The rain did not stop.
It fell harder now, hammering the station roof until the whole platform seemed to tremble beneath it. Zoya stood frozen among the scattered papers, the photograph of Meher and Alia lying face-up between her and Vihaan.
Meher set the fire.
The words would not leave her.
Every memory she had of her mother felt suddenly unstable. The woman who made her tea when she was sick. The woman who stayed awake during exam nights. The woman who held her when she cried without knowing why.
Could that woman have killed her own sister?
Could she have stood beside a burning car and held the lighter?
“Say it isn’t true,” Zoya whispered.
Vihaan’s face was pale. “I wish I could.”
“You were a child.”
“I was four.”
“Then how do you know what you saw?”
“Because I never forgot it.”
Zoya turned toward Rais.
He stood a few feet away, rain dripping from the edge of his black raincoat. He looked older than she remembered. Tired. But his eyes were the same eyes that had watched over her throughout her childhood.
The eyes she had trusted.
“You knew,” she said.
Rais did not deny it.
“You knew Meher was there that night,” Zoya continued. “You knew Vihaan saw her. And you still let me believe she was only trying to protect me.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
“By killing Alia?”
Rais’s expression hardened.
“Meher did not kill Alia.”
Zoya laughed once, bitterly. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Then explain the lighter.”
Rais looked at Vihaan.
Vihaan looked away.
“I saw what I saw,” Vihaan said quietly.
“You saw a piece of it,” Rais replied. “A four-year-old saw his aunt’s car burning and his aunt’s sister standing nearby. That is not the same as seeing a murder.”
Zoya’s heart pounded.
“Then tell me what happened,” she said. “All of it.”
Rais looked at her for a long time.
Then he walked toward the bench beneath the broken shelter and sat down slowly, as if his body had been carrying the weight of that night for twenty years.
“Sit,” he said.
“I’d rather stand.”
“Of course you would.” His mouth almost curved, but there was no smile in it. “You’re like her.”
Zoya’s chest tightened.
“Don’t,” she said.
Rais looked down at his hands.
“Alia called Meher that night,” he began. “It was late. Rain. The kind of night when the city feels like it is drowning.”
Zoya listened despite herself.
“Alia was frightened,” Rais continued. “She had found something in Kabir’s office—documents, recordings, accounts. Money moving through companies that did not exist. She said she was going to expose him.”
“Expose him for what?”
“Fraud. Blackmail. And something worse.”
Zoya waited.
Rais lifted his eyes to hers.
“Trafficking,” he said.
The word dropped heavily between them.
Vihaan’s face tightened.
“Kabir was moving people,” Rais continued. “Women. Girls. Some were brought in as domestic workers. Some were promised jobs. Alia found records proving that members of powerful families were involved.”
Zoya felt sick.
“And Meher knew?”
“Not at first. Alia called her because she was scared. She said Kabir had discovered what she had taken.”
“The documents?”
Rais nodded.
“Alia hid them before she ran. She took Zoya with her.”
Zoya frowned.
“Took me?”
“You were three,” Rais said. “Alia’s daughter.”
The words struck her again, but this time they did not feel like a twist.
They felt like a wound finally being named.
“I was Alia’s daughter,” Zoya whispered.
“Yes.”
“And Meher was my aunt.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did I grow up thinking Meher was my mother?”
Rais’s jaw tightened.
“Because after that night, Alia was dead. Meher was the only person left who could keep you safe.”
Zoya looked down at the photograph.
Two women smiling in the sun.
One had raised her.
One had died in fire.
“But Vihaan saw Meher with the lighter,” Zoya said.
“He did,” Rais said. “Because Meher set the car on fire.”
Zoya’s breath caught.
“But not while Alia was alive.”
Vihaan’s head snapped up.
“What?”
Rais continued, his voice low and steady.
“By the time Meher reached the car, Alia was already dead. Kabir had killed her. Meher found her sister’s body, found Zoya hiding nearby, and realized Kabir would come back to make sure there were no witnesses.”
Zoya’s vision blurred.
“So she set the fire?”
“To destroy the evidence Alia had hidden in the car,” Rais said. “And to make Kabir believe Zoya had died with her mother.”
Zoya stared at him.
“But I didn’t die.”
“No,” Rais said. “Meher made sure of that.”
Vihaan looked shaken.
“You’re saying my father killed Alia,” he said.
“I’m saying Kabir Raichand has spent his life making other people carry his sins.”
Zoya wanted to believe him.
She wanted it so badly that it frightened her.
Because if Rais was telling the truth, then Meher had not been a murderer.
She had been a woman who lost her sister, saved a child, and spent the rest of her life running from a powerful man.
But if Rais was lying—
Zoya looked at the scattered documents on the platform.
“Then why did you bring a syringe?” she asked.
Rais’s face changed.
“You saw it.”
“I saw enough.”
“That was not for you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“It was for Vihaan.”
Zoya turned sharply toward Vihaan.
He had gone very still.
“What?” she asked.
Rais stood slowly.
“Your mother did not only use memory suppression on you,” he said. “She used it on Vihaan too.”
Vihaan’s eyes widened.
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Rais asked. “You were four, Vihaan. You saw a woman burn a car. You saw a dead body. Do you really believe your father let you keep those memories?”
Vihaan’s breathing became uneven.
“I remember,” he said.
“You remember what Kabir allowed you to remember.”
Zoya looked between them.
The rain. The station. The two men who both claimed to know the truth.
And neither of whom she could fully trust.
“What did Meher do to him?” she asked.
Rais’s gaze did not leave Vihaan.
“She made him forget one thing,” Rais said. “The most important thing.”
“What thing?”
Vihaan’s voice was barely audible.
“What did she make me forget?”
Rais stepped closer to him.
