Tarasha 2 Chapter 16 Part 9 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
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© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
The next day.
8PM
ABUJA
‘Good evening mom,’ Stephanie greeted as she walked into the living room from the entrance door and proceeded straight towards her room without taking another glance at the woman.
‘Steph!’ Madam Henrietta called, making Stephanie stop abruptly.
She froze on that spot and didn’t turn back to look at the woman who called her. She had been avoiding the woman since the last two days when she burnt her highly prized documents.
‘Stephanie, why have you been avoiding me?’ Madam Henrietta asked in a sad tone.
Stephanie remained glued to her position, she closed her eyes and wondered what kind of response she was supposed to give the woman. She had truly been avoiding the woman because she had no choice. Or who would like to keep seeing the face of the woman who burnt the documents proving the injustice done to one’s family? The only mistake Stephanie believed she had made was remaining in the house and not going out to lodge in a hotel or stay somewhere else.
‘Stephanie, would you talk to me?’ Madam Henrietta continued. She had gotten up from her seat and was walking slowly towards Stephanie, only about a meter far from her now.
Stephanie remained frozen until Madam Henrietta’s hand touched her elbow. She twitched but still didn’t turn.
‘I’m sorry if I hurt you in anyway but you have to believe me when I say that everything I did is for your good and safety,’ Madam Henrietta said, trying to pacify Stephanie.
‘For my good and safety?’ Stephanie turned to her sharply with her eyes opened widely in disbelief. ‘How can you say burning documents that proves the guilt of my family’s killer is for my good?’
‘Stephanie, those documents do not prove anything. If they did, your father would have won the case years ago. The lawyer even advised me to do away with them after he gave them to me,’ Madam Henrietta replied.
‘Those documents prove their guilt mum, I know what I’m saying,’ Stephanie insisted in a loud voice.
‘Then why was the case never won?’ Madam Henrietta snapped.
‘It was not won because there were some other missing proofs,’ Stephanie replied back.
‘And the proofs remain missing because they never existed.’
‘No, you’re wrong mum, they exist. As a matter of fact I’ve found a lot of them.’
‘You’ve found what?’ Madam Henrietta asked with her brows raised and her voice now low.
Stephanie sighed and shook her head. She closed her eyes briefly, realizing that she should not have talked about finding more proofs.
‘Stephanie, have you really been investigating the same case that led your father to his death?’
Stephanie raised her brows and stared at the woman sharply. ‘How did it lead to my father’s death?’
‘It was this same case he was running up and down about when he had the fatal accident that almost wiped off the whole of the family.’
‘And have you ever thought that that accident could have been a planned one?’ Stephanie asked.
Madam Henrietta frowned, she was confused. She didn’t know what Stephanie meant by the accident being a planned one. ‘So you think your father planned the accident and deliberately wanted to ki*ll himself and his family?’
‘No, I know certainly that the accident was planned by someone who wanted to destroy my family, the accident was arranged so that the deaths could be blamed on it.’
‘I don’t understand you, what are you talking about?’ Madam Henrietta said with a deeply frowned face.
‘My mum told me about the accident, she said Dad was feeling strangely unwell that day. They suspected he had been poisoned and decided to visit the hospital but it was unfortunate that the effect became stronger and uncontrollable while he was driving on the road and then the car also got crushed by a trailer whose driver had lost control.’
Madam Henrietta sighed and looked away. She wasn’t going to take anything said by Tinuke serious. Why should one accept words from a mentally unstable person?
‘I’m sorry for how this may sound, but I just have to say it,’ she started with a frank face. She held the girl’s arms at the two sides, right above the elbows and stared into her eyes directly. ‘Stephanie, you really need to stop listening to Tinuke, and even if you do, you shouldn’t be taking her words seriously.’
‘How won’t I take my mother’s words seriously?’ Stephanie said angrily, wriggling the woman’s grip off her body. ‘I know all of you think she’s crazy and that she says crazy things but to me she’s very sane and her words mean so much to me. There’s always truth in what she says.’
