Kishan scowled. “I told you that’s not what happened.”
“Then what did happen?”
I caught Mr. Kadam shaking his head discreetly again out of the corner of my eye and quickly turned to him.
“What now? What aren’t you two telling me?”
Mr. Kadam quickly tried to reassure me, “Nothing, Miss Kelsey. It’s just that,” he paused uncomfortably, “it was considered very rude of us to reject the women, and the boys were trying to demonstrate their reluctance to appease the tribal leaders.”
“Oh.”
Mr. Kadam and Kishan locked eyes. Kishan turned away with an expression of distaste, annoyance, and impatience. I glanced at Nilima, who seemed confused. She was watching Mr. Kadam very carefully.
I said, “Something’s going on here that I’m not privy to and I’m really too tired to figure out what it is, which is fine. Actually, I don’t really care about the two women anyway. It’s over and done with. We have Ren back, and that’s all that really matters.”
Nilima cleared her throat and got up, gathered the dishes, and was taking the tray to the kitchen to wash them, when Ren decided to become a man again. Everyone in the room froze. He looked at each one of us in turn, and then he smiled at Nilima. “May I help you with that?” he asked politely.
She paused and smiled, slightly nodding her head. We all stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak to us, but, instead, he quietly helped Nilima take everything to the kitchen. We heard him asking her if she would like some help with the dishes. She said she would take care of it and indicated that the others, meaning us, would probably like some time to talk with him. He entered the room hesitantly and evaluated the expressions of all three of us.
He sat down next to Kishan and said quietly, “Why do I feel like I’m standing before the Spanish Inquisition?”
“We just want to assure ourselves that you are indeed all right,” Mr. Kadam said.
“I’m well enough.”
His words hung in the air, and I imagined the rest of his sentence to be for a man who has been tortured for months.
I ventured, “Ren? I’m so . . . sorry. We shouldn’t have left you there. If I had known about the fire power I have, I could’ve saved you. It was my fault.”
Ren narrowed his eyes and studied me.
Kishan contradicted, “You had nothing to do with it, Kells. He pushed you toward me. It was all his decision. He wanted you to be safe.” He nodded to Ren. “Tell her.”
Ren looked at his brother as if he wasn’t making sense. He said, “I don’t remember it exactly the same way, but if you say so.”
He let his words trail off and looked at me curiously, but not in a good way. It was as if I was a strange new creature he’d found in the jungle, and he wasn’t sure if he should eat me or bat me around with his paws. As he openly considered me, he wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something distasteful and then spoke to Mr. Kadam.
“Thank you for saving me. I should have known you would have come up with a plan to liberate me.”
“Actually, it was Miss Kelsey who came up with the idea for me to impersonate a deity. Without the Divine Scarf she and Kishan retrieved, we wouldn’t have been able to rescue you at all. I had no idea where to find you. Only through the vision and seeing the Baiga man did we come to figure out where Lokesh was holding you. And only through the weapons given to us by Durga were we able to subdue the guards.”
Ren nodded and smiled at me. “It would appear I owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you for your efforts.”
Something was wrong. He didn’t seem like the Ren I knew. His demeanor toward me was cold, distant. Kishan wouldn’t look at Ren.
We all sat quietly. Thick tension radiated between all of us. I suddenly found myself envying Nilima in the kitchen. There was definitely an elephant in the room, and it wasn’t helping that all three men were staring at me with questions and concern in their eyes. First, I needed to talk with Ren. Then once we were okay, I’d move on to Kishan.
I raised my eyebrows meaningfully at Mr. Kadam, and he finally got my unspoken message. He cleared his throat and announced, “Kishan, would you mind helping me