“What do you want?” Chandra asked kindly.

The room was well furnished. It was carpeted and had all the amenities for modern living. There were no windows, but instead vents carried air in and out of the room. They sat on a set of comfy sofa, facing each other. The sofa was so comfy that Monica sank into them, enjoying the luxury for the moment.

“How much do you want?” he asked again.

“Hold on,” Monica said as she got back up, “let’s talk business, shall we?”

“Who sent you?” he asked.

“Don’t pretend as if you don’t know,” she lied. She wanted to hear more names come straight from his mouth.

“There is no way you are working for that rascal, Aravind,” he said. “I thought he was an honest cop. But I guess even they like to break rules.”

She let out a burst of laughter, “you are being rather hypocritical right now, aren’t you?”

He didn’t response, instead looked at her with a death gaze. Her blood boiled from just looking at his expression, but she couldn’t help but break a smile.

“Look at you. Better turn down that seething anger before I am forced to man handle you,” she warned.

His expression immediately changed to that of fear as cold sweat poured down the sides of his forehead.

“This scam of yours, how many people from the government are involved?” she asked.

“What scam?”

“The scam you are trying to run away from.”

“I am forced to flee because I can’t pay those claims. How am I supposed to pay thousands of claims at once? And with people withdrawing at the same time, I cannot print money.”

“You take me for a fool, don’t you?” she said.

He fell silent as he stared at her with big guilt-ridden eyes.

“Let’s ignore the fact that you were providing insurance in a state-run scheme. Meaning that the government had stake in this. You see at first, I thought it was just you who were running away with the money, but then I found out about your connections with minister and more importantly with the syndicate, Irumani.”

His eyes dilated on hearing those words, his expression changed to that of horror. “You know about them?” he asked.

“I had run into them before,” she responded so casually, that it seemed like a daily job for her.

“Who are you?” he asked in an astonished voice. No one messes with the Irumani.

“Doesn’t matter. So, my guess is there was never any system to claim money was there?”

He fell silent, looking down at the floor like he genuinely felt the guilt. “I told them it wouldn’t work. Irumani are always looking to loot and get rich. This time they laid their eyes on a preposterous scheme. Insurance is always a scam. So, it wasn’t a surprise that somebody in the syndicate would come up with this idea. But they could have chosen any bank, but it had to be mine. The finance mister basically owned us, and I could not say no.”

“Enough of your sobbing,” Monica said interrupting him. She grew impatient, knowing that anyone outside would wake at any moment, “get to the point. If they planned to steal all the insurance money, how did you plan to pay off when disaster hit? Floods happen every year, your plan would have quickly fallen apart.”

“Taxpayer’s money. They ran the numbers, a flood a year would have been easily covered by the taxpayer’s money. But with a disaster like this, it is impossible to cover the cost.”

“This feels like a very roundabout way to steal tax money.”

“The kind of money we collected, could never compare to tax money, especially when half the population isn’t paying them,” he replied.

Monica couldn’t help but grin at the irony of it all. Most of the time it is people like him who doesn’t pay their taxes, yet they are the ones complaining about low tax collection. “So, where do you come into all of this? Pretend to be on the run for a few days, get tossed in the jail as their fall guy?”

He didn’t answer her question, instead he kept staring down at the floor. “Answer me!” Monica demanded.

“That should have been the case and maybe it would have been better for me in the long term… be the victim… but I couldn’t do that. So, I locked all the money under my name. If they want the cash… they need me alive.”

“Clever. You just made my life very easy.”

A shiver travelled up his spine on hearing those word. “Wait,” he said with a shaky voice, “what are you planning on doing?”

“Nothing much. Just planning to return the money back to the people.”

“No way. There is no way you can make me do that,” he replied. This time his voice did not tremble.

“Who is asking for your permission?” Monica replied. She had a big frown on her face.

Panic set in as he began to shiver in fear. She could hear his teeth clatter and his heart race. “There is no way you will have access to my accounts,” he said.

“You need not worry about that, I have my methods,” she replied as she got back up on her feet.

Without any warning, Chandra leapt at her. He tightened his fist, sending it towards her face. But before it could even reach her, Monica stopped it dead in its tracks with her left palm. She grinned on seeing his sweaty face and bulging eyes before driving her fist into his face, knocking him unconscious. She let his fist go, causing him to slump back onto the chair.

She bent over him before stretching her hand over to his face. She touched his forehead with her index finger and whispered, “it won’t even sting a little.” A blue aura flashed from the tip of her finger as she closed her eyes. She began to sway a little as she seemed to have gone into a trance.