‘Stephanie,’ Madam Henrietta dragged in a long breath. ‘I know it may be difficult to convince you, but I’ll still tell you the truth anyways, if it’s Tinuke’s words you’re acting upon, then you are wasting your time. And then, it is also a waste of time to fight against Chief Elvis Richards, he’s the Vice President now, which means he’s more powerful than he was when your father fought him.’
Stephanie was angry and sad but the woman’s words still hit her down to the marrow. She stood on the same spot for a while, she tried to speak but no words could come out, her fingers and lips kept vibrating. She finally turned and walked straight to her room, leaving Madam Henrietta standing there.
The older woman watched her leave and hoped the girl would come back to her senses and realize that what she had embarked on was just a waste of time. She walked back slowly to her seat and sat back deep in thoughts.
Stephanie fell face flat into the bed as she got into the room. She was frustrated, confused and tired. She didn’t know whether to believe and accept Madam Henrietta’s words or just stick to believing her mum. Madam Henrietta could be right, she always got to the care center to get reports of the insane things her mother does but apart from the occasional outbursts which her mother seldom had in her presence, everything the woman says to her always made sense and happened to be true.
Was it also a waste of time to fight the Vice President? Did she really need to stop? She asked herself these questions. Was she doing something stupid? And who else would have the temerity to fight the Vice President?
She got an answer to her last question as she was about moving to the next. Samantha Osman. Samantha Osman was the other person she knew that was fighting against the President. She remembered the email she sent, she had monitored it and confirmed that it was delivered and read but it was almost forty hours after and no reply had come in yet.
She got up and sat in the middle of the bed. She picked her phone and quickly opened her email application, some new messages were there but she still refreshed it manually to check for other new messages which probably didn’t load automatically. The app was refreshed but there were no other new messages and no reply from Samantha Osman yet. She closed the app sadly and dropped the phone.
She felt pity for herself. It seemed she too was also going crazy, just like her mother. Nobody seemed to make sense from her words, even the lawyer which she had visited that evening had advised her to stop pursuing shadows. The only person who listened to her was Dave, and he wasn’t trustworthy.
Her phone rang and it brought her out of her frustrated state temporarily. She glanced at the screen, it was one of her coursemates and member of her SWAD team. She answered the call and spoke with the person for up to four minutes.
After the call, she got up and proceeded out of her room to get a cup of water and fruits from the kitchen. She walked through a passage which led to the kitchen and also branched to the living room. She looked through the opening which led to the living room as she got there, she was shocked at what she saw. The door of the living room was widely open. Two men in black were standing before Madam Henrietta in the living room, one was pointing a gun at Madam Henrietta while the other one was taking out an handkerchief from his pocket.
She froze on the spot in fear and watched them with terror in her eyes. The man with the handkerchief unfolded it and raised it to cover Madam Henrietta’s nose with it. Stephanie screamed out in fear.
‘F*** it! Some has seen us,’ the man with the gun cursed as both of them looked towards Stephanie’s direction. ‘Take care of this woman while I take care of her,’ he said as he pursued after Stephanie who had ran into the kitchen. ‘We need two others inside,’ he said into a communication device as he hurried.
‘Be fast with it,’ the second man said and watched his friend go. He dipped his hand into his pocket as he turned back to Madam Henrietta. He was trying to take out his gun so that he could put Madam Henrietta under control while he suffocated her with the gas in the handkerchief. Madam Henrietta however had her survival instincts come to play, she took advantage of his distraction and pushed him away with all her strength, but it was only enough to make him stagger back a little.
She got up and tried to run away but he launched forward and grabbed her back, he pushed her violently back to the sofa she was seated on. She tried to struggle with him but he quickly launched two blows on her face. She still held tightly to his chest and he dealt her more blows in her stomach and head until she was weak and unable to struggle anymore. He took out the handkerchief and quickly covered her nose with it even as she still struggled to set herself free.
