Breath 17

She slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it behind her.

Her breath came out in sharp, ragged bursts — short enough

to feel like drowning.

The heels she had thrown on earlier now felt like they were nailed to her feet.

Her sari, crisp and white only hours ago, had a dark stain

that wasn’t entirely her own.

The safe was tucked behind the sliding panel of the closet,

just where her husband had always kept it.

“Emergency only,” he used to say with a self-satisfied smirk,

like the apocalypse was something he would greet in his pajamas.

Now it was the apocalypse.

And she had caused it.

She planned the restaurant raid with her boyfriend

Down to her gold bangle rolling through the floor hitting the agent’s shoe.

She wants to see fear in her husband’s face.

And they did it.

Together.

But- the stabbing? That’s something that she did not processed yet.

However she knew, it has to be done.

That’s the only way.

That’s her ticket to a new life.

An escape.

Away from her husband.

She dropped to her knees in front of the safe,

clawing open the panel, her trembling fingers tapping in the code. 5-4-1-9-3.

His mother’s birthday. The one he used for everything.

Beep.

Wrong.

“Shit—” she hissed, wiping her palms on her sari,

leaving a crimson smear she didn’t have time to process.

She tried again. 9-3-1-5-4.

Beep.

Wrong again.

“Goddamn you, you cheap bastard,” she muttered under her breath,

blinking fast to clear her tears.

They weren’t from grief. Not yet. Mostly panic.

And rage.

And the screech of a car outside that made her flinch hard enough

to knock into the nightstand.

A voice from the hallway cut through the silence like a blade.

“Hurry up,” the agent snapped. “You said it’d take one minute. It’s been five.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to scream at him, but now wasn’t the time.

The agent — lean, pale, eyes cold and blue like a frozen lake —

stood on the other side of the door, tapping something metallic against the wood.

Probably the badge he never earned. Or worse — the knife he had lent her.

But isn’t that she left the knife right by the parking lot?

There’s no time to overthink and analyze where the freakin’ knife is.

“You don’t get it,” she hissed. “He changed the code.”

“Then guess better,” he barked. “Before the cops beat us to it.”

She could still feel it — the hilt of the knife, slick with sweat in her palm.

The sound it made slicing into flesh, the spasm of her husband’s hand

clenching around her wrist.

His eyes. The disbelief in them.

He thought she’d forgiven him. He thought she was still afraid.

He thought wrong.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She took a deep breath and tried a third code — their anniversary. 6-1-2-0-8.

Click.

It opened.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

Her hands went limp with relief for half a second. Then she reached in.

Stacks of hundred-dollar bills, tight as bricks. Velvet pouches filled with gold bangles and rings.

Stacks of small gold bars he accumulated through the years.

A passport. A diamond necklace she hadn't worn since the wedding.

The whole life she had waited for — sitting in that safe.

She shoved it all into the black tote bag she had slung on the bed,

breathing like she was giving birth. T

he weight of it pulled at her shoulder already.

Blood money.

Freedom money.

Behind her, the door rattled.

“We need to GO! Hurry! I’ll be in the car! Pack light!”

“Got it!” she snapped, flinging the closet shut.

She paused by the mirror.

Just long enough to see the woman staring back.

Blood on her neck. Smudged eyeliner.

A gold bangle already looped around her wrist.

She didn’t recognize herself.

But she wasn’t sorry, either.

She made it three steps toward the door when a voice,

young and disoriented, sliced through the quiet.

“Mom?”

She froze.

The voice came again, this time from the hallway.

“What’s all that blood? And... the bag? Are you leaving?”

Her daughter stood in the doorway, barefoot, one hand holding a toothbrush,

the other a half-empty can of beer.

Her eyes darted between her mother’s stained Sari, the overstuffed tote,

and the streaks on the floor.

“You—what are you doing here?” the mother asked,

her voice high, cracked. “I thought you were in the dorm with your brothers.”

“I don’t think you’re the one who should be asking questions right now.”

The girl’s voice trembled, but she stood her ground.

“I’m not the one covered in blood. Where’s Dad?”

Before she could answer, the agent burst back in the house,

nearly tripping on the edge of the suitcase. “Damn it, what’s taking you so long?”

Her daughter spun toward him. “Who the hell are you?”

The woman grabbed the girl’s shoulders.

“Please, not now. I—I’ll explain everything. Just not now.”

The agent yanked her arm. “We need to go. Say your goodbyes. Now.”

The daughter dropped the toothbrush and beer can.

Her voice broke. “Go? Where? Mom? What is this? Are you leaving us? With him?”

Her mother looked down, her chest tightening as the truth tried to claw its way out.

“I wish I could explain. I wish I could sit with you,

like when you were little and sick, and tell you everything’s going to be okay.”

She cupped her daughter’s face.

“But tonight… tonight is not a night for answers. It’s the night for goodbyes.”

She hugged her daughter tight.

“It might be a while since you see me again. But I want you to know that,

this is not my fault. This is what the real world looks like. It’s cheap. It’s dirty. It’s bloody.”

Tears filled the girl’s eyes.

“Is this why you and Dad were fighting? Are you… are you leaving him for this guy?

What the hell is happening, Answer me mom, I’m right here in front of you,

I’m your daughter….what…about me and my brothers, what about us,

where are we in all this….this whatever you call this that’s happening right now!”

Behind her, the agent slammed the car door. “Let’s go. Now.”

The woman hugged her again daughter tightly.

“Don’t brush your teeth with beer. I’m still your mother.”

