SECRETs (Not edited)

Past 45

**NAINA**

"And, that old woman really asked if I was married? Do I really look old enough to be married?" I fussed lying on the bed. Had I already started having wrinkles? That was a really scary thought.

The boys hardly cared. They were doing some sort of weird wrestling on their bed.

Avni came out of the washroom, rubbed her feet dry with a towel, took her laptop and climbed on the bed. I watched her every move like a hawk.

She turned to me, "What is it?"

"Nothing." I murmured, taking out my phone.
"You know what, there was this old woman today, who asked me if I was married. or not. Do I look that old to be married?" I continued, placing the phone in my lap.

"Well, ya maybe." Avni mumbled as she opened her laptop, placing it on her lap.

"What? You too think that?" I asked horrified. "Should I...."

"Oh my god!" Avni's voice stopped me mid sentence. "Somebody has totally wiped out my computer."

"What do you mean wiped out?" Karan asked, as he strangled Abhi underneath him, with his elbow.

"Formatted. Completely." Avni replied, horrified.

I glanced at her screen,"It might be a system failure."

"System failure?" Avni turned her laptop, so that I could see clearly. "Does it look like a system failure? Where are my backups? There is not a single file available."

"But isn't your laptop password protected?" Abhi asked, as he reached for the laptop, after Karan released him.

"Sometimes, it's possible to format a laptop even if its password protected. Do you both sleep in class?" Karan muttered, as he took the laptop and typed in some keys.

"It's definitely formatted." Karan confirmed.

"Do you think you might have done it yourself, by mistake?" Naina asked, stating a possibility.

Avni shook her head, "Of Course I didn't. I opened it last night and it was working perfectly fine. Damn! There were so many important files there. I even had some shots of the chats of the terrorist organisation. We could have worked on that, to find out who were the persons."

"Hold on, what? You have shots? Of the chats? How come you never showed them to us?" Karan mussed.

"I never got the time. What with the Glam Up show, and then all these. I never found the chance to tell you guys about it. Now, it's all lost." Avni mumbled.

"I never thought you did be so stupid to do that, Avni. Just like you are not supposed to enter the chat room, you aren't allowed to take shots as well. They would know of the intrusion." Karan scolded.

"Oh right. Now, I understand why these strange things have been happening. They aren't coincidences but its because you triggered it. What the damn thing in the world were you thinking?" Abhi growled at her. And, it actually seemed to connect all the dots. The attack right after the fashion show, the strange car which was probably following Avni, that dead man at that spot, Avni getting paranoid about it thinking it was for her; everything was a series.

"I had no idea, that we weren't supposed to click shots. I wouldn't have done it otherwise." Avni mumbled. "I thought they knew that I have hacked into their account because I was using the same IP address."

"Ya, that might be the reason, too." Karan signed scrunching up his eyebrows.

"OMG!" My eyes shot wide open as the realisation of a serious matter, hit me hard.