More trouble

They left the camera running only long enough to capture the last of her refusals, then switched it off and walked out. The door locked. Neeharika stayed tied for a long time, ankles spread, wrists bound, the green frock bunched at her ribs, blood and come cooling on her skin while she whispered “no” in a voice that had nearly gone. I stayed in the corner until the ropes on my own wrists were loose enough to work free. When I finally untied her she curled onto her side and did not speak.

Hours passed. The light outside shifted from gray to darker gray. She had not moved except to pull the ruined frock down over her thighs with shaking hands. Her phone lay on the nightstand where Gangadhar had left it after checking something earlier. The screen lit once with a message she did not open.

Just after seven the lock turned again.

Deepak entered alone this time. He carried the laptop. Gangadhar was not with him. Neeharika flinched and drew her knees up. “No more. Please. I already said no. Don’t.”

He set the laptop on the table and opened it without answering. The video from that morning began to play—her voice, cracked and desperate, saying “No. I don’t agree. Stop. It hurts.” The image showed her bent over, Gangadhar behind her, Deepak in front, the red light visible in the corner of the frame. He let it run for thirty seconds, then paused it on her face, mouth open, tears on her cheeks.

“Your sister,” he said. “Shreya. She answered the message we sent from your phone an hour ago. She thinks you’re inviting her to dinner tomorrow night. Same hotel. She said yes.”

Neeharika’s breath stopped. “No. You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t.”

He turned the laptop so she could see the chat. Her name at the top. A message sent at 4:17 p.m.: Shreya come tomorrow? I’m at the Bandra place. Need you. Her sister’s reply underneath: Okay coming after work. You okay?

“Delete it,” Neeharika said. Her voice rose. “Delete it right now. Tell her not to come. Please. She doesn’t know anything. Don’t do this to her. I’m begging you. I’ll— I’ll stay. Just don’t bring her. Please.”

Deepak closed the laptop. “She’s already on her way in her head. If you want her to stay home you will be here when we come back tomorrow night. You will not say no again. If you do, she walks into this room instead of you.”

He left. The door locked.

Neeharika stared at the closed laptop. Then she made a sound I had not heard from her before—small, raw, like something tearing. She reached for her phone with shaking hands, opened the chat, and saw the messages were already marked read. Her thumbs hovered. She typed Don’t come and deleted it. Typed it again. Deleted it. The phone shook in her grip.

“They’ll know,” she whispered. “If I tell her they’ll know. They’ll just go get her.”

I moved to the bed. She did not look at me. I sat on the edge first. When she did not push me away I lay down behind her, careful, one arm settling over her waist above the frock. She was rigid. Then the rigidity broke. She turned into me and started to cry—hard, silent at first, then with small hitching sounds against my chest.

“She’s nineteen,” she said into my shirt. “She still calls me when she’s scared of the dark. They sent it from my phone. She thinks I want her here. She’ll come. She always comes when I ask.”

I held her. Her hands fisted in the fabric over my ribs. “I told them no. I kept saying no. And they still— they still did all of that. And now Shreya. I can’t let them. I can’t watch them do it to her. But if I say yes they’ll just keep me and still take her later. I don’t know what to do.”

She cried until the front of my shirt was wet. Every few minutes she checked the phone again, as if the messages might have disappeared. They had not. Shreya had even sent a second text: What should I wear? Is it nice?

Neeharika made a broken sound and turned the screen off. “I invited her. It has my name on it. She’ll think I wanted this. She’ll never forgive me.”

I stroked her hair, slow. She let me. Her body was still trembling, small aftershocks running through her whenever she remembered the morning—the ropes, the camera, the way it had hurt. “They left me tied,” she whispered. “After. I couldn’t move. And the whole time I kept saying no and it didn’t matter. And now my sister is coming because of me.”

We stayed like that. The room grew darker. She cried in waves—quiet, then sharper when she thought of Shreya walking into the lobby tomorrow, smiling, looking for her. I kept my arm around her. She did not ask me to leave the bed. She did not say she forgave me. She only held on, phone clutched in one hand, and repeated, voice hoarse and small, “She’s already invited. From my phone. She’s coming. What do I do? What do I do?”

Outside, rain started against the windows. Inside, Neeharika cried into my chest until her voice finally failed again, the unread message from her sister still glowing faintly on the nightstand between us.