BARBIE
I ran toward her.
She hadn’t lost consciousness. Her eyes were still open, though her breathing was uneven.
The moment I reached her, she groaned and glared at me.
“You motherf—” she hissed through clenched teeth. “You kicked him and he fired on me… y-you did it on purpose… didn’t you?”
Even now.
Even while bleeding.
She was accusing me.
“Don’t speak,” I said quickly, my voice shaking more than I wanted it to.
I dropped to my knees beside her.
Blood was slowly soaking through her clothes near the shoulder. My chest tightened at the sight.
I grabbed the end of her dupatta and wrapped it around the wound, pressing it firmly.
My hands were trembling so badly I could barely tie it.
“Hold this,” I muttered, guiding her hand to the cloth.
But she just kept staring at me, her expression half pain, half irritation.
Tears blurred my vision.
Great.
Just great.
I was about to cry in front of the woman who threatened my family.
“Why are you crying?” she muttered weakly.
“I’m not crying,” I snapped immediately, wiping my face with the back of my hand even though more tears kept spilling out.
My heart was still raced like it hadn’t understood that the gunshots had already stopped.
I slid my hand under her knees and paused.
For a second I just stared at her.
Do I really need to do this?
The thought crossed my mind shamelessly.
This woman ruined my life. Threatened my family. Dragged me into a marriage I never wanted.
I could technically just… leave.
But then another voice in my head spoke.
You’re a nurse, idiot.
Saving people is literally your job.
I sighed in frustration at my own conscience.
“Great,” I muttered under my breath. “Even my morality is against me.”
Carefully, I slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and lifted her up.
She wasn’t that heavy, but running on sand while carrying a wounded woman was not exactly my life goal.
Her head fell slightly against my shoulder, her eyes slowly drooping.
My heart skipped.
“Viyana!” I said loudly, adjusting my grip.
Her eyelids were half closing.
“Hey! Hey—look at me.”
I shifted her slightly so I could see her face.
“VIYANA, look at me. Don’t you dare go unconscious,” I said, my voice sharper now.
Her eyes fluttered open weakly.
“Why are you shouting…” she murmured faintly. “My ears work fine.”
“Oh good,” I panted while running across the sand.
Every step on the sand felt like running through cement.
Even after getting shot this woman still had the energy to irritate me.
I tightened my grip on her and kept running toward the road outside the beach.
“Just stay awake,” I muttered, breathless now.
She let out a faint huff.
“Bossy nurse.”
“Shut up.”
I ran out of the beach and onto the road, my lungs burning like I had just run a marathon with a refrigerator in my arms.
Cars passed. Bikes passed. Not a single one stopped.
Of course. Why would anyone stop when a sweaty man carrying a bleeding woman was waving like a madman on the roadside?
Finally an auto-rickshaw slowed down.
“Auto! Auto!” I shouted like my life depended on it.
Technically… it did.
The driver stared at us with wide eyes.
“Sir… what happened to her?”
“No time for storytelling,” I said quickly as I placed her carefully inside the auto and jumped in beside her. “Just drive to Viyana Multi-Speciality Hospital. Fast.”
I didn’t want to take her anywhere else. Another hospital would ask questions. Too many questions.
How did she get a gunshot wound?
Where did this happen?
Who shot her?
And boom—my miserable life would turn into a police documentary.
Her own hospital was safer.
The auto jerked forward and sped through traffic.
Viyana’s head slowly fell onto my shoulder.
My heart dropped.
“Hey… hey…” I muttered.
Her eyes were closing again.
Panic shot through me.
I slapped her cheek lightly.
“Viyana… hey, Viyana,” I called.
No response.
I slapped her cheek again.
“Oi! Wake up!”
Still nothing.
My panic level went from normal panic to full hospital emergency panic.
“Hey bitch,” I muttered, shaking her shoulder.
Her lips moved faintly.
And finally she whispered weakly,
“You… poor ass.”
Relief hit me so hard.
She groaned softly.
“Don’t… call me… bitch.”
“Then stop trying to die in the auto,” I snapped.
The auto driver glanced at us through the mirror, clearly enjoying the drama.
I ignored him and looked back at her.
Blood was still soaking through the dupatta wrapped around her shoulder.
My hands started trembling again.
“Stay awake,” I muttered quietly, pressing the cloth tighter to stop.”
She squinted at me.
