Naina

The night air was sharp and cold, biting through the thin silk of my blouse. Below, the city was a constellation of indifferent lights, but up here on the cliffside, there was only the whispering wind and the treacherous grit of rock beneath my fingertips. My hand, white-knuckled, was clamped around a brittle branch, the only thing between me and a very long, very final drop

"Naina Ma'am....do you copy?"

I heard Samin calling on my walkie - talkie but I couldn't reach it. One shift of weight, one fumble and the evidence clutched against my chest would be lost to the valley and with it six months of my life, my sanity and a little boy's only hope for justice.

I have been fighting this case for 6 months now and I need to get justice for the child who was brutally murdered by his own family even if they try to hide it from everyone not from me, never from me. I have dealt with these type of bastards in the past just because they don't want their reputation to get ruined they would try to hide heinous crimes done by them or their family doesn't matter what the cost lays. Well I would dug it up and I would be damned if I let them bury it again.

"Sir, we found this walkie - talkie but not her....we searched everywhere"

A deeper tone replied - Malhotra's right-handed man.

"Damnit! She has that file with her. Didn't I tell you bastards to keep that file in the safe locker. How did she get it?"

"The locker was hacked, sir. By the time alarm went off, we could only see her silhouette running."

I almost laughed, a sharp, breathless sound swallowed by the wind. Hacked. If only they knew the sheer, blinding rage that had guided my pick, not a code.

"How the fuck did she even know where the safe was? It is one of the most secret places...."

"Secret?" I muttered into the rock. "What the hell are these fuckers even on?" Hiding a safe behind a painting was a cliché older than their family fortune. Even B-grade movie villains had more originality. A fresh wave of pain shot up my arm, the branch groaning in protest. Fantastic. Just perfect. "Fuckers do your pretty grumblings somewhere else," I whispered fiercely.

After an eternity of held breath, the engines rumbled back to life.

"Let's move maybe we will find her down the road"

I waited until the red taillights dissolved into the darkness, until the silence reclaimed the night. Only then did I drag myself up with the help of rocks, my muscles screaming in protest. I collapsed on the solid ground at the hill’s crest, my chest heaving. The moonlight revealed the damage: my favourite tailored trousers were ripped at the knee, and a long, angry scrape wept blood down my shin. My blouse was smeared with dirt and moss.

"Ah, you utter fools," I groaned to the empty night, examining the ruin of my suit. "I scratched myself because of them....and my favourite suit is ruined too. Can this night possibly get any better?"

The walkie on the ground beside me crackled again "Naina- Nai-"

I snatched it up, wincing as the movement pulled at my wounds.

"Samin, shut up. You will make my ears bleed." I grumbled as I was already bleeding.

"Where the hell were you? And don't give me that attitude or I will ping Malhotra's goons your location. Then its between you guys."

A traitorous, but familiar warmth flickered beneath my irritation. He was scared. For me. “Traitor,” I muttered under my breath, "Sab mujhe dhamki to ese dete hay jaise mere baap ho."

"Huh???? What are you muttering? I cannot here you!" he shouted back.

"Stop shouting! My suit is ruined, my foot is scraped, and I can’t walk. Come and get me.”

"I am coming for now. But if you give me that atti-"

I turned the walkie-talkie off. Silence. Blessed, beautiful silence. No more chapad chapad, no more growling gangsters, just the wind and the distant hum of the city. Balancing myself I tried to hide behind a large rock till the time he comes and then my eyes fell on the file, now crumpled and dirt-smudged, held tight against my chest. I smoothed a trembling hand over its surface. The anger, the sarcasm, the sharp-edged professionalism—it all melted away, leaving something raw and tender and fiercely protective.

"Now," I whispered, the word carried away by the wind, a promise to the stars. "Now, I will get you justice, Ryan." The memory resurfaced, the ghost of Ryan's smile, the way his tiny hand had once, trustingly, curled around my single finger in that sterile hospital room. They had tried to call it an accident. But the story the X-rays told was one of brutality. A story his wealthy, polished family had buried under layers of money and influence.

I will get your soul the peace you should have had long ago. I am sorry I couldn't do it faster." A hot tear traced a clean path through the grime on my cheek. "I may have been just another lawyer to the world, but the moment you held my finger in your hand and looked at my helplessly you became mine. My little brother."

The grief solidified into a resolve as hard and cold as the rock I sat on. It forged the pain in my scraped limbs and ruined clothes into armor.

“Tomorrow in court,” I said, my voice now clear, steady, and ringing with a finality that echoed in the hollow night. “The hearing will be the last. The jury will refuse their pleas. And I will watch them taken away for what they did to you.” I looked down at the city, at the glittering mansion districts where they slept in ignorant luxury. “Sleep well, monsters. It’s your last night of freedom.”

Justice was no longer an abstract concept in a law book. It was a file clutched in a bleeding hand. It was a vow made to the wind. And tomorrow, it would be a verdict. For Ryan.