Neither Virat nor Jaddu dared to sleep that night. They whiled away the time playing Candy Crush in Virat's room. At around 3 o'clock, when the entire world seemed silent, they stepped out of the room, dressed from head to toe in black.

They went to Sofia's room silently and Jaddu inserted the master key. The well oiled door opened without a creak.

And they stepped into her room.

In the little light that filtered in from the corridor, they could see torn clothes strewn all over the floor, which reduced Virat to a state of silent but helpless laughter.

Jaddu cuffed him on the head as warning, and Virat nodded placatingly and tried to control himself.

"You know what to do," Jaddu whispered right in Virat's ear.

Virat gave him a thumbs up and they turned in opposite directions.

Jaddu, who was more masterful than the rest of the team put together, had naturally taken up the riskiest job. He took out his dead crow and gently laid it right beside Sofia's head on the pillow. They he took out his share of chicken blood and spilled it over the bedsheets and even a bit on Sofia Hayat's hair.

In the meantime, Virat was smearing the opposite wall with his chicken blood, forming ragged words,

"NEXT TIME THE BLOOD WILL BE YOURS"

The whole thing was done in less than five minutes.

They had escaped the room and closed the door and reached their corridor in moments.

_____________

Then came the donkey work of waking up all their teammates, because their job wasn't done, by any means.

Jaddu and Virat started calling them and knocking on their doors.

"It's only 3:30, Virat bhaiya," protested Rishabh sleepily.

"One of your asinine tricks again, Jaddu?" demanded Jinks.

"You can't be calling us for such an early morning practice session, captain!" screeched Hardik.

"Meet us outside Rohit's room," was all either of them said, in a tone serious enough that it could not be defied.

Everyone jumped out of their skins seeing Virat and Jaddu's black mafia outfits.

Rahul flashed his phone's torch in Virat's eyes to make sure that it was Virat. Virat blinked and slapped the phone away.

"What have you two been up to?" asked Jinks suspiciously.

"You look like thieves, Virat bhai, Jaddu bhai," said Kuldeep, sounding utterly shocked.

"That was sort of the point, Kuliya," said Virat, shaking his head at Kuldeep's usual childishness, but simultaneously he threw an arm around him and pulled Kuldeep to him.

Finally everyone was assembled outside Rohit's room, and the only person missing was--guess who?--Rohit himself.

"I've been knocking for the last five minutes," grumbled Virat. "And I called him four times!"

Jinks, Bhuvi, Jaddu and Shikhar, who had a long and painful history of trying to wake the lazy Rohit up, groaned.

"Try one last time?" suggested Jinks wearily, as he took his phone and called Rohit.

Rohit picked up after a while.

"Jinks-- what?" asked Rohit angrily.

Virat looked so outraged that the rest couldn't help smiling.

"Open your door, please, Ro," requested Jinks. "We're waiting outside."

"Oh, God," grumbled Rohit, but he did open the door, looking half asleep.

Jaddu shook him roughly to wake him up properly as they entered the room.

"What are you all playing at at this hour?" asked Rohit, scowling.

"What are you playing at?" asked Virat, scowling more fiercely. "Why didn't you pick up my call if you picked Jinks'?"

"I figured you were calling just to annoy me," admitted Rohit.

Virat didn't answer, clearly sulking.

Jaddu glanced at both of them in amusement--Rohit and Virat could be found sulking with each other at least once a week on an average--and then he started telling the team what he and Virat had done and their future plan of action.

By the time he had finished, everyone was not only wide awake, but also in another fit of senseless laughter.

"Keep it down, idiots," said Jinks, though he was laughing too.

"If anyone wakes up, the entire thing gets spoilt," said Jaddu.

"We won't mess up," said Hardik, overconfident as always.

And now they couldn't wait for morning to come.