"Balraj" Finally the word escaped from her mouth.

Rishab quickly took out his work phone and speed dialed to inspector Joshi. "Joshi, I need you to pull out all the records of a kidnapper named "Balraj" immediately. I will come to the station later tonight and I want the records to be ready by then"

"Yes, Sir but may I know his surname?"

"I don't know that but you collect information of all the Balraj's we have in our criminal record."

"Yes, Sir."

"Oh wait. Search in year 1997's record." Rishab instructed and cut the call.

"How long they kept you with them, Madhu? And for what reason?" Sameer probed.

"3 days. In a dark room. It was too dark. I got scared. I cried and cried and cried but no one heard me. I couldn't close my eyes because there too I could find darkness. I wanted mama. I wanted to be back in her arms." She paused. Sameer and Rishab waited for her to continue. "Did your mama come?"

"Yes. After three long days when I almost died. I hate mama for not hearing my cries. She said she will be there for me whenever I call her but she lied. I hate papa too. He didn't come to save me. They let me be in pain with those monsters. I hate them."

"No, Madhu, you don't hate them. You still love them."

"No!" She denied vehemently. "I only love my Rishab. He only cares for me. He only loves me. He is my guardian Angel" she said softly as a smile marred her face.

"That he is." Sameer agreed with a smile.

"Sameer, get back to her past story." Rishab ordered. He knew his wife loves him and no doubt about that. Now, he just wanted to know more information about her dreadful past.

"Madhu, can you remember how you escaped from those monsters?"

"I didn't escape. They didn't let me go anywhere. I was locked in a dark room, alone and they let me starve. I got abused either by the bigger monster Balraj or by his right hand man... His name..." She tried hard to remember.

"If you can't remember forget it."

"No. I know. He is the worst of worst monster. He is... Bujang. He only..."

"What he did?"

"I don't know what he did exactly. But I do know he abused me." her hands stated shaking. "He removed my pinafore school uniform... I shout "Hey give me back my uniform! I have school tomorrow and I need my pinafore to wear but he threw it away in the dirty cement pile. And then he tore my white shirt..." she grimace her face in disgust and clutched the bed spread tightly. "He smelled my cloths and rubbed it over his bare chest, moaning. I pushed him when he came closer and breathed on my neck but he pressed his palm on my face and squeezed it leaving his nails dig my skin. And then he licked me..." Hearing her Rishab clenched his jaw and fists his hands, his nails digging in his palm making it bleed. He wished to break something hard to take out his molten hot fury. "He licked my neck, my chest, my... He licked me like a dog. I kicked him. I withered beneath him but I was so tiny in front of that monster. His smell stinks. He drank something from a bottle and forced me to drink. I said no. He slapped me hard on my cheeks. It burned and I whimpered."

"God! The moment I get my hands on those bas***ds! I won't spare them for tormenting and physically abusing my Madhu. Ugh!" He grunted pulling his hair. "How dare he? How f**king dare he touch her? She was a small baby and he behaved with her like an animal. Nasty f**king pig!" Rishab snarled, pacing the room, cursing those creeps loudly.

"Calm down." Sameer said softly over the phone to Rishab.

"Calm down? My foot! God! This is torture. Sheer torture! I can't hear anymore of her sufferings. She didn't deserve that. No one deserves to be treated like that. f**k!" Rishab couldn't put it together. He lost his cool and composed self. He was burning in rage. He wanted to kill them with his bare hands.

Sameer understood his friend's turmoil so he let him cool down on his own and he paid his attention back on Madhu.

Now, Rishab realized why his wife forced him not to be in the therapy session. She didn't want him to hear all the gory details.

"He forcefully and painfully opened my mouth and poured that drink. It burned my throat. I choked out and puked the drink on his face and for that he slapped me again."

"The bigger monster came back to the room and shouted "Bujang! We are not here for this. Don't forget she is a small kid. We are using her only for money. So leave her and get out." I was relieved hearing that. I felt drowsy and I slept on the cold floor."

"Madhu?" Sameer called softly when Madhu stopped talking.

"When I woke up... I was alone... in the same room. There was no light. Darkness bathed me. It was scary. My body ached with the hard kicks I got and sleeping on the concrete floor. My mouth was so dry and my lips cracked. I tasted blood but I wanted water. They didn't feed me." Rishab closed his eyes in pain as a lone tear made its way down his cheek.

He gently placed his fingers on the glass wall wishing to touch her and wipe her tears which was pouring down now, unstoppably.

