Hi, guys.

Sorry for taking so long o. No vex. I dey now. 

Oh and before you go ahead to read the following chapters, please remember something. This is sensitive times for TMBT characters, so a lot of characters are not really in their right senses. That being understood, they may be a bit destructive to either themselves or other characters. So, please calm down before you start swearing at any character. Remember you knew them before you saw them at their worst, iyeh?

Anyways, I think we all are ready for this one. By God's grace, lol. As the title entails, there is a lot of Closure and flashbacks and a lot of heartbreaking things to find out too, but you know, you made the step to garner the balls to open this chapter, and you've been surviving up to this point, so you're strong!

And, I will do something special this time around: As you are reading, you will be seeing me commenting in some paragraphs inline, and referring you to certain points in the book where it had happened. So look out for my inline comments. I should be done putting them all up in the next 24 hours! Lmfao! Alright, let's go!✨

~ACHA~

I had so many questions for Kelechi Uwa.

So many questions that needed urgent answers.

But first, I wanted to get as far away as possible from the loud, brain blowing music that blasted in the Living Room. I needed to find me some good fresh air to breath and calm the throbbing headache that was growing by the minute.

Once again, a night that I had looked forward to was proving to be a pain in my rear.

"Fuck, it's midnight." I noted to myself as I glanced at the wall clock on the wall of the Living room that housed classmates who didn't seem to have a tired bone in their body.

I couldn't stop myself from coming to terms with the fact that my Mum had not come back home yet, and neither had Gadhafi and the bunch of classmates that followed her and the passed out kid to the Hospital.

Nonetheless, I was worried. Unfortunately, about him and many, many other things that were going wrong tonight. Things that seemed to be slipping out of my control. And meanwhile, unbothered classmates still swirled all around me in their high, doing right about everything you would see a bunch of teenagers who had a house to themselves for the night doing.

And, please, I leave the imagination to you.

However, after sliding and shuffling through the multiple bodies in that Living Room turned Mad House, I was finally outside. Believe me you, I must have been stupid to think that running outside was a sleek way to avoid classmates, having that about one third of them were still out here, lingering about the premises like evil spirits. 

And, of course, since most of the guest rooms had been locked up and preserved for a potential sleep over this night was likely to turn into, some of them found their safe space here, outside the house where all the lights were dim and a dull tint of gold - a perfect spot for them to swallow each other's mouths and fondle under skirts, shirts, and trousers in the sinful name of making out. 

It was already midnight, and all I wanted to do was send everyone back home and go to bed.

Crazy, the entire night I had been trying to keep everything under control, to distract myself in the most positive ways I could, when in reality, I was actually losing my damn mind: from feeling worried about Dabi potentially finding out all about the Diary, to trying to decipher if it was safe to tell her about it tonight or not.

To tell her who was behind it.

Imagine how many times I had to struggle with the guilt. The guilt of knowing the truth about the Diary the entire time and having to fight the many voices in my head that were screaming at me to either spill or shut up. It was absolutely torturing.

First class Torture.

I hated doing this.

I hated it.

I hated to be put in the position to watch someone's heart be broken irreparably, into tiny pieces. I hated to be the reason why others lost trust or hope in other people they loved with all their heart, I hated to watch Dabi get so broken hearted over her own friends' betrayal.

Come on, she called those girls her sisters.

Before I even came into the picture, those girls were her life. 

I had seen the way she genuinely loved and cared about them, even when she spoke about them. Especially Chika. So, how can I watch Dabi get so destroyed when I tell her the truth?

If only, if there was a way I could have been able to take her away from that toxic circle, those fake people who posed as her friends, without letting her know the truth behind them, I would. I fucking would. If there was a way to cut the friendship with Dabi and the Igbo Sisters, without having her heart get broken by the real dirt behind the genesis of their friendship, I would do it.

I could do it. Left to me, I would have gone up to the Sisters and threatened to tell Dabi and the entire school the whole truth about them and the Diary if they didn't stop talking to Dabi - of course, I wouldn't have the balls to actually do it, just anything to get them scared, to get them to ghost her. Then, afterwards, I'd just pay Kelechi to shut up forever and never mention anything about the diary to Dabi or anyone else.

It was a fucked up plan, but it could work.

What Dabi wouldn't know wouldn't kill her, right? She would heal, and more easily, be able to move on from the betrayal of being ghosted, than well, the actual truth of the betrayal.

But, Kelechi would never co-operate with that plan, that I knew.

Not even on gun point.

