, where prayer and desperation became indistinguishable, a name escaped her.

Bharath.

Just that.

Nothing more.

He felt it like lightning splitting the sea.

Bharath had been in deep sleep, exhausted from practice that day, wrapped in the soft perfume of Anya’s hair. The two of them lay tangled in their bedroom oblivious to everything around them.

And then—the ground beneath him rippled. His pulse cracked open.

He gasped.

But he was already rising. His bare feet touched the surface of the dreamwater, and it solidified under him as he walked.

No—ran.

Something was pulling him. Not like gravity.

Like grief.

The dream around him bled from silver to scarlet.

He didn’t know where he was going. But he knew why.

Celina.

She didn’t know she had fallen asleep.

There was no moment of release, no sign into unconsciousness — only the pain ebbing just enough to allow her mind to slip. Her body, battered and motionless on the damp floor of the dark room, lay curled like a broken doll. Her wrists had stopped bleeding, but only because the skin had torn so badly it could tear no more. Her throat was hoarse, dry from crying that no one heard. Her uncle was gone. Bharath had chosen Anya. She had nothing. No one.

But something cracked.

Somewhere deep, beneath the bruises and the shame, something inside her heart broke with a silent, wordless scream.

And the yantra — buried, but still alive — answered.

She didn’t summon him.

She fractured.

The world around her shifted. Not to comfort. But to contain. A dream formed not of softness, but of scarlet fog and aching memory. The sky bled red above her, the ground beneath her glimmering like obsidian soaked in sorrow. She stood, barely whole, in the half-formed realm. Her reflection in the ground shimmered — grey eyes dull, lips split, collarbone shadowed by bruises. Her dress was gone. She wore only memories.

She couldn’t speak.

But in the recesses of her mind, she whispered it.

Bharath...

A tremor.

The dream stirred.

And then—

He was there.

She didn’t see him arrive. He simply ... was. Like a gust of wind arriving before the thunder. He ran toward her, panic writ across his face. He was barefoot, with something glowing faintly across his chest like a heartbeat trying to reach her.

He dropped to his knees.

“Celina.”

She stumbled back, stunned. Her body didn’t trust what she saw.

“Bharath...?” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Is this real?”

He reached out, trembling. “You pulled me here. I felt you. I—”

She rose with whatever strength she had remaining and fell into him, collapsing into his chest like a dying flame finding oxygen. Her arms wrapped around his waist. Her fingers dug into his back.

“I thought I was already dead,” she sobbed. “I thought I was dreaming alone, and no one would ever come.”

“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m here.”

She buried her face into his neck. His warmth. His scent. His arms closed around her, and something in her finally, finally stopped shaking.

“I didn’t know I could ... call you,” she said between sobs. “I didn’t even know if you’d still want me.”

He leaned back just enough to see her face. His thumb brushed her bruised cheek. “I always wanted you, Celina. I just ... I thought you weren’t ready. That I was being selfish.”

She blinked up at him, confused. “But you left me. You picked Anya.”

He cupped her face gently. “And I was wrong. I should’ve fought harder for you. You’re not less than her. You’re not second. You’re mine.”

She trembled. “Why now? Why only when I’m ... broken?”

“You’re not broken,” he said fiercely. “You’re burning. And I’m here to carry you out.”

She broke again.

This time, into tears. Into wild sobs that tore from her chest and soaked his skin.

“I was taken,” she whispered. “Rekha told me it was just a show. A private event. I thought maybe ... maybe she wanted me to prove myself.”

“Tell me,” he said softly but seething inside as his hands curled into fists.

Her voice was flat. Cracked. But she obeyed.

“They dressed me in this red dress. No label. No lining. Just ... a thing for display. There were men. Older. With folders. They pointed at me and bid on me like I was some sort of object. One of them said, ‘That one.’ I wasn’t a person. Just a product.”

Bharath was boiling over in anger.

“They took me to a some fancy hotel. Not one I recognized. Somewhere near Elgin Road, I think. Velvet chairs in the lounge. No cameras.”

She looked up at him, her eyes shattered.

“I tried to play the part. I thought maybe I could stall. Get close, distract him. But when he grabbed me—when he touched me—something inside me screamed. I fought. I hit him. I almost escaped.”

“You’re brave,” Bharath breathed. “You’re my storm.”

“I didn’t get far,” she continued. “There were guards. They beat me. Locked me in a basement. Told me I’d learn what happens to ‘disobedient girls.’”

He pulled her tighter as he shuddered with anger. She clutched his arm.

“They said my uncle tried to stop it. That he went to someone. Begged. And they ... they beat him too. He’s in a coma now. In Mumbai. I don’t even know if he will survive.”

She closed her eyes. “He was the only one who ever loved me. And now he’s gone too. You were the second. And I thought ... I thought you had left me too.”

Bharath didn’t speak. His eyes were wet.

“You’re all I have left,” she whispered.

He kissed her forehead — reverently, as if sealing a promise.

“You’re not alone. You are mine. You always were. And I swear to you, Celina — I will find you. In the waking world. I’ll tear through every wall, every lie, until you’re free again.”

“How?” she breathed. “You don’t know where I am.”

“Tell me what you remember. Anything. Smell. Sounds. Details.”

She tried to focus.

“There is a rotting smell all around me. And a bakery — I think I heard someone mention a closed bakery when they were giving me food. And the floor is cold. Cement. No sound travels. I think I am below ground. Maybe a basement.”

He memorized each word.

She looked at him again, her eyes pleading. “Do you really mean it? That I’m yours?”

“I mean it,” he said, forehead against hers. “You, Anya, Kim ... you’re all my soulmates. Different stars in the same sky.”

She hesitated.

“But why didn’t you come before?”

“Because I was scared I’d hurt you,” he whispered. “But now I know — not choosing you was the greatest hurt.”

She kissed his chest softly. “Then stay. Please. Don’t let me wake up without you.”