"He came again. He shouted at me. He threw things at me. He said "Your father doesn't love you. He loves his f**king money. He failed to abide to our demands. He has gone to the police. See, he will pay for his mistake." he grabbed my hands and dragged me out of the room. "Police found our place. We are moving." he shouted to his men. I took this chance to bite his hand and freeing myself from his hold I ran away from him down the stairs but he chased me and grabbed my ponytail yanking me back. All too soon policemen surrounded us. The bigger monster lifted me up and his one hand choked my neck. "Balraj! Let my daughter go!" I heard my Mama shout and that was when I came to know his name. "Mama!" I cried stretching out my hands for her. A policeman shot Balraj's knee from nowhere. He screamed in pain throwing me out of the open window from the fourth floor. AHHH!!!" Madhu screamed and sat up on the bed. Gripping her hair through her fingers she cried hysterically.

"Madhu... You are safe now. Stop crying." Sameer rubbed her back soothing her. Rishab burst into the room and ran to Madhu. He took her in his arms and hugged her protectively. "It's all over. It's in the past. I'm with you now, Madhu. Please, stop crying. It's not good for you." he whispered near her ear caressing her hair. Her whole body trembled against him. "Madhu, please, think about our baby... for this little one you should be strong. Stop crying!" he insisted but she wailed loudly. "Please, drink some water and calm down." he took the glass of water from his friend and tried to make her drink but she shook her head and buried it in his chest. His shirt was soaked with her tears.

"Sameer, induce her some sedative and put her to sleep. She is not in the state of mind to hear me." Rishab ordered. Sameer nodded and injected Madhu with a sleeping drug. Soon Madhu's erratic breathing came even and she hung her head on Rishab's shoulder as she dozed off in his arms. Rishab kissed her head and gently placed her back on the bed.

~~0~~

"Rishab, don't be like this man. This is not you. This broken man is not at all you." Sameer said in concern. Rishab sat silently in Sameer's office for what felt like eternity. He didn't speak a word since Madhu was knocked off to sleep with the effect of drugs.

"Rishab, talk something?" Sameer sighed and rubbed his face when his friend remind quiet boring holes at the marble floor with his steady gaze.

"How long are you going to sit like this? Aren't you going to take your Madhu home? She will be up shortly"

Finally Rishab snapped out and looked up at his friend.

"What were you saying?" Rishab spoke.

"What are you going to do next?" Sameer asked.

"I don't know. I seriously don't know. I'm completely blank." Rishab said pressing his nose bridge with his fingers. Every time he closed his eyes he could only picture Madhu as a small 7 years old little girl and imagine the sufferings she had gone through.

"Your wife is one remarkable woman. What she went through at that tender age was unimaginably horrible but she managed to fight her terrors and lead a normal life so far. I don't think any other girl would have coped up with the trauma!"

"I know." Rishab couldn't help but pull his lips up in a soft little smile. He was really proud of his wife.

"I don't want her to keep her fears within herself. I want her to eradicate it completely from her mind"

"It's not easy, Rishab. Her fears are embedded in her mind... you just cant uproot and throw those sickening fears away."

"Then what should I do?"

"Hold some patience, man. We will take things slow."

"You know I am not a patient man, Sameer. I can't see her like this. I want you to do something..."

"Rishab, I just can't erase her past memories. All I can do is give her medical attention. Now, we know all her phobias are triggered from one incident. One particular life threatening incident. We should find a way and try to bring her out from the depth of darkness."

"How can I help her?" Rishab asked desperately.

"Keep doing what you are doing to her, already." Sameer said with a casual shrug. "It's so clear you are her happiness and only you can keep her happy, safe and protected."

Rishab took a deep breath as he looked up at the ceiling. "He said he will come back in my life to make it miserable. He is here. He will harm me. He will harm Rishab. He will harm our baby." Madhu's words kept ringing in his ears.

"I will make her forget her past." Rishab vowed.

"How you are going to do that?" Sameer asked curiously.

"Balraj is back and that's her major fear. I'm going to finish him off in front of her eyes. Then only she can move on from her past knowing that her life is no more in threat." Rishab asked.

"How you are gonna find out this Balraj guy? You haven't seen him."

"But Madhu and her parents have seen him. I can't ask Madhu about him... about how he looks like because she thinks I'm oblivion to your talks in the therapy session so I am gonna ask her parents. They are going to tell me the other side of story. Oh and I have few nice words to say to Mr. Malik, Madhu's father for what he had done to his own daughter." he couldn't help but feel hatred building in him for his father in law. He destroyed Madhu's childhood by failing to protect her.

"Guess, Madhu's parents didn't help her much in her recovery too." Sameer commented. He could say that from the way Madhu said her parents didn't love her or protect her.

