Varun walked towards the exclusive hotel where his assignation awaited. 

His stomach felt sick, thinking about what he would be forced to do. Over the next few hours, he had to pretend to participate in one of the most deviant acts, without resorting to the violence that lurked inside him.

It was going to be very hard. Especially because, most of the nights, with every nightmare that plagued his sleep, a greater need burned somewhere in the darkest corners of his mind. The kind that made him question his own humanity.

He wanted to rip apart the limbs and tear open the stomachs of the monsters that destroyed the innocence of children. He especially wanted to cut off the extremities that touched the children.

Each night, he cut himself deeper, to lay rest to some of those dark urges. The only thing that stopped him from cutting even deeper was the possibility of seeing devastation on Jagadish Naidu’s face, when he would lose everything.

Varun couldn’t wait to see that bastard in jail, where he would watch his entire world drift slowly and mercilessly from him. Just like all the innocent victims who were devastated by his perversions. Jagadish Naidu needed to know what it meant to be in pain. To suffer, and to be in desolation.

Sia was right.

No quick bullet from either of them would deliver the monster to the hell he deserved. By catching him in the act and providing proof to the world, he would lose the very reason he lived for. Respect and admiration from the fawning public.

Revenge.

That word was solely responsible for preventing him from blowing his own head during the past two years. When Sia uttered that word to him, he clung to it. That was the only word that held some kind of sanity, and gave him a purpose to live.

Donning the mask that he carried in his hand, he approached the back entrance of the hotel.

He came across a man wearing a security guard’s uniform. He knew he didn’t have to talk. He simply took out the RFID Key card from his back pocket and flashed it towards him.

There was exclusive access card for the event. With Ajay’s help, they were able to configure the setting of all the accesses to one single master key card.

As soon as he scanned the key, there was a beep and the light turned green as expected. There was also a mandatory retina scan that again turned green. All the required information was pre-fed into the database by Ajay and his friend.

“This way, sir. You will be escorted inside.”

Varun nodded in response and walked towards the opulent hallway of the hotel. There, another uniformed man wearing a similar mask such as him, waiting inside. When Varun reached him, the man nodded and led him deeper into the hotel. After navigating through several pathways, they arrived in front of an innocuous looking door. The man opened the door and indicated inside.

Varun walked in, and then stopped short as the sight that met his eyes nearly made him drop to his knees. It was the first time in his adult life he was witnessing evil in its true form.

The men in front of him didn’t have a soul, a conscience, or even an ounce of remorse or compassion for what they were currently doing.

They were snatching away the innocence of several small children who were in various stages of undress. Some of those children couldn’t have been more than six years old. There were also half-naked terrified children, hunched over and held in cages on one side of the room, surrounded by masked men.

Varun felt a thick suffocating rage spreading quickly through his body, replacing every feeling, every emotion, and every last thought that crossed his mind. All he saw was the need to wreck vengeance on those monsters.

“I’m going to kill them right now with my bare hands,” he growled.

“Varun,” Sia’s soft voice cut through his rage. “Please listen to me,” she implored through the concealed headphones. “I know this is not going to be easy. But we need to record them and catch them red-handed.”

“I just can’t, Sia,” he gritted through a clenched jaw. His fists tightened to the point of pain to the sides. “I want to—”

“Please, the police should be on their way. Just distract them, and help us incriminate them. Please!”

He didn’t reply. Taking a deep breath, he walked towards the main seating.

“What would you like to have, sir?” a server asked as he held out a small tray with a notepad.

“I don’t drink.”

“I meant, what would be your choice for the evening, sir,” the server elaborated, causing Varun to clench his fists to stop himself from knocking the masked server’s teeth.

“Children,” he spat out.

There was a laugh behind the mask. “Sir, all our stock here is under aged and classify as children. You need to be more specific.”

“Male. Twelve to fourteen years,” Varun replied curtly. He needed a child that was old enough to understand and also maybe play along with him.

The server nodded and left after making a few notes.

Varun scanned his surrounding from under the mask. He turned his head slowly, because his mask held a tiny recorder within it. It also had an in-built facial and voice recognition software that displayed a person’s picture alone with their name and some of the public data.