And, as much as I hated to admit it, as much as it was a hard pill to swallow, the fact remained that nothing, and I mean, nothing, stayed hidden under the sun.

So, that was the very reason that I said to myself to damn the consequences. I decided tonight, that I was going to tell Dabi everything she needed to know about the diary and the people she called her friends. 

Only for Kelechi to appear out of nowhere, back then when she met me in the Hallway, to literally cry to me that telling Dabeluchi anything tonight would have been an awful idea.

"I am worried about her..." She had said me with a soft, trembling voice and eyes, moist with tears that looked like they burned. "Marcus, something isn't right tonight. I can't pin it down. I can't figure out which angle it is. But, I feel it. And irrevocably. If only you would listen to me.—"

And, I remember losing my shit.

"—And, what do you want me to do now?!" I had screamed back at her in frustration.

 Because, honestly, I didn't understand.

I genuinely couldn't understand why Kelechi was trying to tell me. What she was trying to communicate. I wish I could, but...

...What is the difference between telling Dabi the truth tonight verses telling her any other night?

Please, make it make sense.

Kelechi, however, had remained very persistent.

And as much as I hated to admit it, bits of our conversation kept tormenting and scaring me since then.

"You don't understand!" I remembered she had shrieked, like it was a thing of life and death, at the near verge of ripping her hair off. "You cannot tell Dabeluchi the truth tonight!"

I had shouted back at her asking why, and in my feat of rage, I had pushed her away harder than I intended to, having bits of the content of that Vodka glass she was holding - that same glass that had one of our classmates in the Hospital right now - pouring like sprinkles over the floor and her dress. But her adamant stubbornness had shocked me, she had cornered me again to continue what she was saying;

"I'm not stopping you from not telling her at all, you're not understanding me! You can't tell her now, Marcus. You of all people should know that she has a lot more to deal with right now and you still think it is the perfect timing to add more havoc to her already long list of problems? Listen to me when I say this, Marc; you must not tell Dabi the truth yet. NOT NOW."

I remembered being troubled by many things surrounding our encounter.

What Kelechi had said.

How she said it.

The bloodshot of her eyes.

The fear in her shaking, trembling voice.

The warning in her undertone.

It had scared me.

But, even my Mum had said it once before, I could be one stubborn motherfucker.

Hence, I had still persisted.

And Kelechi almost turned into a mad woman, screaming for me to hear her out and I was on the defense the entire time, screaming back reasons as to why I had to tell Dabi the truth tonight;

"Listen to me!" 

"I will NOT lose her over this!"

"Then, LISTEN TO ME OR ELSE YOU WILL LOSE HER ANYWAY!"

"Fuck."

Bits of our conversation kept flashing in and out of my head, tormenting me. Tired and exhausted, I slumped onto the vinyl floors, with my hands on my pounding head.

God, I have a headache.

It was no better here at the backyard than back at the porch.

There were even more silhouettes of classmates, who I supposed were also sneaking around and hiding, having their own little fun and scattering themselves all around the environment. Some of them, were hanging around the edge of the pool, using their feet to play around with the water, while others were boldly cuddling and doing their thing, right there, inside the pool. 

It almost looked like they had segregated into their own little party here and somewhere, someone had a speaker, blasting out Post Malone and stealing the peace and serenity that this backyard poolside was meant to offer. Distantly, I could hear squealing and giggles from all angles of the place, despite the fact that Psycho was blaring at its loudest and fullest volume.

"I need to get out of here."

So, while trying to calm my heart that was practically beating out of my chest, still my hands that shook in tremble and panic, and clean the sweat that poured out of the pores of my boiling hot head, I dragged my tired feet along the ground and forced myself to walk further into the other part of the backyard that I was confident that not many people had found yet.

My Sister's Poolside.

Or, was I just running away?

Was I doing the exact same thing that I always advised Dabeluchi to stop?

I knew I couldn't be too far away from her, especially not a time like this. And, as much as I would have loved to disappear from here, I couldn't dare to leave my Aurora alone.

Especially after I knew that she must have found out the truth about the diary by now.

I thought I knew what I was doing when I lured her into that dump guest room to find her friend, Soma. But, now that I was aware that there was a 90% chance she had found out the truth, I started to wonder if I had made a mistake.

If I should just have listened to Kelechi and not let her find out tonight.

Did I do the right thing? By going ahead to damn all the consequences and probable warnings from Kelechi and go ahead to have Dabi find out the truth about her friends and that diary.

Chika's diary?

"God." I face palmed again.