“I will… kill you… after I recover.”
The auto sped through traffic while I kept one hand pressing the wound and the other shaking her shoulder every few seconds.
“Viyana,” I muttered again, my voice lower now.
“Don’t close your eyes.”
Her head leaned heavier against me.
“Just stay alive… for ten more minutes.”
“Die after divorcing me. I don’t want to become a widower,” I muttered.
The words left my mouth out of sarcasm, hate and out of the same irritation that had been sitting between us since the day she forced that marriage.
But my voice betrayed me.
It trembled.
My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely keep pressure on the cloth tied around her shoulder. Blood kept seeping through the fabric, warm against my fingers.
I clenched my jaw.
This was insane. Absolutely insane.
A few minutes ago I was sitting on a quiet beach complaining about my miserable life. Now I was sitting in an auto with a bleeding woman leaning against me after surviving a gunshot.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen to ordinary people.
It doesn’t happen to nurses who just want to finish their shifts and go home.
I looked down at her.
Viyana had gone strangely still.
Her head rested on my shoulder, heavier than before.
Too heavy.
“Hey…” I whispered.
No response.
My chest tightened.
“Viyana?”
Still nothing.
A cold fear slid down my spine.
I shook her slightly. “Oi… stop pretending.”
Nothing.
Her eyelashes didn’t even move.
My throat dried.
“Hey!” I said louder, panic creeping into my voice. “Don’t do this drama now.”
I tapped her cheek.
Then harder.
“Viyana… hey… wake up.”
Her head just tilted weakly with the movement.
No insults.
No sarcastic reply.
No “shut up poor ass.”
Just silence.
And somehow that silence terrified me more than the gunshot.
“Anna… please go faster,” I told the driver, my voice cracking. “Please.”
“I’m driving as fast as I can, sir,” he replied, weaving through the traffic.
I didn’t even hear him properly.
My eyes stayed on her pale face.
Her lips had lost their color.
The cloth around her shoulder was soaked now.
My stomach twisted.
This woman had threatened me.
Blackmailed me.
Ruined my life.
Separated me from my parents.
Because of her, my own mother had looked at me like I was a stranger.
Because of her, my father had said their son was dead.
And yet—
My hands were shaking like this.
“Please don’t die now…” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
My fingers pressed harder against the wound as if I could somehow force the blood to stay inside her body.
“Not now.”
My chest hurt.
“…die after leaving my life.”
I waited.
I waited for her to open one eye and insult me.
To smirk.
To call me poor again.
But she didn’t move.
Her breathing had become so faint that I leaned closer just to feel it.
“Hey…” my voice broke now. “Viyana… look at me.”
Nothing.
Soon we reached the hospital. The auto screeched to a halt in front of the emergency entrance, and before the driver could even switch off the engine I jumped out.
“Help me,” I told him, my voice breathless.
Together we lifted her out. My arms slipped under her again and I carried her inside while the driver pushed the stretcher someone had rushed forward with. The bright hospital lights stabbed my eyes after the darkness of the road.
“Doctor! Emergency!” I shouted.
The nurses at the desk froze when they saw who I was carrying. Their eyes widened. Murmurs spread like wildfire through the corridor.
Everyone here knew me.
And everyone knew her.
Seeing a former nurse like me carrying the vice-founder of the hospital in his arms, drenched in blood, was not something they expected to witness on a random evening.
“What happened to her?” one of the nurses gasped.
“Gunshot,” I said quickly. “Shoulder. She’s losing blood.”
That single word turned the entire corridor chaotic.
Within seconds doctors and nurses rushed forward. They slid her from my arms onto the stretcher and began pushing it toward the emergency ward. I walked beside them automatically, my fingers still stained red.
People stared.
Whispers followed me.
Some looked shocked. Some looked confused. Some looked… suspicious.
And then I saw her.
Standing near the hallway.
My ex.
For a second our eyes met.
Her gaze dropped to the blood covering my hands, then to the unconscious woman on the stretcher. Her expression twisted into something between disbelief and judgment.
I didn’t stop.
I didn’t even slow down.
I walked past her as if she were another stranger in the hallway and followed the stretcher straight into the emergency ward.
The doors swung open.
Doctors surrounded Viyana immediately, cutting away the cloth I had tied around her shoulder. Machines beeped to life. Orders were shouted. Gloves snapped onto hands.