Monica never liked reading minds. It was an invasion of privacy and idea of someone being able to look into her mind irked her. That is one reason why she doesn’t subject anyone to this power. Yet, there are times when one must bend their rules and Monica had no problem doing so. If you knew what you were looking for, you would find it easily. So, all Monica had to do was look in the right place and would find what she was looking for. His mind was clout with a mix of emotions, mostly fear and loathing. Looking past the wall of recent memories, she came upon the last moment he had accessed his laptop. She memorized the pattern of all the passwords before letting go of him.

***

Sharp pain radiated from between his eyes. It made his mind all fuzzy and unable to think straight. He looked around his surrounding in a dazed vision, trying to recall where he was and what he was doing. He seemed to have fallen asleep on the chair… no he was knocked out. A jolt of pain radiated from his nose, making him squeal.

“You are awake,” a voice spoke a moment later.

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He looked ahead to see the stranger on the chair working on a laptop… no, his laptop. The realization jolted him awake as he nearly jumped from his chair, “how did you get access to my laptop?”

“I have my methods,” she replied without looking away from the laptop screen.

He quickly got up on his feet, stretching out his arms to grab it. But before he could reach it, he felts something hit him in the hip, sending him flying back into his seat. He struggled to get back up again as the pain from his hip sent a shock through his body.

“Keep calm,” she said, “it’s over.”

“What do you mean?”

She shut the laptop and said holding it up, “I have access to your money.”

“Thief! You are just another thief!” he angrily commented.

Monica felt a deep satisfaction seeing his red face. “I guess you can say that. Though unfortunately, I am not going to get anything. Fifteen thousand people had signed up for this in six months. It is going to take some time, but the process has already begun. And, just to make their day better, I added some premium from your personal account that is.”

His chest drew cold as his skin began to burn. His hands began to tremble as he began to repeatedly say, “it is all gone… all of it.”

“Yes. All of it,” there was no smile on her face this time.

She got back up on her feet and proceeded towards the wall where she made her way in. just then, a voice called out to her, “You can’t leave me here!” She turned around to see Chandra on his knees and in tears. She let out a dull sigh, seeing his pathetic state.

“I have no interest in protecting you,” she replied.

“You have to. They will kill me otherwise,” he pleaded.

“So, what do you want me to do? Take care of you from now on? You got yourself into this. You knew very well you were playing with fire,” she replied. Her voice trembled in anger.

“I had no choice, dammit!” he wailed. “You have to believe me.”

Monica took a moment to think of the situation. While she did pretend to not care, she did however, not want him to die. But the problem was, she had no idea what to do. “So what? You want me to help you runaway? That is not going to happen.”

He wiped the tears of his face and replied, “I will surrender.”

“To whom exactly? Everyone seem to be working for them.”

“Not everyone.”

“Aravind?” Monica replied, she remembered his name. He simply nodded in response. She never heard of him before and couldn’t tell for sure if Chandra was telling the truth. She wondered if he was really his ally, and that Chandra was simply bluffing. But then, would it be any better than leaving him here to die?

“Dammit!” she cursed under her breath.

***

“Nara, how long have we been lying like this?” the decoy asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t look at my watch,” the driver replied.

The decoy looked in front of him to see the vehicle missing. “Where did the car go?”

“You didn’t see that guy and Chandra take the car and leave?” They still mistook Monica for a man.

“I actually slept off,” the decoy replied.

“Let’s continue to do that for some more time,” the driver suggested.

With that the two shut their eyes and tried to forget the events as a nightmare.

***

This was a hopeless situation. They had searched every corner of this city and still couldn’t find him. Even with all the moles littered in the department, he had taken steps to make sure Chandra didn’t leave the city. But he seemed to have simply slipped away.

He was back at his home, but he was still in his uniform and at his desk. He wasn’t really doing anything, just staring into his laptop screen, and waiting for someone give him something of use. His wife meanwhile sat silently on the sofa, knowing well it was best for her to let him be, but she couldn’t help it. She turned back and through the open door saw her husband sitting at his desk motionless. He was expressionless but his wife knew him long enough to know he was disturbed. “Dear…” she began but was quickly interrupted.

“Please don’t. Not now…” he said.

“You can’t just sit there all night. This isn’t good for your health nor is it going to help your case.”

He knew she was right. Age was catching up to him and his health had been on the decline for quite some time. But he simply couldn’t sit on the side like this. So many people are going to lose their livelihood because of this man. He always hated his inner moral compass. People like him would be swimming in the riches by now. But he couldn’t do that.

Things were a lot simpler when she was around. Sure, she wasn’t there always and everywhere. But it was enough to scare the syndicates from committing crimes, making the life of people like him much easier. He always cherished the six months she was running around. He often referred to it as the golden time of his life. They had caught so many criminals, people were getting justice, and he was able to return home and sleep peacefully. Things have not been the same since then.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the main door and voice behind it spoke. “Sir, you have to take a look at this.”