I felt dizzy. With all these thoughts swirling all around in my head, the classmates whose voices faded in and out of my head as they greeted past me, and the loud music that resounded all over the place, mixing in with my awful train of thoughts while shaking the grounds under me.

Honestly, I had tried to understand things from Kelechi's point of view. I really tried, but it all made little sense to me. And even with the little sense it made, it still made me worried now more than ever. What could have been the basis of all these her fear surrounding Dabi finding out tonight? It was not the first time she had pulled some shit like this that got me destabilized in thoughts. 

If only Kelechi had not dragged me into this.

God, I should have just told my mother to ignore the ringing on our door bell that morning. If only, somehow, I had shunned her and robbed off the chance to pull me into this. If only I just ignored Kelechi Uwa that morning that she showed up at my doorstep with a flash copy of that diary, sobbing.

That morning...

I was so livid after I had seen the contents of that diary she showed me. I had gone over it a dozen of times in that moment, sinking in the shock of what I perceived to be a confession from Kelechi.

Thinking about that morning made me feel every thing that I felt in the very moment: the chills that spread from my back to every part of my body, triggering me, sending shock waves around my body that caused me to shake involuntarily.

The anger I felt at that very moment too, the dark frustration and blood boiling rage that choked me like a tight hand gripped around my throat as I reread the contents of it, repeating every word and every line over and over and having it replay time after time in my head, in her voice.

A voice that then sounded so deceitful and slithering. Like a snake.

All that hate and anger... Just because I had, at the time, thought Kelechi was the one all along.

Because I though she was the one who had exposed Dabi's family problems to the world to have a good laugh, and firmly, I had believed that the diary I was reading was clear proof, showing me just how much, how long, she had stalked the girl enough to get her evil plan in motion.

"So, tell me, Kelechi," I had looked at her, seething through my teeth. "Why have you been stalking Dabeluchi?"

Hurt flashed in her eyes, snapping through her glass coloured irises with the sharpness of a lightening zap. Just like she had just been slapped by a Lover: the shock, the momentary mortification, and the immeasurable hurt that came accompanying it.

"What?" Her soft voice was barely unheard, it sounded even unintentional, as though it accidentally slipped out through a train of rapid fire panic-mode thoughts. "Marc, I—"

"—What do you have against her?" I rose in anger and so did she, but in alert. However, at the time, I was boiling beyond measure. Beyond any way comprehendible. So, the panic and uncertainty in her eyes and the alert in her retreating body language as I walked towards her meant little to nothing to me, at that time. "Tell me what you have against that girl to do such an evil thing to her, Kelechi!"

"I have nothing against Dabeluchi, listen to me!—"

"—She's been through so much, Kelechi!" I was practically foaming at the mouth, shouting at Kelechi like someone who had absolutely lost their mind. "You can't even imagine! This is the last thing she needed at a time like this!" 

"No, no, please listen, I—"

"—For God's sake, she almost had a break there! Dabeluchi was so close to having a break at some point and you just had to decide that the last thing you wanted was to let her be!"

"Marcus, I think you are misunderstanding what I was trying to tell you!—"

"—And then, you stalk her? Leach out information off her for years? Then, proceed to tell the whole world about her family the moment you figure it all out?!"

"That's what I'm trying to say, it wasn't me!—"

"To gain what, Kelechi?" I cut her off again, shouting. "What was in it for you that you had to mess up someone else's life! What did you stand to gain from all of these?!—"

"—FOR GOD SAKE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TO ME!"

Well, that had done the job for me.

This side of Kelechi always startled me. And, I mean, always. It never seized to not knock me completely off guard. Not just because of the assertiveness in her tone, the weight of it, nor the fact that her voice practically doubled two times its loudness, resounding everywhere and shaking the grounds underneath, with the heaviest growl to it laced into it. Like she was an animal. A dragon, to be precise.

It was also the fact that cursing sounded so, so odd in her voice.

So odd that it almost made you forget what you were even talking about.

"That's the problem with you and Dabeluchi!—" She jabbed a finger aggressively into my chest like she wanted to puncture right through it, walking up a dangerous, bold step forward as though she was not afraid to enter into me.

I had to take a step back.

"—You two don't listen!" She accused, her voice rising an octave or two as she scolded me. 

I took another step back when she took another more aggressive step forward.

"You never listen!" Kelechi continued with her accusations. "You guys are so quick to jump into conclusions at the first thought that comes into your mind, the first thing that jumps right into your face, and that is an unmitigated disaster of a quality you both have!"

"What exactly are you even trying to say?—"

"—I have been trying to say that the diary isn't mine and I have been planning nothing against your girlfriend!" She scolded.