"I guess so too. I can't believe there was lot of tension going on between Madhu and her parents. They always acted so civil and so normal." Rishab said. "But now when I think back, I could realize there was something amiss between Madhu and her parents. May be the attachment. The bond. The love. The care. I never wondered before why she always loved to meet my parents than hers. She loved to stay at my parents place and she rarely meets her parents. She even gave the pregnancy news to my mom first but still she hasn't told her mother..."

"Maybe she was neglected by them when she was young and when she needed them the most and that could have inflicted slight hatred on them."

"Madhu doesn't know to hate anyone. She knows only to love everyone, even a robber who puts a knife on her throat." Rishab chuckled thinking how his wife brought a robber to his station and how friendly she interacted with him and even assured him to get a job. She was crazy!

"What's this new story?" Sameer asked showing so much interest.

"Not for today. I will tell you all her craziness in detail another day."

"Okay! she really seems so interesting to me."

"Yeah, she is. She is one of a kind" he laughed. Then he stopped laughing and frowned.

"What?"

"I wonder why she didn't share about her issues with her parents to me?"

"Perhaps she didn't want to worry you or she didn't want you to think less of her parents."

"If that was her explanation then I am not going to buy it. Often she keeps chanting "Husband, I love you! Husband, I love you!" but she won't share her problems with her husband? If you love your husband and trust him you will share everything with him right?" Rishab asked getting mad at Madhu.

"Rishab, I agree with you but this is not the time to bring that topic. I don't want you to put a fight with her over this silly issue..."

"It's not a silly issue" Rishab said getting offended.

"Okay but still let it go. She is so vulnerable at the moment. Be her strength and support and don't make things complicate to her." Sameer advised.

"Okay!" Rishab agreed to not probe Madhu on this matter.

"Well, you are gonna kill Balraj. That will put an end to Madhu's fear of the bigger monster coming back and destroying her life. But then what about her other phobias?" Sameer asked.

"What for I am paying you in big bucks?" he asked arrogantly. "You treat her with what all shit you have learned." Rishab said through gritted teeth.

"You still haven't changed, have you?" Sameer asked with a soft chuckle. "I wonder how your wife puts up with your hot temper."

Rishab growled at him.

"Okay, I will treat her but I can't give hundred percent assurance. It's all up to her mind set. She should co-operate with me and respond to the treatment."

"She will."

"Such confidence?" Sameer cocked his brow up.

"I'm trying everything for you, Rishab" her words came back to his mind which she said when they were trapped in the elevator the other day. She was scared of heights but she tried for him and came of the elevator successfully with his help. He smiled. "She will do anything for me." he said confidently. She will surely listen to his words and co-operate with further treatments too like how she did today.

"Good but I think it's advisable to stop this therapy for a while."

"Why you think so?"

"Her pregnancy is an offset here. You have seen for yourself how she reacted today. This much amount of stress is not good for her fragile condition. There are high possibilities of miscarrying the baby"

"God!" Rishab sighed and rubbed his temple to ease his nagging headache.

"Can I get a pill to kill my headache?"

"The shit lot of tension is stressing you and messing with your head huh?" Sameer asked with a smirk and took out two tablets from a small cylindrical bottle and handed over it Rishab. He popped the tablets in his mouth with a glass of water and leaned his head back on the chair.

He didn't know when and for how long he was asleep sitting on the chair. When he woke up he found his friend going through some medical files intently.

"Is Madhu awake?" Rishab asked startling Sameer.

"Oh... um... she should be now. Come, lets go and check on her." Sameer placed the file back on his desk and started walking but stopped.

"What?" Rishab asked.

"I want you to ask one question to her parents from my side."

"What is that?"

"I am curious to know how your wife survived after being thrown from fourth floor." Sameer said. He understood that was her reason for fearing heights. Being locked in dark room for 3 days alone caused her scotophobia (fear of darkness) and claustrophobia (fear of being in confined space). And the whole mess caused her parasomnia (Sleep terrors).

"Trust me, even I am curious to know that." Rishab replied. Then they both walked out of Sameer's office and headed to the room next door where they conducted the therapy.

Rishab walked closer to her bed side and ran his fingers gently through Madhu's hair. She slowly opened her eyes and momentarily looked confused seeing the strange surrounding.

"How are you feeling now, love?" Rishab asked.

"Better" she smiled weakly. He helped her sit up on the bed. Leaning down he kissed her forehead.

"Shall we go home?"

"Sure" she whispered and slowly got down from the bed.

"Thank you for helping me, Doc. Sam" Madhu hugged Sameer.

"Anytime, Brave girl" Sameer hugged her back. Rishab waited impatiently for their hugging scene to get over so that he can take his wife home, feed her and put her to sleep again. Then he had to meet his Parents in law to get more information and get back to the police station to check the criminal records of Balraj which Inspector Joshi would have compiled by now. He won't sleep till he ends this game.

... To be continued!!!

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