She hug her daughter again, then she pulled away and ran,

ducking into the front seat of the sedan just as it peeled out of the driveway.

Smoke trailed in the car’s wake.

Her daughter stumbled backward and sank onto the stairs, still staring at the open door.

The phone buzzed in her pocket.

Dad.

She stared at the screen, hands shaking, and answered.

“Dad? Is that you? What happened? Mom just left—she was covered in blood. Where are you?”

Her father’s voice, weak but alive, crackled through the line.

“I’m at the ER,” he said. “I… I’m okay. Tell me. Did she leave?”

She choked on a sob. “Yes. With some guy. But you’re okay?

They told me nothing. I was scared you… that maybe—”

“I’m fine,” he said gently. “We had a car accident, I’ll be discharged in a day or two.

Don’t worry about your mom, she’s just going through something”

The line went dead.

In the darkened hospital room, the Indian guy lay propped up against thin pillows,

his head bandaged, his side throbbing under the heavy wrap of gauze.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor pulsed in rhythm with his rage.

He flicked the lighter carefully under the blanket, shielding the flame.

The cigarette trembled slightly between his fingers as he brought it to his lips.

“Bastard woman,” he muttered under his breath.

He took a long drag, letting the bitterness curl in his mouth.

Anger. Betrayal. The ache in his side was nothing compared to the burn of humiliation sitting in his chest.

Suddenly — footsteps.

His eyes darted to the door. Shit.

He could hear the soft soles of the nurse’s shoes getting closer,

the faint jangle of keys, the whisper of a clipboard flipping. Panic surged.

He frantically looked around — no ashtray, no window to toss it out. His heart raced.

“Fuck.”

In a split-second, ridiculous decision, he shoved the cigarette into his mouth — and swallowed. Whole.

He coughed, eyes bulging, his body twitching under the blanket.

The door creaked open.

“Hello, I’m your Nurse tonight, I’m coming in” the nurse called softly, stepping inside. “Are you awake?”

He quickly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand,

trying to look casual, his throat burning. “Mm-hmm,” he choked, voice a strangled rasp.

The nurse flicked on a small lamp, bathing the room

in gentle light. She gave him a polite smile. “Just doing your vitals. You resting okay?”

He nodded stiffly, beads of sweat breaking on his forehead as the cigarette lodged awkwardly in his chest.

He could taste ash on his tongue, his eyes watering.

As the nurse leaned over to check the monitors,

he clenched the blanket in both fists, silently vowing never to be caught like this again.

———————————————————————————————-

In the front seat of the speeding car, the Indian guy’s wife stared out the window.

Streetlights slid past in fractured streaks, her reflection staring back at her.

As she remembered: Her husband striking her across the cheek,

hard enough to make her knees buckle, the checkout counter at the grocery store —

the cashier asking her to remove items while people in line sighed and whispered,

her fingers trembling as she counted crumpled coupons and coins, and that night

when she stepped into the bedroom early from her shift at the factory,

her breath catching as she saw her husband on top of another man,

both of them had just reached the peak of ecstasy.

She can remember vividly how her husband pulled the guy’s hair

as he released the scream of pain and lust.

The world had stopped in that moment.

She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t screamed.

She’d just… quietly stepped back and shut the door.

But something inside her had cracked —

not from the betrayal, but from the knowledge that she had stayed.

That she had no choice but to stay.

Until that evening,

when he first met him.

She had never set foot inside a bar alone.

She had paced outside for nearly twenty minutes,

her coat pulled tightly around her, eyes darting nervously

at the neon light flickering overhead — The Rusty Oak — a small, dimly lit place

wedged between a laundromat and a pawn shop.

She didn’t know what she was doing here.

She didn’t drink. She didn’t meet men in places like this.

What was she hoping for — rescue? escape?

Her heart was thudding so loud she thought people inside could hear it.

But still, she pushed open the heavy door.

The smell of beer, sweat, and old wood hit her first.

She stepped in carefully, trying to blend in, but she stuck out: well-dressed,

eyes wide with fear, a delicate gold bangle clinking softly on her wrist.

And then —

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a voice said, low and sure,

cutting through the murmur of the bar. She turned.

A man stood there, tall, sharp-jawed, with an easy confidence in his shoulders.

The Immigration agent.

But she didn’t know that yet.

“It looks like you don’t belong here.”

Her lips parted, a quick breath caught in her throat.

She felt the sting of humiliation, the burn of defiance.

“Why,” she whispered, “where do you think I should belong?”

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Their eyes held — hers wide and wounded, his calm but searching.

He softened first. “Look… are you okay?”

His voice dropped, less official, more human.

And just like that, the wall inside her cracked.

No one had asked her that in years.

Not her husband, who barely looked up from his phone anymore.

Not her children, buried in their own worlds.

No one had touched the sore, hollow spot inside her chest that had been growing

and growing until it was a pit swallowing her whole.

Her boyfriend — the agent, though she still hesitated to call him that in her mind — reached out,

gently curling his fingers around hers.

“You know you did the right thing, right?” he murmured.

She wanted to answer, to explain, to say something sharp or confident —

but instead, her lips trembled, and without warning,

the tears she’d been holding back for so long finally fell.

Back in a dark corner of a cheap bar,

with a stranger’s hand wrapped around hers, she fell apart.

And in that moment, she thought maybe, just maybe, she had found a way out.

Tonight, that stranger’s hand had wrapped around hers.

They’re no longer inside the cheap bar.

They’re driving forward

Into whatever unknown future is waiting for them.