TARASHA Episode 17 Pt 2 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
Omotara dipped her hand into the improvised pocket of the dress, her hand touched the handle of the knife. She searched around with her eyes to see if there was anyone hiding around. She took the knife in between her fingers, ready to take out Jefa if he made an attempt to attack her. She dropped the bag from her other hand to the floor.
Jefa halted as he noticed something on the hand which she dipped into the pocket, he gave a bold smile and used his hand to wipe his forehead.
‘So you still love tattoos?’ He said with a broad smile, fixing his eyes on the point where the tattoo was. Omotara took a quick look at the tattoo and returned her gaze to his face, wondering what was amusing him. ‘Do you remember that Catwoman tattoo you drew with your blue Biro on your belly when you were seven?’ Jefa continued. ‘Mom would have flogged you if I didn’t keep my mouth shut but you never kept your side of the deal.’
That was it. Omotara’s knee trembled and gave way, she fell and sat on the ground. She was broken. Only Jeffery had seen that tattoo and had promised to keep his mouth shut on the condition that she’ll help him request for something from their father but like he accused, she never kept her part of the deal.
Her eyes were full of tears as her whole body trembled. She made sure no tear fall off her eyes by wiping off her face with part of the headscarf. She could see Jefa’s legs right in front of her. She looked up to his face.
Jefa stared into her eyes passionately, unknowingly transferring the pains which were in his eyes to hers. He tried to squat and touch her shoulder but winced in pain without success.
Omotara got up and picked her bag, she took out a polythene bag it. She avoided his gaze. ‘Please, change into these clothes.’ She handed over the bag to him and walked out of the room without taking another look at him.
Ten minutes later, she returned already changed into another set of clothes, this time a Yoruba native wear. The tattoo on the hand had also been cleaned off.
Omotara took a look at Jefa and realized he needed help in completing his dressing. He had only been able to change his trousers successfully but had not been able to put on the top because of his arm and head injury. She walked closer to him and took the top from him, she then helped him to carefully fix in the top.
Jefa kept mute and raised no questions, having faith in his sister’s instructions. He kept staring at her eyes as she helped him wear the top but he noticed she tried avoiding his eyes, he was only able to get glimpses occasionally.
‘We have to go now,’ Omotara said and helped him up from the bed. ‘We’ll take the other stair case down.’
Jefa obeyed without questions, he struggled to fix his legs into his sandals but she quickly bent down and helped him put it on.
‘Okay,’ Omotara said after successfully fixing the sandals. Her eyes met his as she raised up her head. He was staring at her lovingly. She took away her eyes and sniffed in, unable to describe her feeling at that particular moment.
As he took a step, she felt he was trusting her too much and she was taking it for granted. She needed to explain her actions to him.
‘I want to get you to another place,’ she finally spoke as she held his hand and he continued to take slow steps. ‘Somewhere where I’ll be able to watch over you myself.’
~~~
**Present**
Agent Dakolo and Mr Sylvester were still seated in the Doctor’s office quietly when the Doctor and Officer Ken returned. Sylvester was still in a very pensive mood. Dakolo, due to the nature of his job and experience had been able to shake a little off the impact the news had on him.
‘Where’s the patient?’ Dakolo asked the Doctor as the man returned to his seat.
‘He left with his sister,’ the Doctor replied, after settling into the swivel.
Dakolo glanced at Ken and Ken nodded in confirmation of the Doctor’s words, Dakolo did not bother to raise any other question. ‘So about Henry’s case,’ Dakolo cleared his throat and continued, ‘is he going to remain like that for the rest of his life?’
‘Agent, like I said before, there’s no remedy yet. Some part of his body structures have been rendered useless and his brain is fast degenerating.’ The Doctor answered in a sad tone.
‘Degenerating? Is there nothing you can do to stop the degeneration?’ Dakolo asked.
‘We’re doing all we can and all we should but it doesn’t seem to be producing much results.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Dakolo stared at the Doctor with a confused look.
‘You see the mixture had gone a long way in circulating around his body with his blood, the liquid is what is responsible for the degeneration.’
‘Is there no way you can remove the liquid from his body?’
‘Except we remove his blood too. It has mixed with his blood and flows through the veins with the blood. There’s a way we can still purge it out and that’s why are conducting several tests on the remaining liquid, we could get another mixture that’ll be able to nullify the effects or help him excrete the poison.’
Dakolo hissed.
‘But let’s still thank God he didn’t receive the whole contents of the drip bag, that would have been the required quantity to initiate the full reaction. His brain degeneration wouldn’t have been slow like this and we would have faced more difficulties in getting the liquid as what we’ll have would have only been traces which we would get from his blood samples.’
Dakolo heaved another sigh of frustration. Several years ago, his thoughts would have been to fly Henry to another country for medical treatment but this was 2031, Nigeria was one of the countries with the best medical facilities and he also expected that the Doctor would have suggested it if there was need for Henry to be transferred.
‘Can we see him now?’ Dakolo asked, after some seconds of total silence.
‘Yes, of course. He should be awake.’ The Doctor replied and stood to his feet. He waited for the other men to get up and followed behind them as they walked out of his office. He locked the door.
‘This way,’ the Doctor said to Dakolo and turned who were facing the opposite direction. ‘He has been transferred to another ward.’
‘Okay,’ Dakolo, Ken and Sylvester turned and followed the Doctor.
Seven minutes later, they got to the new ward. Two officers were in the corridor while one was seated inside the ward. The three officers were the same ones asked to keep an eye on him at the house.
