11 THIS ISN'T THE END

The officer looked at us like we'd just escaped from asylum after we told him what we knew.

"Are you sure of what you're saying?" he asked for the fifth time and I could tell Aisha was already getting frustrated with the whole thing.

"Yes. We are very sure" Aisha said to him. I couldn't blame the officer though. There was no proof to what we were saying. We were practically asking him to arrest a bunch of people who we suspected of cultism and murder.

Everyone had already left since there wouldn't be school till the following week. I still couldn't believe it. I wondered how someone could be so cold-hearted to kill someone deliberately.

Aisha and I had decided to stay back and tell the police everything we knew but it was much more difficult than we thought. I kept wondering why Amanda's parents didn't have Henry arrested when they had the chance but I guess they were simply scared.

"Okay," the officer sighed, "you can go now. We'll look into the matter"

Aisha looked at me with frustration. We weren't little kids. Of course we knew they wouldn't do anything about it since maybe they felt it wasn't their business. We turned around and began walking towards the school exist.

"Where's your brother?" Aisha asked looking around for Sebastian.

"I asked him to go home" I replied and she took a look at her wrist watch.

"It's only past ten" said Aisha. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know" I said. "Maybe you were right. Maybe we should just stay out of it. I mean, by this time next year we would graduate and everyone would go their separate ways"

"No. I was wrong" Aisha shook her head. "They're going to keep killing people like this if we don't do something. And even after next year, the cult won't seize to exist"

She was right. We had to do something but there was nothing left for us to do. I was so tired of everything happening. I just wanted to live my life without all these complications.

We decided to go see Amanda and break the news to her but on getting there, we were met with the shock of our lives.

The door was left open and everything inside was scattered and turned over. It was as though a tornado had gotten into the house. Neither Amanda or her grandma was in sight.

"What the hell is happening?" Aisha asked for the second time after checking the rooms, "Their clothes and everything are still intact meaning that they didn't travel"

"How could you be thinking they travelled?" I asked Aisha who simply shrugged in response. "It looks like robbers had come in here"

The worse part was that there were no neighbors around to tell us what had happened. The neighborhood was really deserted.

"Let's just come back later" Aisha said before we finally decided to leave. It was really confusing and suspicious that Amanda wasn't at home because I knew she rarely left the house.

I decided to go home to see if aunt Thelma needed anything to be done. The house was quiet as usual but even Sebastian wasn't in the sitting room watching TV and I wondered what had happened.

I opened the door to his room but he wasn't there. I checked my room and he wasn't there either. Where had he gone to? I asked myself.

I changed my clothes and went down to get something to eat although I didn't have the appetite.

I heard someone knocking at the gate as I made my way out of the kitchen and I wondered who it could be.

"Rachael" Aisha's voice greeted me as soon as I opened the gate. She looked she had been chased by a mountain lion with the way she was breathing.

"Ah! Aisha what is it? You're still wearing your uniform" I was confused because Aisha was acting abnormal.

"I ran here as fast as I could" Aisha said, "Do you know where your brother is?"

"No. I was wondering where he had-"

"You have to come with me now" Aisha abruptly cut me off. "I think they're going to initiate Sebastian"

"Wh... How do you know this?" I asked before stepping out of the gate and closing it behind me.

We immediately began walking but I didn't know where we were going.

"Someone left a message with my little sister" Aisha replied, "They said if we wanted to save Sebastian, we should come to this place" she gave me a piece of paper with an unfamiliar address written on it.

"Are you sure? This could be a trap. We should call the police" I said in one breath.

"There's no time to go start going to the police station. This is your brother we're talking about here" Aisha said before increasing her pace.

"Wait. I think I know this handwriting" I looked at the paper trying hard to remember where I'd seen the writing before.

"I think it's Tunde" Aisha turned her head to me looking surprised.

"You're sure?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure"

Aisha kept claiming she knew that address and that it wasn't far. She seemed to know everywhere in the city.

It actually wasn't far as we got to an area just like Amanda's street. This place was very lonely and quiet too. It was surrounded with bushes and hills. There were so many uncompleted buildings here but only one duplex stood out.

"That's the place" Aisha said motioning towards the fine duplex that stood out amongst the other uncompleted buildings.
"Wow, do you think that's where they kept Amanda for months?" I asked and Aisha gave me ridiculous look.

"Are you even worried about your brother?" Aisha asked.

"You don't actually think Sebastian would join a cult do you? He's not that stupid" I replied although my subconscious was telling me something else.

"His friends are bad influence, you said it yourself" Aisha said as we got to the gate of the building. Aisha was about to go in but I held her arm and stopped.

"We're not going in there, are we?" I asked and Aisha looked at me like I'd gone insane overnight.

"No, I was just admiring the gate. After I'm done admiring it then we can go" I wonder how she could be humorous in this kind of situation.

