"Amaka! Amaka!! Come BACK here! Do you hear me?"
Tochi's voice cracked through the walls of the house, sharp, firm, and heated with a fury that had grown too familiar to Amaka. A fury she once excused with love, then with hope for a change, followed by fear of unknown, then with nothing at all left.
She didn't look back or blink.
She didn't dare or even give herself seconds of thought
She knew the monsters' rules which is:
If you turnback, you will get caught.
If you dare speak, your words will be twisted and used against you.
If you hesitate to act, they will win you over.
The rain of November thirteenth began with hesitant drizzles as though heaven itself was not too sure of its decision and slow drops of water tapping the house rooftops like the trembling fingers of a robbery victim making an intense confession. Then suddenly lightening sliced through the clouds exposing the world in brief, with its painful flashes, just like a troubled soul that reveals itself in moments of weakness and vulnerability.
Inside the exotic duplex in Jabi, where honesty sat like a ready to explode bomb as the outside storm was nothing compared to the real storm inside which bears Amaka's name at its center.
Amaka Nkwo didn't plan to run away or pack a bag.
That was the irony of survival which rarely gives notice.
It happened too fast that she couldn't take her clothes, shoes, or even phone charger.
What her frantic hands could grab in panic and seconds were her cracked phone without a back cover, a small silver purse gifted by her mother before her demise, and a soft-edged brown envelope that is roughly folded and had survived several hiding places.
Her palms trembled as she clutched the brown envelope, but her beautiful oval face framed by rain-darkened curls remained very charmingly calm and elegantly composed, even as panic hurriedly tries to claw through her ribs. There was something surprisingly and quietly regal about her stillness missed with the way her full lips pressed together in resolve rather than panic and fear.
While running for her life, Amaka seemed to be the replica of a whose dignity is about to be snatched
Her steps were panicky as she ran down the tiled staircase, with her bare foot echoing through the house due to its slap against the cold tiles. Every slap screamed with a fear she refused to articulate. Her breathing came in sharp bursts and sweats mixed with tears that she didn't even know were falling and her chest tightened with the kind of panic that makes rational thought feel like luxury especially for someone who had long learnt that showing fear only fed and fuel predators.
Behind her, something shattered.
The sound hit the walls like a gunshot.
Then "AMAKA!" "AMAKA!!"
Another shout of Her name, coming from the throat of a man who had shown and promised to love her, but now horrify her with acts of rage like a cursed spell cast from the pit of his intestines.
In reflex, she faintly brushed her fingers on her wrist reminding her of Tochi's hard grip earlier that evening which triggered a fresh spike of pain up in her arms. His fingers dug so deep that its redness looked like a permanent tattoo on a fair skin.
She pondered how proposed love can seemingly disguise and turn into something so horrible and scary.
Her calm expression didn't break, but her throat tightened.
She could hear his footsteps pounding heavily and speedily behind her.
She pushed forward with shoulder slamming into the front door, BAM!
The rain instantly welcomed her like a desperate sister.
The storm slapped and embraced her skin and sheets of cold water drenched her body, gluing her nightgown to her skin while sending shivers through her bones as thunder rumbled like distant canon fire.
The wind carried the familiar scent of wet dust especially for first rain on an arid ground. Her mother used to say that such rain washed away bad omen and evil spirits.
At the thought it, she personalized the believe by praying that the rain should wash away Tochi's shadows from her life.
As her teeth chattered violently from the cold weather and rainfall, her bones trembled as if about to tie apart, yet her focus remained undisturbed and calculative as she looked calm outside, but very chaos within.
Coming outside the house, she rushed to the driveway for her small Toyota car, but the space was empty.
Her Toyota? Gone.
Her car keys? Tochi took them earlier just in case she starts being "dramatic" as he claims.
Her ATM card? Confiscated the time she complained about his excessive drinking habit.
Her phone SIM? Crushed under Tochi's shoe during a misunderstanding the previous week.
Thoughts of these made Amaka want to scream but she had to swallow and control the flowing scream within.
She would rather let the rain drown her on the street than to go back to that house.
Nothing belonged to her anymore. No money, no transport or identity.
Except her resolve to survive alive.
Quickly, she pushed the entrance grey gate and ran barefooted out of the compound stumbling out to the quiet tarred road of the estate.