Henry’s clothes had been changed to white top and trousers, his eyes was open and liquid from a drip was running into his veins.
Henry’s face twitched as he saw the man staring above him. He made no other movement and had no expression on his face.
‘Henry,’ Dakolo called. Henry blinked his eyes and turned his gaze to the Doctor as if he didn’t hear anything.
‘He’s only conscious but his brain cannot really process things, especially communication. The Doctor explained.
‘Is it that bad?’ Dakolo asked.
‘It happens,’ the Doctor replied, ‘to several mentally challenged patients.
The door opened and a younger Doctor came in. He proceeded towards the turned gazes of the men and greeted the elderly Doctor first.
‘Good afternoon Sir.’
‘Good afternoon,’ the elderly Doctor replied and then turned to Dakolo. ‘Meet Doctor Tobi, the new Doctor in charge of Henry. And here’s Agent Dakolo and Officer Ken,’ he said turning back to the Doctor. ‘Officers in charge of the patient. This is Mr Sylvester, the patient’s Boss at the NSCC.’
‘Good afternoon Sirs,’ Doctor Tobi greeted with a warm smile.
‘Good afternoon,’ his greeting was replied reluctantly.
‘You’ll be relating with Doctor Tobi directly from now on. As you can see, my office is quite some distance to this new ward.’
‘It’s okay Doctor,’ Dakolo said, examining the new Doctor with his eyes.
The elderly Doctor’s phone rang, he checked the screen and exclaimed, ‘Oh! Gentlemen, you have to excuse me now.’ He said before rushing out of the ward, leaving the officers and Sylvester with the new Doctor.
‘Sirs, I made an important discovery.’ Doctor Tobi stated, attracting attention to himself after several seconds of silence.
‘What’s that?’ Dakolo asked, less enthusiastic about knowing the discovery.
‘It’s possible that the patient did not place himself on drip,’ Doctor Tobi stated.
‘Huh?’ Dakolo and Ken’s eyes widened, they showed more interest now. Sylvester looked interested too on seeing the officers new interest in the Doctor’s conversation but he was lost on what they were talking about.
‘There were traces of some sedative gases in his blood, it’s possible that somebody drugged him first before placing him on drip.’ The Doctor explained.
Ken and Dakolo stared at each other in silence, wondering how possible that was. There was nobody else in Henry’s house on that day they had checked and there was nothing that suggested that someone had being in the house with him. The officers who followed and monitored him also saw no one enter the compound with or after him.
~~~~~
Jefa laid on the bed wondering how Omotara had so much knowledge of medicine. She even had a room in her house that was well arranged with a bed for the purpose.
Omotara continued in silence to clean and redress his wounds which were exposed while they escaped from the hospital. She felt like saying soothing words anytime he groaned or made an uncomfortable noise but she decided against it, preferring to maintain the silence between them. She knew that he had so many questions running through his mind, so, breaking the silence and talking to him would only give room for the questions which she wanted to avoid.
Finally she was through with her redressing and cleaning, she packed up the tools and returned them to the shelf. Jefa was absent-minded and was still seated slantingly, thinking that the treatment was still going to continue. Omotara stared at him, unwilling to break her silence but she had to tell him to rest his back. One more thing that she had to do was to ask him what kind of food he would like.
‘You can lie down now,’ she finally said, walking towards him. ‘What kind of food would you like to take?’
Jefa smiled and sat upright. ‘What are you going to take too?’
‘Nothing,’ she lied, ‘I’m not ready to eat now.’
‘Okay, you bring me food when you’re ready to eat too’ Jefa said and rested his back in the bed.
‘Come on,’ Omotara moved closer to him and stared at his face which she had been avoiding all through. ‘You really need to eat something now for your medication to work.’
‘You really need to eat something too else you break down,’ Jefa countered.
She sighed. ‘I took something in the morning,’ she lied again.
‘I took something this morning too,’ he replied adamantly.
‘Okay,’ Omotara finally gave in. ‘What do you want to eat, so I can get it for the both of us.’
‘You can get anything for me to eat as far as you’re going to bring a chair and sit in front of me and we eat together.’
Omotara shook her head in frustration at the new condition. He stared at her, she knew he wasn’t going to change his mind. ‘Okay,’ she said and turned back immediately. She walked out of the room, closing the door softly.
The first thing she picked up in the sitting room was her phone. She clicked open the browser and began to type some words into the search engine. The search results displayed and she selected an option. Soon, a page which displayed a list of restaurants in the area popped up. She picked the car keys from the centre table and proceeded out of the house.
All through the drive to the restaurant, she was wondering was how her life would be now that she had a brother. She thought of calling one or two of her co-assassins to ask for suggestions but she discarded the thought, she already knew that their advice would be to ki*ll him, except if he was also an assassin with a rigid heart, that way both of them may be able to work together without anyone bringing in emotions.
She returned with two plates of fried rice after thirty minutes. Jefa was still awake when she entered back into the room. He sat up on seeing her bring out the plates from the bag.
She dragged a chair closer to his bed and dropped the plates on it. She went out twice to get a small table and tray and also two bottles and cups of water. She finally settled to eat.
Jefa was the first to begin with the food. He had taken about three spoons already before noticing that she wasn’t eating. He paused and stared at him. She quickly began to eat to avoid queries from him.
They finished the meal in silence and Omotara began to pack the plates and cleaned the place. After taking out other plates and cleaning the place. She returned to pick the last bottle and cup of water that Jefa used.
‘Tara, we need to talk.’ Jefa finally broke the long silence.