The recorder was from Ajay. The facial recognition in-built glasses were from the hacker, Mafiaboy. Sia had paid a fortune to the hacker for it through an anonymous bank account.

The hacker must have figured out that what they were doing must be illegal. But being young and also dabbling in illegal hacking, he readily offered. He was extremely skilled, and mostly relied on technologies that were already developed. He apparently simply cloned the existing technologies and added his own touch to them.

Varun continued scanning the room. Amongst various soft conversations, there was one voice the recognition software alerted to.

Judge Sundaram Saini.

The main kingpin who had organized the event. A few feet away from him, was another man with a stately posture and distinctive grey streaked hair. Varun recognized him immediately. He didn’t need the voice recognition software.

The sudden increase in his heart rate was the indicator.

The grey haired man held a boy on his lap. Unlike other children, the boy wasn’t crying or struggling. He was watching the man with a hypnotic look. Varun almost broke down when he recognized himself in that boy.

 There was a time during his childhood when he hadn’t believed in monsters. Until he was seven, he was brave enough to sleep on his own or go wherever he wanted. But later, he met a man, and realized that monsters did exist. And that they weren’t ugly creatures that hid under the beds or closets. They lived among humans, destroying innocent lives.

Varun’s body shuddered as he recalled some of the atrocities done to his fragile seven year old body by the very monster in front of him.

But now, he wasn’t helpless. He knew that to defeat a monster, he needed to become one. Even though his skin crawled at what he would be forced to do, he knew that there was no other way.

Taking a deep breath, he walked straight towards the hell, where he found the lowest depths of human depravity.

“Ah, welcome.” said a slightly drunk voice of the judge. The judge was laughing at the attempts of a sluggish and obviously drugged little boy trying to squirm away from his lap.

Bile churned inside Varun’s stomach when he heard the judge’s laugh. He couldn’t get over the judge’s picture with his family that included several grandchildren.

The therapist that Sia had forced Varun to speak with had told him that most people who sexually abused children weren’t mentally ill. They often led normal lives, and were married, and even had sexual relations with their spouses.

Varun wondered how the judge’s family would react to the current video recording.

Tearing his eyes away, he looked at the man seated next to him, the one he hated the most in the world. That man didn’t enjoy tormenting his prey. He preferred to employ more nefarious methods to lure them into a false sense of security. It was quite obvious to most sane adults that the way Jagadish Naidu was touching and fondling the child on his lap didn’t bode well. Varun recalled being in a similar position with the same monster during his childhood — but the adults around him weren’t sane.

“Pity, we couldn’t get a lot more of the younger ones for our guest’s enjoyment,” the judge remarked.

“More children missing around the same timeframe would definitely raise eyebrows. Even if they are orphans.”

That very conversation was enough to get them arrested.

Varun shook his head, choking back the fury as he felt some kind of blackness settling over him. He wanted to lose control and kill the two men in front of him.

A small sobbing sound broke through his thoughts.

“Sir, your request,” said a masked uniformed man. He was accompanied by a boy completely hunched over, trying to calm the sobs escaping him.

“I think we have enough,” Sia’s voice broke through Varun’s torturous screams in his mind. “Get out of there Varun. You don’t have to do anything else.”

Varun ignored Sia. Until the police arrived and rescued the children, he refused to leave them in the hellhole.

Meantime, not to raise any suspicion, Varun slowly went towards the boy. The boy continued cowering and sobbing quietly. What struck Varun odd was the clothing and the general look of the boy. He was delicate to the point of frail. He had a jagged hairstyle as though his hair was growing out recently after having shorn it. Varun could even see blue veins on the boy’s painfully bony hands, making him look almost sickly.

Did the monsters not even spare the sick children?

“Sir, on your request, you mentioned that you preferred a private room to a show.”

Varun opened his mouth to answer.  He felt his voice to be literally stuck at the sights and sounds around him. He cleared his throat. “I’m not the type to enjoy exhibition. I need privacy,” he gritted out.

Listening to his words, the boy’s sobs intensified.

“VIP rooms are arranged towards the back of the hall, sir.”

Jerking his head in a nod, and even though everything inside him rebelled, Varun moved closer to the boy. “Come with me,” he requested him softly.