The first thing Stephanie did when she got to the kitchen was to take out two knives from the cutleries store as weapons of defense in case any of the men come after her. She quickly proceeded to the door of the kitchen which led to the left side of the house and opened it. She could hear the footsteps of the man coming after her already. She pressed the two bulb switches beside the door to turn off the bulb in the kitchen and the one outside. She hurried out through the door. She wished to escape from there but couldn’t as leaving Madam Henrietta to the cold hands of death troubled her. She quickly hid herself in the darkness behind a faulty washing machine which was placed outside the kitchen door and waited for the man to step out.
Soon, she saw the image of the man in the darkness. He had rushed out and was staring to the front and back, wondering which she had taken and how she was gone so quick.
‘We found a girl here, man the front and make sure a girl does not escape, I’ll search through the backyard,’ the man said into a communication device and began to hurry towards the backyard.
Stephanie jumped out of her hiding place and attacked the man immediately, stabbing him at the back of his neck and in the left side of his belly.
The man dropped to his knees weakly and his body trembled before he dropped to the floor. Stephanie stood still on the same spot, her body trembling in panic of just murdering someone. However, she remembered that Madam Henrietta was still in danger and her guilt left her temporarily. She took the knife on the floor and removed the one by the side of the man’s belly. She turned back towards the house, hoping to be able to do something to save Madam Henrietta, that was if she wasn’t dead yet. She decided to enter through the front door because the man wouldn’t expect her to enter through there.
Just as she was turning into the front yard, she saw two other men already in front of the house. Another man was at the front of the door which she didn’t see. Unluckily for her, the two men heard sounds from her direction and spotted her as she tried to run back, they followed after her immediately.
The man in front of the door proceeded inside the house and stopped in the living room. He looked around but couldn’t find anyone except one of their colleagues lying lifelessly on the floor with the poisoned handkerchief beside his head. He pointed the gun around, there was no one else in sight. He proceeded forward slowly and carefully.
Stephanie ran as fast as she could towards the backyard of the house, ignoring the shouts of the men for her to stop. It was difficult for her to see in the dark as she charged forward, she was almost turning into the backyard when her leg hit an obstacle, she tripped and fell.
The fall was heavy. She tried to get up on her feet but she wasn’t as fast as she wanted. One of the knives she also held with her had cut into the skin covering her thumb as she fell and she was bleeding.
Before she knew it, the two men were standing around her and pointing the gun to her face. She sighed resignedly and stared at their faces in the darkness. She closed her eyes as she heard the cock of the gun. She quickly made a silent prayer for God to receive her soul in heaven as she expected the bullet to run into her forehead which the gun was pointed at.
No gun sounded like she expected, what she heard was a loud cry of a man. She opened her eyes to see that a third person had joined them. She couldn’t see clearly the image of the third person but could only see the two men that came after her wrestling with the new one.
One of the men tried to sh00t at Tarasha but she grabbed him by the wrist before he could pull the trigger and twisted his arm. The first man which she had stopped with a jab rushed towards her but she pulled the man whose wrist was in her hand by his belt and made the rushing man slam into his partner. Both of them fell to the floor. She quickly picked the knife on the floor beside the dazzled Stephanie and proceeded to the first man on the floor, she dealt him a blow on the face before slicing the knife into his neck. The second man seeing what had happened to his friend tried to get up immediately, but she returned him to the floor back with a kick on his head. She then ran the knife into his chest.
‘Get up,’ she said to Stephanie, lending her a hand.
Stephanie gladly took her hand and got up. ‘Thank you for…’ she was saying when Tarasha grabbed her and quickly dragged her to the back of the house.
‘My mum, she’s still in…’ Stephanie was saying to Tarasha when she was interrupted.
‘Steph,’ Madam Henrietta called from behind. ‘Are you okay?’ the woman asked in concern.
‘’Mum, you’re alive!’ Stephanie exclaimed in surprise and rushed to hug the woman.
The both of them engaged each other in a warm and passionate embrace, forgetting totally the differences between them.
‘Shh…’ Tarasha hushed both of them, placing a finger on her lip. She stood at the edge of the back wall of the house and peeped. She saw a man coming towards the backyard with a gun in his hands.
