Chapter 2 — Bruised Boys, Broken Girls

Aaravi didn’t sleep that night.

She lay in her velvet-draped bed, staring at the ceiling—its perfect white unmarred by cracks, dust, or blood. The chandelier above her hummed softly with purified light, but all she saw were tunnels.

And eyes.

His eyes.

Not the madman from the Ministry’s crime reports. Not the terrorist projected in PSAs between state anthems.

But the man who touched her temple like it mattered.

Like he saw the cage in her head and wanted to melt the bars.

---

By morning, her mind was racing.

By evening, she was ready.

She left through the servant’s exit—hood up, chip set to “recreation” mode, fake pulse loaded onto the scanner. Her father never noticed when she was gone.

Not really.

The guards outside the compound didn’t question her. They rarely questioned anyone with a Sen blood code. That was the trick of power: it didn’t need to hide—it made others blind.

By the time she reached the metro tunnel again, the city had gone quiet. Curfew bells were echoing, red drones sliding across the smog-filled sky.

The stairs were slick with algae and darkness.

And when she reached the bottom, he was already there.

Raayan.

---

He sat against the wall like he owned the silence. One leg stretched out, the other bent, arm resting lazily over his knee. His jacket was off—black tank top clinging to lean muscle. The blood on his sleeve was gone. So was the hostility in his eyes.

Almost.

“You’re late,” he said without looking.

“You’re wounded,” she replied, tossing a small metal flask in his direction. “Disinfectant. Whiskey base.”

He caught it, opened, sniffed, and gave a grunt of approval. “Not bad for a senator’s brat.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

He looked at her then. Really looked.

Tonight she wore a black hoodie, combat boots, and no makeup. Hair braided tight. The girl who entered the tunnel wasn’t the same doll the state tried to parade on news channels.

“You clean up dirty,” he said.

She smirked. “So do you.”

He chuckled softly, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Come here. Help me wrap this.”

Aaravi sat beside him, pulling out a cloth, a lighter, and a small bottle of iodine. Raayan rolled up his arm. The gash was raw—deep but healing. She cleaned it gently.

“You don’t flinch,” she noted.

“Pain’s just part of the costume now.”

She paused. “What was it before?”

“A reminder.”

“Of what?”

“That I was still alive.”

Their eyes locked. The air between them crackled.

For a few seconds, the tunnel wasn’t dark. It was pulsing—with heat, breath, want.

---

“How did it start?” she asked quietly.

Raayan’s gaze drifted to the wall across from them. One of his earliest verses was scrawled there—almost faded now:

> They killed my brother in front of my mother.

Then told us to clap.

“That line,” Aaravi whispered. “It’s real, isn’t it?”

He nodded once. Slow. “2019. Police raid. My brother wrote a satire piece calling out the regime. They dragged him out, beat him to death in our hallway.”

Aaravi felt something twist deep inside her. Guilt. Rage. Both.

“I’m sorry.”

He laughed bitterly. “You didn’t swing the baton.”

“No,” she said softly, “but my last name did.”

Raayan’s jaw tightened. He looked away.

“You know I should hate you,” he said after a pause.

“You don’t.”

He turned back. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not them.”

“And you think that’s enough?”

She looked down. “No. But it’s a start.”

Raayan studied her. Like he was trying to find the cracks. Or maybe trying not to fall into them.

“You ever killed someone?” he asked suddenly.

“No.”

“Ever lied to someone who’d die because of it?”

She hesitated. “…Yes.”

“Then you’re not innocent.”

“I never said I was.”

His smile returned—dark, sharp. “Good.”

---

They sat in silence for a while. The kind of silence that didn’t need to be filled.

Then Raayan reached into his jacket and pulled out a torn page. Handwritten. Folded tight.

“Read it.”

She opened it slowly, breath catching as she saw the lines:

> If I kiss her, the chip will spark.

If I touch her, the state will scream.

But if I don’t—I will die burning without ever setting her free.

She looked up. “This is about me.”

“No,” he said, voice low. “This is about us.”

Her throat went dry. She read the lines again, slower this time. Feeling each word like heat on her skin.

“You shouldn’t write things like this,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Because it makes me want to do something stupid.”

Raayan leaned in, his breath warm on her cheek. “Stupidity is underrated.”

For a second, they didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

Their lips were inches apart.

But Raayan pulled back first. “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because once we start,” he said, “we can’t stop. And we’re not ready for the ending yet.”

Aaravi nodded, heart pounding.

She wanted to argue.

She wanted to taste him.

But she understood.

This wasn’t a kiss.

This was a fuse.

---

“Your chip,” he said. “You still trust it?”

“No.”

“Then rip it out.”

She stared at him. “You’re serious?”

“I did mine at sixteen.”

“That’s… impossible.”

Raayan smiled like a sinner. “Nothing’s impossible if you hate enough.”

Her fingers brushed her temple unconsciously. The chip had been with her since birth. She didn’t know life without its buzz, its regulation, its control.

“Won’t I go… insane?”

“Maybe. But it’ll be your insanity.”

Aaravi exhaled.

“Soon,” she said. “Not yet.”

Raayan nodded once.

They sat back again, shoulders almost touching.

---

Above them, the world was clean, cold, and silent.

Down here, it was raw.

Bloody.

Real.

---