"Then, who did all these?!" I asked her.

"Chika Chioma." She answered in a heartbeat.

I was certain that my heart had stopped a second before it sank into my stomach.

And, it all sounded like gibberish to me. 

Because for the life of me, I could not put Chika Chioma and fake friend in the same sentence. It did not add up. Something did not add up. So, my first instinct was not to believe Kelechi.

"I... I don't understand."

Kelechi had allowed me time to sink it in and I appreciated that. Because the barrage of information she had given me after revealing who the real culprit was, I did need some time to wrap my head around the one she had just told me at that moment.

Else I was going to legit run mad.

"Chika had the whole idea from scratch, and with the help of the Igbo Sisters, she set her entire plan in motion," Kelechi had bluntly revealed. "She made Somadina do the uploading onto the Internet and the Onuoha twins easily made the post go viral."

Jesus.

"But, Marcus, th-there's more..."

God, the way she had said it... I remember anxiety gripping me hard around the throat.

"Yeah?" I had given her the go-ahead to speak.

"Chika's diary had all the information they could have needed about Dabeluchi's broken family," She started by telling me. "But, they needed just more than just words on a digital journal to convince the whole of Nigeria. So, there was an even bigger, more heartbreaking plan in motion the entire time..."

I breathed in nervously, my heart rising in tune with the suspense Kelechi was building up in me.

"...Casper Bassey." She revealed to me.

I had frowned in confusion, wondering how he added up with all these.

"Elaborate," I quietly asked Kelechi.

"I will," She easily told me, motioning me to have a sit with her and when I did, she started to pour everything all out to me, like she had been holding it at the very tip of her tongue for the longest time. "All of these started one school afternoon when I walked in on him with the Igbo Sisters. At first, I did not think it was such a big deal, because normally, the likes of Aaron and Casper are usually around the Igbo Sisters. They are like an extension of their little clique, right?"

"Right." I nodded for her to continue.

"But, something felt off," She told me. "There was this awkward feel in the air as though I had walked in on an affair or something. Casper was the only one who had not lost composure, and the moment he opened his mouth and started talking casually like nothing happened, I knew he was in damage control mode, but I couldn't understand why..."

Kelechi had looked at me with a certainty in her eyes.

"Instantly," She said, "And I mean, within seconds, I could detect that I had walked in on something I wasn't supposed to walk in on."

"But, why did you care?" I had asked Kelechi sincerely. "Because, if I walked into some mystery conspiracy gathering of a bunch of random classmates I never talk to, I don't think I'd care enough to follow it through."

"Right," She agreed with that. "But, something about that little gathering of the Igbo Sisters and Casper fascinated me, Marcus."

Interest piqued in my eyes. "What?"

Kelechi had looked dead at me when she had told me.

"Dabeluchi Orji was not included in it."

That alarmed me a bit.

I still was trying to understand why it meant shit to Kelechi.

"It was odd to me, most especially, because I have quick hearing senses and a photographic memory and I was certain I had heard Dabeluchi's name a number of times, before I had walked in to see the people talking about her." She explained to me.

A conspiracy of her own close friends and even an 'extension', gathering in her name, but she isn't there? That sounded disturbing to hear.

But not enough to convince me how Kelechi was convinced it was her business. Enough to get to the bottom of it the way she did. But, I kept listening.

"What day did this happen?" I asked her.

The question sure did jog her memory.

"I can't remember the date, because it had been months since then," She told me.

I was taken aback by hearing that. "Months?"

"Months," She confirmed. "And, the most I remember was that it was on a Sports Day too."

"Oh?" I noted that carefully, "That means it was either a Tuesday or a Thursday."

"Correct," She agreed.

"A Tuesday or a Thursday months ago," I said with a scoff. "What the hell are we going to even do with that piece of information?"

"If it helps, it was the same day that some Ss1 boys were added into the Elite Senior Boys' Football team," She listed a random happening that jogged my memory.

"Oh." It hit me slightly. "The same day a fight broke out with them and some thug SS2 boys, and Ivandor Fejaun had all the junior boys lying face down on the field for hours, because he had forgotten he punished them and went home? " 

"Yes!" She concurred. "That was the same day I had walked in on them!"

"If I am correct, that was the same day that Dabeluchi walked in on us," I reminded her.