Madam Henrietta and Stephanie stared at Tarasha with bewildered eyes, both breathing heavily. Tarasha bent down carefully and without turning back, she picked a big stone on the floor with her right hand.
She watched until the man walking forward with the gun got closer to the dead bodies, he was shocked and stopped to look at them. He quickly tried to take a phone out from his pocket but Tarasha took him by surprise and smashed the stone on his head. The gun in his hand dropped as he fell to the floor, Tarasha picked up the stone again and hit him once more on the forehead.
She returned quickly to the backyard to meet Stephanie and Madam Henrietta eagerly waiting for her.
‘You guys have to go now,’ Tarasha said to them. ‘You should wait for me at Goodluck Street.’
‘Why do we have to leave without you?’ Stephanie argued
Tarasha stared blankly at her. She felt like slapping her for questioning her instruction but she resisted the urge. ‘They still have some men, waiting outside at the front, I have to get them.’ Tarasha replied. She touched Stephanie on the shoulder and looked into her eyes. ‘I’ll be with you at the Goodluck street junction in thirty minutes, make sure I find you there.’
Before Stephanie could say anything, Tarasha had left them. She turned back to her mum and stared at her. ‘She says we should wait at Goodluck Street, let’s go.’
‘No!’ Madam Henrietta opposed, widening her eyes in fright. ‘We have to go to the police.’
‘We better not mum,’ Stephanie warned with her eyes widened back at the woman. ‘Let’s follow her instruction and wait for her.’
‘What?’ the woman was surprised at Stephanie’s reply. ‘Why should we follow a stranger’s instruction?’
‘She’s not a stranger mum,’ Stephanie answered.
‘Do you know her?’
‘Yes, I do. She’s…’ Stephanie stopped on a second thought. She had wanted to tell the woman that the lady was Samantha Osman but she thought again that it could increase the woman’s fear. ‘She’s a police officer,’ she lied.
‘Police officer?’ Madam Henrietta squinted, finding it hard to believe.
‘Let’s go to Goodluck Street Mum.’ She said and grabbed the woman’s hand.
Three other men sat in the Toyota bus quietly, waiting for their colleagues’ call or return. One was seated at the driver’s seat, another was seated with the driver at the front and the third was at the seat beside the driver’s.
Tarasha walked quietly closer to the bus. She stopped beside the driver’s side and stopped to talk to him.
‘Hey Honey! Would you love a smooth ride tonight?’ she said, using her fingers to separate the linen covering her cleavage.
‘Get lost whore!’ the driver replied, thinking that she was a sex worker like she presented herself to be. The driver was impatient for their other colleagues to return, he had been checking his time from time to time.
Tarasha didn’t move, she stood still and stared at the driver with a seductive look. ‘Honey, it doesn’t cost much, I can give you at a subsidized rate.’
‘Get lost, didn’t you hear me?’ The driver shouted in a loud voice, attracting the attention of the others.
‘Who’s she?’ the man beside the driver asked, looking towards the direction.
‘A slu*t!’ the driver replied.
Tarasha licked her lips seductively and bit the lower lip slightly as her eyes met with the second man. The third man at the seat behind the driver’s had also moved close to the window to see what was getting the driver angry.
‘I can fix the three of you tonight, I bet you all can’t match my strength,’ she boasted and eyed seductively.
‘Boss, I’ll ki*ll this girl.’ The driver said angrily, turning to the man beside him.
That was all Tarasha wanted. She needed a person alive amongst them and needed to make her choice, the driver had helped her.
In a twinkle of an eye, she stretched her left hand into the driver’s side and her right hand into the back side. She pulled the two men by their shirt and dragged their heads out through the windows and smashed them against each other. The both men were caught by surprise and didn’t prepare to defend themselves. She drew out the knife from her back and slid it into the throat of the man behind the front seat. Then she quickly opened the driver’s door, making the man’s head hit the top of the bus and tilt backwards…
To be continued.