"You foolish girls" a deep masculine voice startled us both and we turned to the direction of the voice and we could only see someone wearing a black coat.

He removed the cap covering half face and then we sighed in relief, "You were supposed to come with the police"

I gave Aisha the I told you so look.

"Why didn't you call the police Tunde?" Aisha asked.

"Shh!" Tunde shushed Aisha, "Keep your voice down please"

"You need to go and call the police now. This is our only chance. If they find us here they'll kill us" Tunde whispered. "I'm going in now. Please hurry"

"What?! Where are you going?" I whispered too.

"They think I'm one of them... I'll explain later" Tunde opened the gate and went in.

"Let's go. We have to hurry" Aisha said before turning around and walking fast. I joined her too.
We immediately stopped in our tracks when we heard something like a gunshot from inside the building.

"Is that a -" police cars immediately stopped in front of us and some police men rushed out.

"What are you doing here?" one of the officers asked us while the others headed for the building.

"Officer, they took her brother and some of our friends Sir. We just heard a gunshot" Aisha lied with a convincing tone. As for me, I was frozen. What if they had shot Tunde or Sebastian?

I couldn't get the image out of my head. The chaos going on in the building was loud and a few more gun shots were heard. Both from the police and cult members.

I was so scared. My heart beat was fast and I was slightly shaking. I silently prayed for Sebastian and Tunde to make it out of there unharmed.

When they finally got a hold of all the boys in the building, they marched out in a straight line. I saw Henry and Peter who glared at me.

"Where's Sebastian and Tunde?" Aisha asked while we both watched everyone in the house come out.

I walked into the compound to see a corpse covered with a fabric and I couldn't tell who it was but I was about to start crying. I didn't see Sebastian anywhere.

There were police officers everywhere but no sight of Tunde or Sebastian.

"What are you doing here? Are you looking for someone?" an officer approached us.

"Yes, my brother" I replied with my eyes still on the covered corpse laying in the middle of the compound.

Before the officer could say anything, Tunde and Sebastian walked out of the house with an officer behind them.

I didn't know what to say to Sebastian as they approached us so I decided not to say anything because I was just so angry and relieved at the same time.

What was he thinking?

"Who was shot?" Aisha asked Tunde.

"Amanda's grandma" Tunde said. He looked traumatized, "She was the one who called the police"

"Oh my God" Aisha and I gasped. It was then we saw Amanda walk out of the building in tears.

"They kidnapped them. I don't know why" Tunde further explained. "It was a horrible thing to watch"

"What did you tell the police?" Aisha asked Tunde.

"I told them that they kidnapped Sebastian and we came looking for him and that his parents are not in town" Tunde replied.

"And they believed you?" I was surprised that they would let them go with such a ridiculous story.

"This is the Nigerian police, they don't want too much work" he was right, the police wanted less cases on their hands to investigate.

"Let's just go" Sebastian finally said something before he left us and walked away.

I knew I should talk to my brother but I didn't know where to begin in scolding him because I wasn't perfect myself. I'd made foolish mistakes and unwise decisions too so who was I to come down on him for making a mistake.

"It would be very foolish of me not to give you and explanation or at least apologize" Sebastian said when he'd come to my room. "I'm very sorry, I don't know what I was thinking"

"I don't know what to tell you" I said sincerely, "The night my mom was killed, she told me that you were now a part of my life whether I liked it or not. You're my responsibility and it was today that I actually understood what that meant"

"I'm just trusting that you have learnt from this experience and you wouldn't make this mistake again" I sighed

"Thank you" said Sebastian, "And Tunde really saved my life today. He's a good person" he walked out after he said that.

Maybe Tunde was actually a good person. Maybe I've been treating him wrongly. Maybe everything that letter had said about him was wrong. Maybe I should give him a chance.

It was 8pm that night when I heard a knock at the gate. Aunt Thelma was already fast asleep. Sleep was the only language she understood these days.

I couldn't help but wonder who it could be at that time of he night. Uncle Harry always came home early in the morning so it was definitely not him.

I opened the gate to see Aisha standing there crying uncontrollably. She was shaking and her eyes had turned red and swollen.

"Aisha, what's the matter? Why are you crying? What happened?" I asked all at once before her ushering her in and locking the gate.

"Rachael please help me...." tears took over. She couldn't speak fluently.

"Aisha calm down and tell me what happened" I said while holding her closely. I was really worried. I'd never even seen Aisha cry before.

"They want to me marry one Alhaji. Rachael I don't want to get married now" she kept crying uncontrollably and I didn't know what to say, I was so confused and perplexed.

"It's okay" I tried wiping her tears with my hands, "Let's go inside"

I took Aisha inside and I couldn't believe her parents would actually do that.

So much had actually happened in just one day. I was very weak but the thoughts in my head deprived me of sleep.

Definitely, I knew this wasn't the end and the worse was yet to come. I could feel it.