I remember that same day, Kelechi insisted on seeing me after school and I found it odd how she was bringing up Dabeluchi's name into our discussion occasionally. However, I had not given it much thought or seriousness. I was just coming back from a football game, and because of the drama in the sports field and the fact that the Junior Boys were terrified to stand up until they were certain that the Sports Prefect himself had approved their release from punishment, a half of our classmates were on the field, watching the commotion.

In turn, the Hallway was very empty.

With just me and Kelechi.

And Dabeluchi had walked in and got the wrong impression.

"I remember." Kelechi had said quietly.

"I also remember," I had turned to her, a disturbing memory flashing in yet again, "That was the same day I had taken Dabeluchi to my house to stay with me."

She seemed taken aback by me telling her that.

"I don't understand," She honestly told me.

"Dabeluchi lived in my house for a while," I told Kelechi. "The same day all these happened, she had run away from home and called me. I picked her up. She stayed in my house for a while."

Her eyes told confusion and a bit of wary, and she asked me, "Did she ever tell you why?"

"Hm?" I raised a brow at Kelechi.

"Did Dabi ever tell you why she ran away from home?" She asked again.

"Not really," I had painfully answered in all sincerity. "I knew nothing about her family, until everything got online. I found out with the rest of Nigeria, Kelechi."

"It's okay," She had responded softly. "But, Marc, don't you feel something is missing out? Abusive men don't start overnight, and judging through how Dabi is, it's clear she had been in that home for a long, long time. Something specific must have triggered her to run away that day. Something she probably has not told you about."

"Her dad burned down the house—"

"—After she ran away."

Kelechi countered.

"She was already triggered to run away before the house was even burned down," She said. "And, Dabeluchi never told you in clear details what exactly had happened that day in her house? If she hurt anyone?—"

"—Where exactly are you going with this?" I cut her short the moment confusion was starting to set in. "Come." I shook my head, in disbelief. "How do you even know all these things you're telling me? How do you know the diary is Chika's diary? How do you know Soma posted? How do you know the Onuoha Twins got it viral? Fuck it, Kelechi. How do you even have the diary? See—Tch." I stopped with my hand on my heads, finding it hard to process so much information and how it correlated to her exactly. "How do I know you're not even lying to me right now?"

Again, she had let me breath.

Something told me she was adamant that I had to hear it all, so she let me have a break. 

Kelechi had even more shit to tell me.

"If you remember," She started off that day. "The first time I had mentioned something about Dabeluchi's family..."

I was shocked as to how exactly I actually remembered.

It was just last month. A day after Sean's birthday. I had stayed up all midnight and morning with eyes wide open in Nana's house, fearing the worst of consequences for betraying Sean, after Dabeluchi had stubbornly insisted she would follow me to see him. 

I remember Kelechi had found me again, early that morning in my room. She had not slept too, and neither had Chido, Nana, and most probably even Sean. And while Dabeluchi was softly snoring upstairs in one of Nana's cozy guest rooms,  Kelechi made me stroll and talk with her till sunrise. Again, she had occasionally pulled in Dabeluchi's name into the mix. 

And, surprisingly we had found Dabeluchi awake and she was not happy to see the both of us together.

Very clearly, I recalled that in the heat of Dabeluchi's fury, Kelechi had made a statement that threw both me and her off course;

"Maybe you should stop by at home to check on your mother and brother first."

So...

"How did you know?" I had asked Kelechi. "In fact, what do you know?"

"This may sound crazy," She told me. "But, sometimes, I just, um, know things."

I had looked at her with a dozen question marks swarming all over my head and she was smart enough to detect that it was a queue for her to elaborate.

"I don't know how I know, and I am not even overly sure exactly what I even know, I just know these things," 

She had started off. I listened, I genuinely wanted to understand, and she was eager to further her elaboration;

"Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and it just comes to me out of the blue: information about people I know and don't know, even information about people I am still yet to meet. Other times, I am just in a moment of short prayer  — I don't even need to burst into tongues or anything serious, I could just be muttering random prayers to myself, and it descends on me, I just suddenly know something, about a classmate, a teacher, Dozie or Emeka, or even a total stranger. In fact, I could literally just be on my own, doing absolutely nothing, and I lock eyes with a person by accident and get a thorough review of everything about them: from the history of their lives, to their goods and bads, their mistakes, their family or friends, and a fortunate or unfortunate event they are about to encounter..."

Wow, was all I could literally think when she was done confiding all these with me. But in all honesty, it was not a total surprise to me. Kelechi had always did something in the past, one thing or the other, that made me come to the conclusion that she could have been psychic or something.

But, she made it clear to me that it had nothing to do with magic. And, all these were just 'divine'. And, I completely believed the girl.

