The storm outside had escalated into a full-scale monsoon rage, the wind howling through the cracks in the wooden shutters like a wounded animal. Inside the small room, the heat was suffocating, thick with the scent of spent kerosene, rain-drenched jasmine, and the salt of two bodies pushed to their absolute limits.

Shivom sat back on his heels, his massive, sweat-slicked chest heaving. He reached out and grabbed Payal’s ankles, dragging her body across the rough sheets until she was positioned directly beneath the flickering light of a new lamp he had just struck. He wanted to see the wreckage of her innocence.