It was his guard. The two looked at each other’s face for a moment before he got out of his room and headed to the main door. He unlocked it to see the guard, but more importantly, he and his mates were in possession of man, who was now on his knees and tied up. Aravind suddenly experienced a range of emotions, but mostly surprise and happiness.

“Where did you get him?” he asked.

“He came to us. Running, tied up like this.”

***

She looked at the wound again. It had all but disappeared. There were signs of blue colour on the skin, but the bump had disappeared, and she didn’t feel any pain on touching it or moving her arm. She quickly popped on a blue t shirt and got ready to leave.

It had been three days since she dropped off Chandra at Aravind’s home and so far, there hadn’t been any news of his murder. Instead, his arrest was all over the news, along with the miraculous story of how people began to find their money in their accounts. It wasn’t an easy task. Monica suspected that many, if not all, would be paying these fees directly from their pockets. With no online account to transfer the funds to, she was forced to solve a logistical nightmare overnight. Or so she thought. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief learning that the bank had went ahead and created an account for those who didn’t have one, making her job a lot easier.

***

The bank was just as busy as the day they visited earlier. However, now the place seemed more organized with police maintaining order in the place.

“Do you want to try and bribe them?” Monica mocked Mohan.

He rolled his eyes as they stood in the long queue, which despite bending several times over, reached the main road. It took about an hour for them to finally get inside and she finally understood why there were police outside and inside. The place was a mess. The desks and visitor’s chairs were broken in half, all the glass shattered and a few of the employees had bandages, some of them had their limbs in a cast. Monica felt it prick in her chest on seeing the employees in such a sorry state. These innocent people were getting thrashed by the public while he sat in his hideaway, relaxing. None of the employees wore a smile on their face. They just wanted to get the job done and leave, and honestly that is what all their customers wanted to do too.

“We didn’t get whole claim settled but I guess we can do with what we got,” Mohan said as they walked out of the bank and towards the main road.

“Will that be sufficient for the families?” she asked.

“Dinesh said they will have to pay a little from their wallets, but I think the numbers look fine.”

“Money is all we can do for them,” Monica said.

“Monica!” a familiar voice called out to her. She turned around and saw two men running towards her.

“Hey Gowtham! And Ganesh…?” she greeted them. The man behind nodded. Both had big smiles on their face. “How did it go? Resolved the claim?”

“Yes. It wasn’t all the money they promised, but enough to keep us going for a year,” he replied.

“Fantastic! Both of you, right?” she asked.

“No. Only I had applied. But…” Gowtham replied before he was cut off by Ganesh, “don’t’ worry about me. I will be fine.”

Monica and Mohan nodded quietly.

“I don’t know what to say. We met for some time, yet we feel like we know you a lot more than we really do,” Gowtham said. However, he was just happy he got his life back together and just wanted to share. “But we just wanted to thank you.”

“For what exactly?” she asked.

“My mother says sometimes you meet people, whose presence is enough for good things to happen. I and my friend got out of this with little loss and our luck hasn’t really been that great.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Nothing like that. You will do just fine.”

“In any case, we hope to see you some other day,” he said.

“I don’t know about that. But you guys keep moving along. You will do just great,” she replied.

***

“It has been an eventful week, hasn’t it?” Shilpa asked Monica. The two sat at the bus stop, waiting for Monica’s bus to arrive. After an arduous journey, she was finally leaving the city and the sea behind.

The weather had finally settled. The overcast was now a shade of light grey with the sun showing his face every now and then. Light breeze blew across the fields.

“You were cooped up in your office and home the entire time!” Monica commented.

“Yes. For the first time, outside world scared me and I finally felt what my husband did all this time.”

Monica was suddenly irked by her statement. “Please don’t tell me you are going to become more reserved after this.”

“No. In fact, it is the opposite. When I told this feeling to my husband, we had a long talk. I felt like we finally understood each other, and, in the end, we were willing to try to see how the other saw the world.”

Shilpa stopped, waiting for Monica to respond but Monica was expecting more, “and? Anything good came of it?”

“For now, nothing really has changed. But we are working things out. Like trying to go on vacation just the two of us and not the entire family.”

Monica broke a smile, “well that is a start.”

“What about you? How was this whole experience?” she asked.

“I, for the first time, saw how it felt to face impossible odds. Nature’s fury is something I wish to never see again. But I also felt like I still have a place in this world.”

Shilpa looked at her dumbfounded, “I have no idea what you meant.”

Monica snickered in response before saying, “Just that I am not really as helpless as I thought I was.”

“That is a good feeling to have.”

“It sure is,” Monica replied. She looked at the sky as the sun finally broke through the grey canvas after a long time.