"And, I haven't been at peace since you and Dabeluchi got together, romantically," She said to me. "Not necessarily concerning the two of you, but concerning external forces against you. I feel God has been showing me things... Well, or at least trying to." 

"Visions?" I asked her, blinking in curiosity and a bit of anxiety. "You have seen visions? What have you seen recently? About Dabi? Her family? Why her friends are hurting her? Me and Dabi?"

"Slow down," She quietly answered.

"No, I just want to—"

"—I don't see visions, Marcus." 

I frowned in confusion. Thorough bastardized confusion.

"I don't see Visions," She repeated, clarifying. "I don't see things. I feel them, Marcus."

Believe me, I was trying to follow, all to no avail.

"It comes as a feeling first, then, a knowing. I don't see them as pictures or scenes in my head, I just suddenly become certain that what I suddenly feel is the truth. I know it's the truth. I am certain of it. The way you know and are certain that after the letter A comes B."

"Wow," I gaped.

"But, understanding the terms around Dabi is confusing," She told me. "Mostly because what I am knowing about her does not sync with anything connected to her. For instance, if God is telling me she wears red shoes to a ball dance, I see her wearing a white shoes. It does not sync at all. It's almost like what she puts up for us to believe about her is a deviation from the truth. Like it's not exactly accurate. As though it is some kind of, um, illusion?"

Eh?

"So, it confuses me when I try to put the pieces together," She admitted. "I feel there is something else nearly sinister going on in that home that nobody knows. Not even the people who broadcasted her family secrets. Something doesn't quite click for me."

Um...

"But, I did know about how awful her Dad was. I also understood that currently, her Mum and her brother felt like they were in danger and needed her. And she was doing everything, asides reaching out. And I didn't understand that. Why she was doing that. It almost made me wonder if what I knew was in fact the truth. So, I confronted her that morning about it, just to confirm."

"Dabeluchi is really worried about them," I said to clear her name. "She is only a teenager, there is not much she will do to find them on her own. My Mum already has troops doing that for her, and I had to assure her that they will be found and will be alright. It was not an easy feat. That's how worried she is about them."

"I bet she is," Kelechi nodded. "Anyways, her reaction made me confirm that what I knew was indeed the truth. She was angry. Triggered, even. That was all the confirmation I needed. But, unfortunately, an angry glare was not all I hoped to get off Dabeluchi's reaction if peradventure what I knew was the truth."

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"I was hoping she would have a trigger outburst and spill everything I needed to know about her." She told me straightly.

"And why would you think she would do that?" I asked her.

"I have observed your girlfriend with the short time I had around her," She had admitted to me. "Dabeluchi is not one to respond to soft emotions. You would have to push her off the edge if you wanted to know something she was not telling you. She's like a bomb, she keeps ticking and ticking and until she is detonated, she does not explode. You need to strike hard with her. So, I knew I had to trigger something very strong in her to get her to spill the beans and get off what's on her mind, and hopefully, what I needed to know about her family. What we don't know about her family. That strong emotion you would have to trigger in her could be Love... Or Hate."

She looked at me, there on, before continuing.

"I knew that coming on her so strong like that could trigger her, enough to spill. I needed to know, you needed to know too, so we could help her," She told me. "But, I guess Dabeluchi Orji is a harder nut to crack than I thought."

It almost made me wonder how much I even knew about her...

"Has she opened up to you about anything yet?" Kelechi asked.

I blinked, caught off guard by the question. "Hm?"

That question actually hit me a lot harder than I allowed her to see. Mostly because any answer I would have Kelechi, lie or truth, would have prompted more questions than I was willing or able to answer.

"She loves you," She continued, in a bid to buttress her earlier point. "Her trigger with you is Love, and sure, calling Love a trigger is oxymoronic, but you get my point, yes? She does have a remarkable amount of Love for you and that I can vouch for, so she must have told you something no one else knows..."

Actually, no.

I mean, Dabeluchi had not particularly opened up to me about anything specific, but I had picked up stuff for myself. Like the way she was confused between reality and her imaginations or daydreams sometimes, or how she talked about things I said or did, but I never actually said or did. I could go on and on and on.

Like those scars on her wrists I had noticed, that made it clear to me that she was a cutter. That constantly broken look in her eyes whenever we met, and how I felt happy putting a glow in them before we departed. The way she was outdrawn and lost in public, walking around and looking all over like someone was out to get her, that paranoia that hovered around her. Her anger spouts too. Her sharp incontrollable tongue when she got triggered by anyone, even me.