The estate's streetlights seeming powered with solar flickered weakly, dimming like a lantern without kerosene or thread.
Though her voice instantly swallowed both rain and wind drop, she muttered, "Oh God, please deliver me"!
The estate was unusually silent, too silent as if the entire city of Abuja had folded into a snoring sleep and abandoned her to fate. The expensive houses lining the street looked like lifeless monuments. The lush lawns shivered under the storm. Even the noisy security dogs were silent this time, as if they received a warning memo not to bark.
Her barefoot slapped through sharp stones which occasionally stabbed her soles without pity. Each step was pain, yet her pace never broke through the pain. Pain was very familiar, manageable and normal to her. To her, anything forward was better than going back.
Her breath hitched as her mind replayed the moment earlier: Tochi's eyes glassy with alcohol.
His jaw twitching with unexpressed suspicion.
This made her fingers to tremble as she tried to explain nothing at all.
She couldn't explain what terrified her more. Is it His anger or how easily she now expects it? She pondered.
The rain blurred everything, turning the city of Abuja to look like a distorted emulsion painting. Her vision flatulated (in and out). Her spines burned painfully, screaming for a break, but she kept running as fast as she could until a highly illuminated and blinding pair of car headlights flashed behind her.
The lightning flashed consistently and speedily
PUUUUUHHH!! PUUUUUUHHH!! A car horn shrieked through the night.
Amaka froze in the middle of her run with her throat being dried by her breath. She turned around with her arms positioned to cover and shield her eyes from the blinding lights.
"No, no, no, let it not be him…please, let it not him", she muttered
Her legs wobbled while her heart beats heavily against her lungs just like a stranded climber on Himalaya.
She swung sharply and dove into a nearby bush with thorns tearing into her arms and legs. Dirty muds splashing up her thighs. Her nightgown snagged on broken twigs. She didn't mind the pains but curled tightly into herself, pressing her palm over her mouth to silence her breathing.
The car slowed.
Its engine rumbled low, predatory, patient.
He found me. God… he found me. She thought as shut her eyes hard as prey approaching the claws of its predator. Her heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears like a speaker so loudly that she feared it would serve as a compass to the searcher.
One second. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Then—
The engine revved. And the car drove past.
Amaka waited until the car sound faded into quite a distance then she crawls out, mud covering her hair, her skin, her dignity but that was part of the price for freedom.
Her body shook rhythmically and violently now, but she forced herself to move forward.
Step after step. Foot after foot. Pain after pain. She kept moving
She didn't know what to expect next and how length of her unplanned foot journey as she exited the quiet estate road onto a long stretch of highway.
As the rain lessened, the sky color dimmed from black to charcoal and the wet tarred floor reflected passing car headlights like scattered stars.
Then she heard it.
A deep and steady rumble of a mechanical growl.
A trailer.
Amaka shoved her shoulder, waving her frantic arms.
"Please! Please! Stop! Please help me!"
Her voice cracked like old wood in a ferry fire.
The trailer's headlights flashed all over her, illuminating her shivering body filled with mud-splattered nightgown. Fear tucked behind her charming and calm façade.
The trailer driver, was a middle-aged man, wearing brown shorts and a black t-shirt, with long road travel fatigue showing visibly on his face as he leaned out and squinted towards Amaka.
"Madam? What are happen? Who is pursuing you under this rain?"
She shook her head, with stuttering breath. "Please help me, I need to leave here. Take me anywhere north. Just carry me away from here."
He looked at her wrist and saw the rough red imprint of fingers still fresh and visible.
His expression softened. He didn't ask more questions or demand further explanations.
He nodded once.
"Okay enter. Before cold will freeze you here." He spoke.
A sigh of relief punched out through her lungs in reflex as she climbed to the passenger's side of the trailer.
Inside, the trailer had smells of petrol, motor grease, garlic and bitter kola missed with adult sweats.
Anything outside Tochi is fine by me. She pondered
A scent of freedom.
She collapsed onto the passenger seat, hugging her silver purse and envelop tightly.
The driver switched on his ignition and the trailer groaned like a mountainous beast waking up.
Before moving, he turned and glanced at her again but this time with a grin.
Her eyes stung on the road while she pondered about her fate and how she is willing to risk such a dangerous luxury.
Wait a minute!! Why did he grin at me? She thought