The boy shook his head vigorously.

Moving even closer, “I’m not going to hurt you,” he rasped out.

The boy didn’t respond, making Varun feel helpless. He needed the boy’s cooperation. A lot depended on that. He couldn’t simply drag the boy to a corner to explain. Not only was it wrong to frighten an already terrified child, but Varun couldn’t even touch the child to offer him comfort.

“Sir, do you need help dragging him to the room?” someone asked.

“No! Don’t touch him,” Varun snapped vehemently.

At his tone, a lot of heads turned his way. Some even stared for long. He could feel their suspicion leaking even through the masks.

“Come with me!” he ordered the boy in a firmer tone, hoping the child would be terrified enough to jump at his command. To his surprise, the sobbing stopped and the boy whipped his head up to glare.

“I won’t!” hissed out a feminine voice.

Varun was so shocked, that he couldn’t react for a couple of seconds. Even though the frail thin body and the jagged cut resembled that of a boy’s, Varun was pretty sure it was a girl. That news didn’t matter. He needed the help of that girl, and quickly.

Bracing himself, and with a harsh look on his face, he bent over, and threw her frail body over his shoulder. The girl put up quite a fight, yelling and slapping him and clawing his face around the mask, wherever she could reach. Yet he didn’t stop her. Couldn’t stop her. His body shuddered at the contact. He hated that he was touching another human and that too in the role of an aggressor.

He was led towards the private rooms by the uniformed man. When he reached inside the room, he dumped the girl on the bed, and went back to check the lock on the door. His entire body trembled and broke into sweat. It took a great effort but he moved back towards the bed, his vision blurring.

“D-don’t hurt me,” a voice broke through his blank mind, reminding him of the other presence in the room.

He pulled his mask up, and shook his head hard, trying to get rid of the blurriness.  Finally a vision comprising of the small terrified form became clear.

“P-please,” she begged.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he rasped out.

She didn’t believe him. She curled up in a fetal position on the bed, making her painfully thin body look even frailer.

“Please,” he begged. “Listen to me. I need you to help me.”

Her body continued trembling.

He moved a couple of steps away from the bed and crouched down on the floor next to it. “My name is Varun,” he began. “I need your help,” he repeated. “I need your help to save the other children outside. I promise, I’m going to get you all out of here. I’m not one of them. I’m not one of the bad guys. I never harmed any children.”

Listening to those words, the girl’s body lost some of the tension, and her sobs slowly subsided.

“Please listen to me carefully. There’s going to be violence out there in a few minutes when the police arrive. I need you to keep the children within this room and lock all of you from the inside.”

“W-what?” she asked, sitting up and watching him huge eyes.

“Please listen carefully. I’m going to get the children here. I don’t know how many of them are out there. But I want you to remain here with them and not open the door until I ask you to. Alright?”

“O-okay,” she whispered.

Then moving away from the bed, he went out of the room and shut the door.

“Varun, please. Don’t,” Sia’s voice begged. “They might be armed, Varun.”

“I don’t care anymore. I need to get those children away.” He knew he sounded deranged. His rational thoughts had shut down the moment he’d seen the deadened eyes of the drugged children in the arms of monsters.

He marched towards the familiar evil bastard first. Quickly he dragged the child away from his lap. In the next instant, he ripped away the mask, revealing Jagadish Naidu’s identity. He did the same with judge Sundaram.

“What the hell?” boomed the judge’s voice.

“We have been compromised. I think we have an undercover police officer here,” a panicked shout emerged. Before he knew it, there was chaos.

He knocked down the people surrounding him with sheer brute strength. And he quickly began to grab all the children. He picked three of them in his arms and ran towards the back room. A few other children followed.

“Listen to me, all of you. I want you all to hide in this room until I say so,” he told them in an urgent tone, even though he had a feeling that the entire place wasn’t safe enough.

The girl was standing and waiting inside the room. Even though she still looked terrified, she pulled the children in.

Varun could only make two more rounds with more children in his arms. When one of the masked guards tried to stop him, Varun caught his throat and crushed it, until the man collapsed.

During the third run, he was outnumbered.