I mean, sometimes, she was even ready to throw hands. You would think she was your usual quiet girl, but she had many ways to take you off-guard sometimes. Also, with the quick switch in her emotions, from neutral to euphoria to deep sadness to euphoria again to grave anger and back to Euphoria again, in literal seconds.

The secrecy in her nature too: how she dodged questions when I asked, if they were too personal. How she went about doing things without letting me know or keeping it to herself when something goes wrong, something I could help with. Dabeluchi could get hit by a bus and if there were no scars to show, she would not tell me.

I could write a list if I wanted to.

But, I had learned that Dabeluchi lives a sensitive life. It was never something I needed to push out of her, unless I would be pushing her away. I didn't want to push her away, I wanted to help if there was a way to. I wanted her to be by my side, especially now that I was literally the only person she had. 

"Marc?" Kelechi snapped in my face.

I remembered she was still awaiting an answer from me.

And even if I didn't want to, I knew, nonetheless, that I had to respond.

"I found out about her family with the rest of the country," I told Kelechi. "With the post that went viral and everything, that's all I know about her family or why she must have run away." And, I would not lie that it felt weird to admit such a thing. Somewhat embarrassing, even.

"But, Kelechi," I said. "Even if I knew something else super, you don't expect that I would be telling you though, right?"

"Fair enough," She agreed, her nod confirming. "But, she hasn't told you anything more and I get it all now."

"Get what?" I asked.

"I mean, it's simple," She said with a little laugh under her breath. "Dabeluchi doesn't hate me enough to spill..." She shrugged as she casually added the next part, "And, she doesn't love you enough to the same either."

I acted hardly fazed, even though that statement had really done a number on me mentally.

"Don't go there, Kelechi," I said calmly to her, my tone nearly in a warning. "You know nothing about what me and Dabeluchi have. So, you cannot sit here and determine the extent of her Love for me."

She had barely broken character, that casual sweet smile remained on her pretty dark face.

"Understood," She said with an agreeing nod, easily avoiding conflict. "Maybe I overstepped my boundaries again."

Unfortunately, it did little to nothing to kill the little feeling of incompetence, the little feeling of not being enough for Dabeluchi to open up completely that hit deep down, lingering there in the pit of my gut.

"So, back to that day that I had walked in on the little conspiracy gathering in Dabeluchi's name..." She smoothly switched back topics. "Shall we?"

"Sure." I answered swiftly.

"I told you that something about that gathering did not sit right with me, right?" Kelechi said, "And, for a while before that moment, I had been picking up some things about Dabeluchi I had ignored, I had been knowing some things..."

She had paused there to look at me to ensure I understood her concept of knowing now, and I nodded, urging her to continue.

"...So, that moment, more than ever, I felt obligated to get to the bottom of everything," She told me. "From the conspiracy gathering to its purpose and all it's got to do with Dabeluchi. God couldn't have been showing me things about a girl I had never spoken to, only to have me walk into that gathering out of coincidence. I knew right there that I had a role to play, and even if I was not sure exactly what it was, getting to the bottom of all of everything would be a start."

"Did you?" I asked her. "Did you find out what they were talking about?"

Kelechi nodded easily. She had found out. My curiosity was piqued.

"That was the day they got the video they posted online to expose her father and the things that go on in their house," She revealed to me.

"And how the fuck were they able to do that?" I asked her.

"Casper Bassey." Was her quick answer.

I did a double take. I remembered because that was the hardest double take that I had ever done in my life. She had mentioned that Casper was a part of the conspiracy gathering on that Sports Day she had walked in on them, but I didn't imagine that he would play such a key role.

"But how?" I asked her. "Even if Casper is friends with the Igbo Sisters, I don't see a correlation between him and Dabi one on one."

Kelechi raised a brow, as though what I said amused her.

"Rich," She commented smugly.

"What's rich?" I asked. Genuinely, I wanted to understand what she was telling me and how it all would have connected.

"I see she also never told you," She spoke, "That she and Casper Bassey are neighbors?" 

Um, no.

"What do you know about your girlfriend, Marcus?" She said, shaking her head with a tsk.

"Kelechi, please don't do this right now. Just—" Oh, sigh. "—Just carry on, without assuming things about me and Dabi, okay? Please."

She sighed, visibly calming down a notch, as she continued.

"Dabi's father is a man called Chief Ugochukwu Elliot Orji and according to my research, he is a remarkable billion earning businessman who has been involved in multiple scandals, even before Dabeluchi and her twin brother were born," She told me. 

I gulped. "Wow."

