A crowd of students had gathered around the boy’s washroom. Ankita and her bandmates Jyotsana, Bruno, and Edwin shouldered through. “Move! Move!” she yelled and pushed through.

Her heart dropped when she saw it. Punit was on the floor, clutching his midsection as he struggled to stay on all fours.

“Punit!” she screamed and threw herself beside him.

Sibal and his cronies snickered and backed off a little.

With eyes about to drop out of their sockets, Ankita peered into Punit’s face. There were bruises on his cheek. His lip was cut and bleeding, and he was pale and breathless as if punched in the gut.

“What the FUCK did you do to him!” she blasted at Sibal, to which he jeered.

Gasps erupted from the crowd as she twirled her guitar from her shoulder like a baseball bat and SMASHED it across his face. He dropped like a tree.

“Hey!” One of his cronies shot towards her.

She WHACKED him like a golf ball. “Bruno! Edwin! Jyotsna! Fuck them!” She screamed to her mates.

What followed was hell. The air rang with THUDS and CRACKS, of fists meeting flesh and breaking bones.

Punit who’d recovered a bit looked up and saw Anki destroying Sibal. He was back down on the floor, his face swollen like a balloon. She raised her guitar above her head and SMASHED it hard over his hands several times, breaking her instrument into two. “How dare you! How dare you!” she screamed like a lunatic and continued to murder him.

“Shit…” Punit hissed, clambered to his feet, and pulled her off him. “Anki! Stop! You’ll kill him! You’ll end up in jail!”

“Get off me!” she screamed. 

“Buddy, please!” He tugged her away sharply.

***

Moments later, Punit, Anki, and her mates lined up outside the Principal’s office. Starting with Bruno, Mr. Shah, the Principal, was about to strike all of them with a fearsome cane.

Ankita shot towards him and blocked his path. “Don’t you dare touch them!” she yapped.

“Stand back!” he barked.

“Pick on Sibal if you dare!”

Startling them all, he SLAPPED her across the face.

They gasped, shocked at what they witnessed. 

Ankita heaved, tears springing to her eyes. She couldn’t believe that she was just slapped. No one had ever slapped her or hit her. Never. Not even her parents! “How dare you! How dare you!” she retorted in a raspy voice.

Expecting a backlash, Punit had drawn closer to her, ready to stop anything that ever goes either way.

“Shut up and stand back in line, or I’ll pull your tongue out, you little bitch!” Mr. Shah snapped hard at her.

She was on the verge of crying but contained herself. No one has ever spoken to her like before. No one!

“You fucking coward! Bastard!” She wailed in a quaky voice. Censorship was no longer her concern. This man certainly didn’t deserve it.

Mr. Shah lashed his cane at her, striking her hard across the arm. She shrieked in pain and surprise.

Punit jumped in between, shielding her from the blows that followed, taking all the hits aimed at her.

She wrapped her arms around him in a feeble attempt to protect him. But he continued to pin her to the wall. “Leave him!” she screamed as a stray hit caught her on the fingers.

Mr. Andrews came running and quickly intervened. “Sir! I think you should call their parents instead. That would be the right thing to do.”

Mr. Shah stood heaving for a moment before stomping away to his office.

There was an ungodly silence as Mr. Andrews turned to the students. He, too, was shocked to the core.

Punit still had Ankita trapped between him and the wall. She clutched his shirt and heaved as Punit tried to calm her with whispers into her ear. “Shh… it’s okay-it’s okay- it’s okay,” he chanted quietly.

“I’ll inform your parents,” said Mr. Andrews uncomfortably before disappearing into the Principal’s office.

When Ankita got a grip on herself, she let go of Punit and trudged a bit away from them to be alone for a while.

Punit watched her intently as she stood with her back to them. All of this felt unreal. The brutal assault Sibal and his cronies belted out on him, Ankita’s rampage on the bullies, and now this… Something rolled over in his guts, infuriating him. His hatred for Mr. Shah had reached an all-new level. How could the man be such a coward, such a puppet as to punish the victims instead of the culprits, and that too, in the most painful and humiliating manner?

It was then that he realized why his back hurt as if scalded with boiling water. Mr. Shah had whipped him like a horse. Anyhow, he was glad that she didn’t have to take that.

Despite knowing that she was furious and needed time to cool off, he went ahead and joined her. Cautiously, he stole a glance before meeting her glare.

She studied the bruises on his face for a moment. When she did, an inferno stirred in her eyes. Suddenly, she grabbed his hand and tugged him along.

“Hey! What?” He cried in surprise.

She led him to the wash area close by, opened up the tap, and wet her hanky under the running water.

“What? What’re you doing?” he asked, wondering what she was up to.

Without a word, she dabbed the wet hanky over the bruises on his face.

“Ow!” He winced and glared at her, dumbstruck.

She ignored him and continued to tend to his bruises, this time, on his lip.

Hissing in pain, he blocked her hands and tried to stop her. “Stop it yaar, leave it, it’s hurting,” he tsked.

She slapped his hand away and mopped the dried blood off his lips.

Through scrunched eyes, he stopped and studied the very serious look on her face, the concern boiling in her angry red eyes. He couldn’t help but smile at how hard she tried to look tough, but ended up showing how soft and sensitive she really was inside.

Noticing this, she paused, looking angrier than ever. “What’re you laughing at?” she spat crossly.

“Nothing,” he shrugged innocently.

She tore her eyes off him and resumed attending to his face. “He’s got himself fucked up as usual and then finds the whole thing funny,” she muttered under her breath, but he heard that.

“I didn’t get myself fucked up,” he asserted.

“You did! Okay? Now shut up!”

“I didn’t…”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you fight back?” She grew louder.

“Babes, there were six of them,” he cooed in an attempt to calm her down.

“So? So what!”  She grew even louder, making her bandmates turn heads. “And don’t ‘baby’ me!” she warned through clenched teeth.

“Okay…” he said quickly and pursed his lips. He caught his bandmates staring and blinked back, assuring that everything was under control.

“Just be honest, Punit. Did you try, at least try, to land one punch on any one of them?”

“They knocked me out before that,” he sighed.

“You allowed them to,” she retorted.

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, shut up! If you’d at least tried, Punit, things would have been a lot different.”

He pondered over her words. Maybe she’s right? If only he had stood his ground and defended himself. He might have taken a few extra hits, but possibly it wouldn’t have gotten this worse. But knowing her, she was bound to get back at Sibal any time of the day.

In all these years, he learned an important aspect about Anki. She was very possessive about the ones she loved and cared for. She tried so hard to look badass before the world. But deep inside, she was softer than a cake. Finding her loved ones in a state of pain or discomfort hurt her so badly. Such a situation always infuriated her, sometimes to the point of violence. He still couldn’t understand what made her that way. Why was she so bull-headed and stubborn? Why was she like this?

Yeah, you’re right. You wouldn’t have got yourself into trouble, he wanted to say, but chose to keep quiet instead. He felt it was best to defuse the situation.

He released the tension with a deep sigh. A little too deep that he felt a sharp pain ring in his gut. He groaned a bit, earning a frustrated glare from her.

“What did they do to you?” she asked anxiously.

“I don’t even remember,” he looked away and lied. Giving away details would only make her madder than she already is.

“You need a doctor,” she said, panicking a bit.

“I’m fine,” he assured.

“No, you aren’t,” she argued.

“Babes, I am, now chill.”

“At least go and sit there!” She grabbed his hand and began to tug him towards the bench when Punit noticed their fathers Ratan Agarwal and Rajendra Soni coming from afar.

“Shit,” Punit hissed with his eyes on them. “Dad’s here, both of them.”