“You didn’t only see Meher that night,” he said. “You saw who was inside the car.”
Vihaan froze.
Zoya’s pulse raced.
“The car was burning,” Vihaan said. “There was someone inside. I told everyone it was Alia.”
“It was not Alia,” Rais said.
Zoya felt cold spread through her chest.
“Then who was inside?”
Rais looked at her.
And for the first time, fear entered his eyes.
“Another girl,” he said. “A girl about your age.”
Zoya’s mouth went dry.
“A girl Kabir had taken.”
Vihaan shook his head slowly. “No. No, I remember Alia—”
“You remember what you were told to remember,” Rais said. “Meher changed your memory to protect you. But she could not erase everything.”
Zoya looked down at the old mobile phone lying among the scattered papers.
The phone from the locker.
The phone that had received messages from an unknown number.
Messages that knew too much.
Messages that had warned her not to trust Vihaan.
“Who has been texting this phone?” she asked.
Rais turned toward her.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Then who knew Meher hid a phone in the locker?”
“No one.”
“Someone knew.”
The phone vibrated.
All three of them went still.
Zoya stared at it.
The screen glowed in the rain-dark platform.
Incoming call.
But it was not an unknown number this time.
The name on the screen made the air leave her lungs.
Ma.
Zoya’s hand trembled as she picked it up.
Vihaan stepped forward. “Don’t.”
Rais said nothing.
The phone rang again.
Zoya answered.
She did not speak.
For a moment, there was only rain and static.
Then a woman breathed on the other end.
Slow. Familiar.
Alive.
Zoya’s knees nearly gave out.
“Ma?” she whispered.
The breathing stopped.
Then a voice came through—quiet, distorted, and unmistakably her mother’s.
“Zoya,” Meher said, “listen carefully.”
Zoya pressed the phone harder against her ear.
“Ma, where are you? Are you alive? The news said—”
“I know what the news said.”
Zoya’s eyes filled with tears.
“Then it wasn’t you? The body they found—”
“Zoya.” Her mother’s voice sharpened. “There is no time.”
Vihaan moved closer.
Rais did too.
Zoya turned away from them, shielding the phone with her body.
“Tell me where you are,” she begged. “Please.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if I tell you, they will find you before morning.”
“Who?”
Meher was silent.
Then she said, “The person who has been texting you.”
Zoya’s blood turned to ice.
“You’ve been texting me?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Her mother’s voice dropped lower.
“Zoya, the messages are not coming from a phone.”
Zoya frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“They are coming from inside the house.”
Before Zoya could ask what house, the call crackled.
Meher’s breathing grew ragged.
“Ma?”
“Listen to me. The fire was not the beginning. Alia did not die because she found Kabir’s documents.”
Zoya’s heart pounded.
“Then why did she die?”
Meher’s answer came in fragments, broken by static.
“Because she found out… what Kabir was doing… to the girls.”
“I know,” Zoya said. “Rais told me.”
The silence that followed was different.
Cold.
“Rais told you?” Meher whispered.
“Yes.”
“Zoya, listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“Rais was there that night.”
Zoya’s stomach dropped.
“I know.”
“No.” Meher’s voice shook. “You don’t. He was not there to help me.”
The line crackled violently.
“Ma, I can’t hear you.”
“Rais was working for Kabir.”
The world tilted.
Zoya looked up.
Rais was watching her.
His face was unreadable.
Vihaan was watching him too.
“What?” Zoya whispered into the phone.
“Rais was the one who told Kabir where Alia was hiding,” Meher said. “He was the one who led him to the car.”
Zoya’s hand began to shake.
“No.”
“He did not set the fire,” Meher continued. “But he made sure Kabir found them.”
Zoya turned slowly toward Rais.
He had gone pale.
Vihaan stepped between them, but Zoya barely saw him.
“Is that true?” she asked.
Rais did not answer.
“Is it true?” she shouted.
The phone crackled again.
Meher’s voice was fading.
“Zoya, do not let him near you. Do not let him take you to Kabir. He was supposed to bring you to him tonight.”
Zoya’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“That is why he found you. That is why he has been waiting.”
The call broke into static.
“Ma!”
Nothing.
“Ma, please—”
Then Meher’s voice came one last time, faint and urgent.
“The locker was a trap, Zoya. I left the key for someone else.”
Zoya froze.
“For who?”
The line went dead.
For a moment, no one moved.
Rain poured from the station roof.
The old phone slipped from Zoya’s hand.
Rais took one step toward her.
“Zoya,” he said gently. “Whatever she told you, you have to understand—”
“Stay back.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You led Kabir to Alia.”
“I had no choice.”
“Everyone says that.”
Vihaan moved closer to Zoya, positioning himself between her and Rais.
“You heard her,” he said. “Stay away from her.”
Rais’s eyes moved from Vihaan to Zoya.
“You still don’t understand,” he said. “Meher did not leave that locker for you.”
Zoya’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“Then who was it for?”
Rais looked past her, toward the dark end of the platform.
And Zoya turned.
A woman stood beneath the flickering light.
She wore a grey raincoat, her hood pulled low over her face. In one hand, she held an umbrella.
In the other, she held a gun.
Vihaan went rigid.
Rais whispered a name Zoya did not recognize.
But the woman did not look at him.
She looked only at Zoya.
Then she lowered her hood.
Zoya’s breath stopped.
The woman had Meher’s eyes.
But she was not Meher.
“Hello, Zoya,” the woman said. “My name is Alia Raichand.”
The station seemed to disappear.
Zoya could not move.
Could not breathe.
Could not think.
Because the woman standing in front of her was supposed to be dead.
And she was holding out her hand as if she had been waiting for Zoya all her life.
“Come with me,” Alia said, “before they finish what they started.”