“BP dropping.”
“Prepare the IV.”
“Get the surgical team ready.”
I stood near the wall, my chest rising and falling heavily.
My hands were still shaking.
Blood kept drying on my fingers.
And for the first time since stepping into that hospital again, the realization finally hit me fully.
If something happened to her here…
In her own hospital…
There would be no escaping this.
My whole shirt was stained with her blood.
Dark red. Drying slowly under the harsh white lights of the emergency corridor.
Anyone who looked at me could easily misunderstand the scene.
In a few minutes the headlines were going to be something ridiculous like “Vice Founder Shot — Found With Former Nurse Husband Covered in Blood.”
Perfect.
Exactly the kind of drama my miserable life needed.
I rubbed my hands together nervously, trying to wipe the blood off, but it only smeared more across my fingers. My chest felt tight. The smell of antiseptic mixed with blood made my stomach twist.
People kept staring.
Whispering.
Some nurses passed by slowly, pretending to be busy while clearly watching me from the corner of their eyes.
I heard my name once.
Then again.
“Isn't that Adithya?”
“Wasn't he the one who left the hospital months ago?”
“And isn't that… her husband?”
Great.
Now the gossip department had officially started its night shift.
I leaned against the wall and dragged a trembling hand down my face. My heartbeat still hadn't slowed from the chaos at the beach. The gun. The punch. The gunshot. The blood.
God.
I had never even seen a real gun before today.
And somehow I ended up in the middle of a shootout like some low-budget crime movie.
My eyes drifted to the emergency room door.
Behind that door, doctors were trying to save the very woman who had once threatened my family’s lives.
The same woman I had begged not to die ten minutes ago.
I swallowed hard.
Not because I cared.
Obviously not.
If she died, her brother would bury me alive before the police even arrived.
That was the only reason my heart was beating this fast.
Definitely that.
Nothing else.
Just then the emergency doors burst open for a moment as a nurse rushed out to grab something from the counter. I instinctively straightened.
Through the small gap I saw a glimpse of her lying on the operating table.
Pale.
Motionless.
Blood still staining the bandage around her shoulder.
The door shut again.
And suddenly the corridor felt unbearably silent.
I didn’t know who informed her brother, but he came rushing into the hospital like a storm, a small girl clutched in his arm.
Before I could even stand properly, his hand landed across my face.
The slap echoed in the corridor.
For a second anger flared inside me, hot and sharp, but I swallowed it. I stayed still. Because I had a sister too… and if someone brought her to the hospital like this, covered in blood, I would probably do worse.
He grabbed my collar and pulled me close.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” he asked, his voice shaking with rage.
“William,” I said quickly. “He shot her.”
His eyes widened.
The anger on his face cracked, replaced by something darker… fear.
He slowly released my collar and stepped back, running a hand through his hair as if trying to process what I just said.
The little girl in his arms was staring at both of us, her eyes wide like she had just watched two monsters fighting.
Vihaan bent down and whispered something to her softly. His voice was gentle now, completely different from the man who had slapped me seconds ago. She nodded slowly, hugging her small doll tighter.
After that he rushed toward the doctors, disappearing through another corridor to speak with them.
And just like that, I was left sitting in the waiting area.
Beside a five-year-old kid.
The girl sat on the chair swinging her tiny legs, playing with a small Barbie doll as if nothing around her made sense.
Hospitals probably looked like giant confusing buildings to kids.
She suddenly turned her head and looked at me carefully.
Then she pointed at my shirt.
“You played Holi?” she asked innocently.
I blinked.
I looked down at my shirt again.
Covered in blood.
From a distance, it probably did look like someone had thrown buckets of red color on me.
I let out a tired sigh.
“Yeah,” I muttered softly. “Worst Holi party ever.”
She tilted her head, thinking seriously about my answer, then went back to making her Barbie walk across the armrest of the chair like it was a runway.
For a few minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then she suddenly looked up again.
“Is aunty going to die?” she asked.
The question hit harder than Vihaan’s slap.
My throat tightened.
I stared at the emergency room door for a moment before answering.
“She’s too stubborn to die,” I said quietly.
The girl nodded as if that explanation made perfect sense.
Then she lifted her Barbie and made it wave dramatically.
“Barbie also never dies.”
For the first time since the gunshot, a small, exhausted smile pulled at the corner of my mouth.