[WP] You find a black envelope in your mailbox. It has a note that says, "You are no longer under our protection. You are being hunted. Good luck."
******
Tobi.
It was him. He’d finally…
“I told you I could find her,” he suddenly said, and a group of men approached me in the alley corridor that I was using to get to my destination. What the hell was going on?
“You’re one elusive stag, Mariela, but how long did you think you were going to stay incognito? Or don’t tell me you thought you could actually leave this city,” one of the men came, grabbing me by the arm painfully. I winced.
“How did three weeks of freedom feel? Refreshing? Liberating? Too bad that’s over now. Silva’s waiting for you. And I’ll give you a friendly heads-up: you’re in for the beating of your life,” he said, dragging me.
“Tobi, you…” I said quietly, but he just looked blankly at me before smiling. “We all have choices to make, and these choices always have repercussions,”
******
I met Tobi two days after my escape.
I was homes=less and I had a shitload of money in my possession, money that I knew I could be killed for. So I did what I could do – I hid the money and I tried to look for a shack or a little shelter to sleep at. I did find an empty park bench, so I decided to lay my head there and sleep.
It wasn’t the rustling of my clothes or the hands-on my body – I was so tired and I had become so used to those things that they didn’t really strike me anymore. It was the cold air. The cold air on my unexposed chest that woke me up. It was quite dark, but there was a big shadowy figure right in front of me, placing his cold, sweaty hands on my breast.
“What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?!” I shouted.
He punched me in the mouth instantly and I tasted blood.
“It was a stupid move to sleep here, and it would be another equally stupid move to try and make any noises,” he said, already unzipping his trousers and spreading his legs. “Try not to make a sound, and I won’t call the rest of my boys…”
A foot appeared in between his legs and kicked up with a lot of force. As he doubled over in pain, I grabbed the brick I had been using as a pillow and smashed it into his head at the base of his skull. He fell over like a sack of potatoes.
“Sh!t… Did I kill him?”
“Calma,” a voice said, patting my shoulders. “Scum like him will not be missed in this area, that’s for sure”
I looked up at the speaker, and it was a young man in a corduroy jacket with manly, handsome features. He looked oddly familiar, and flashed me a smile as he asked, “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Well, ah, no. I--- uh, I came…”
“Shhh,” he said, placing his fingers on my lips. “I don’t need all that detail, and you’re not obligated to tell me anything about where you came from. I am concerned about where you’re going to stay alright, and it’ll be nice if you follow me to my place.”
I didn’t want to trust him, but I had no choice. I didn’t know if the man on the ground was still alive, but even if he was dead, there must have been a lot like him on those streets. For a second time, I chose to trust a stranger.
I was not disappointed.
Tobi stayed at a two-room apartment in the slum part of the town. The rent was cheap, the place was in a terrible state, and at night, it also came alive in a most disgusting way.
“This is where I live; drink it all in, the filth and the immorality,” he said, laughing as he handed me a cold beer in a cooler. “This is how we live here.”
“I’m not one to judge. I’ve been through worse,” I said, clinking my bottle with his as he grinned.
“Aye, life sucks. What’s your name?”
“Mariela. Yours?”
“Tobi. Nice to meet you.”
******
Tobu was more or less like me – someone who’d had it tough in life. He never knew his father, so he was a bastard as most of the people on the streets called him and his younger sister. His mother was a Christian, so she wouldn’t stoop so low as to whore herself out like others in her position. She got by with three jobs, and even though all she had was a high school education, she was employed enough to cater to the family needs.
It seemed everything was going to be okay.
Until his mother witnessed a gruesome murder by a mafia and testified against the murderer. Her testimony was supposed to be anonymous, but the Police said the records’ office was broken into.
“And that very testimony was found? Bullsh!t, that’s what it is. They sold her out,” Tobi said when he was narrating his story.
His mother had to go into the Witness Protection Program, and they were moved to this city. They were finally getting back on track, but then, they received a letter in the mail.
"You are no longer under our protection. You are being hunted. Good luck."
The system. It had used them when they were needed, and they were dumping them now they were useless. Or someone had paid money to exact his/her revenge? They would never find out. They were evicted from the premises, and it wasn’t long before they were found by their pursuers.
It took two bullets to shatter whatever dreams Tobi had a good life; whatever hopes he had of a happy family. Two bullets brought his mother down at her fruit stall in the flea market, and at 19, he and his sister were orphans.
“Gina was 16. She didn’t deserve to see that,” he cried as I comforted him.
He managed to fend for himself by living on the wrong side of the law, antagonizing the system that had cruelly delivered him into the hands of poverty and hopelessness. He worked as a political thug, as a bouncer, as a contract vandal and arsonist, and any other thing that would irk the authorities. And he was never caught too. A smooth criminal through and through, all thanks to the streets.
At 24, he had gotten this place for them. A little sh!thole to call home.
Back then, his sister held a weekly dance class every week to help them get by. She still held on to their mother’s teachings, and she always called him to order whenever he was heading in the extreme direction. She was his world.
And then one day, she was approached by some people who asked her to be in the music video of a popular singer. They were thrilled. Finally, a major break! He watched her go with a heavy heart but a bright smile, waiting for her to come back the next week with some money and some fame.
Gina never came back.
Presently, he was 25 and alone. Broken, like I was.
******
“What the hell do you mean by choices?!” I screamed.
“One week I spent with you, Mariela. Two weeks I spent with a monster, with my worst enemy. And I did not know it!”
“Huh?”
“Mariela,” he said, smiling even though his eyes were teary, “Ginger was my younger sister.”
******
@Leo_kitti @Hanzell, @gertu13, the plot thickens 😎
Long story, long article. As i can see here a lot of comments are hidden, anyone know why?