"That's not all," She said. "He works in collaboration with multiple billionaire businessmen like him of which two have children in our school: Olatunde Jeremy Falade and Kufreabasi Akpan Bassey."

She looked at me until I got the hint.

Kufreabasi Akpan Bassey.... he had to be the father of Casper Bassey.

"Olatunde Falade was the original owner of the Falade Realties, but it was not until twenty two years ago that Mr. Kufre Bassey and Mr. Ugochukwu, Casper and Dabi's father, formed an alliance with each other, with the aim to become partners with Mr. Falade in the ownership of his housing estate," She fed me with information. "You know, it made no sense to me, because I genuinely wondered what was so special about the Estate that they so desperately wanted to be part owners of, even after Mr. Falade had originally given them a firm No."

"So, he must have eventually agreed, yeah?" I came in. "Since they currently are now joint owners of the Falade Realties Estate?"

"Yes," She answered. "But only after they made him a really big mouth offering offer three years after his first rejection."

"And what was that?" I piqued with intense curiosity.

"I have no idea; it genuinely was not my business." She responded.

I deflated.

"But it got them the total ownership and control of the West Wing of the Estate," Kelechi told me, her eyes glowing with the anticipation to reveal something.

And, I insisted she carried on. "Yeah?"

"I bet Dabeluchi has never talked about her friends visiting her house before?" She said.

"Never a time I could recall," I answered.

"That's because they can't," She said to me.

"The West Wing of the Falade Realties co-owned by Mr. Orji and Mr. Bassey is called The Valley and it is very restricted from entry and only open to people who have connections directly with the owners, but that's not even what's going to blow your mind, Marcus," She told me.

I listened carefully.

"No one else asides Casper and Dabeluchi's family live in the Valley." 

Eh?

"In fact, Mr. Bassey had moved in with his family just a few months ago, and before that time, for  about eighteen whole years, the only inhabitants of the Valley were just Dabeluchi Orji and her family." She told me.

Jesus.

"So, make it make sense," She said. "Why would two rich men fight so hard to be owners of an entire Wing of an Estate, only to have the entire place with no tenants? Completely vacant."

"It doesn't sound right to me," I had to admit.

"Neither did it to me," Kelechi agreed. "After the fire outbreak in Dabi's house and the involvement of the Police, there have been some rumors about the Valley spreading lowkey."

"What kind of rumors?" I asked.

"They have it that these huge window tinted Sienna Cars keep trooping in and out of the Valley from time to time, ordering things in bags to Mr. Orji and Mr. Bassey," She started off telling me. "However, it's like some powerful 'Top dogs' are keeping most of the information about the Valley from being leaked out, so I couldn't get in more info on that. And maybe God has not showed me anything in that light, because like I said, it is not my business. Maybe it's too dangerous to get myself involved in. Perhaps."

I frowned. "So, why did you start telling me if you were just going to hang me on a cliff right after?"

"Just so you get an understanding of how dangerous Dabi's father could potentially be before your 'savior complex' kicks in on her behalf," Kelechi said straightly.

"I really don't care how dangerous he could be,' I answered. "If she eventually opened up and told me she wanted him to pay for everything he has done to their family, I would make sure she got that justice."

"Marc,—"

"—So, does this mean Dabi's father have her mother and brother captive?" I asked Kelechi.

She didn't give an answer.

Or at least not a direct one.

Instead, she just switched it again, and started to tell me about Casper and the plans of the Igbo Sisters on that Sports Day she had walked in on them and their conspiracy gathering.

"Turns out that the plan to spill the secrets of the Orjis' Household had been in motion since the beginning of the term, and the Sisters wanted to use the fact that Casper was her neighbor much to their advantage. He was the only one who lived where all the madness in Dabeluchi's home was going on, so it was most definite that he would have witnessed something too, right? It was more likely that Dabi would open up to him if he tried to reach out, especially since he was the only one that knew originally..."

Right.

"...So, they had many plans in motion, to get Dabi to loosen up a little. It started first off with Casper apparently giving Dabeluchi notes the night he and his family had moved in, telling her that he had heard screaming and wanted to ensure that she was okay. And another time after one of Charlie Ba's classes."

"Hm."

"Then, when all the bullying had started because of all the rumors that were going round in you and Dabi's name, the Igbo Sisters saw it as another opportunity to get Dabi's trust in Casper. If Casper was stand in Dabi's defense against the sets' bullying, there was no way Aaron would not do same. The power and influence the duo have over the set is remarkable and when Dabi sees just how far the both of them were going to protect her interest, maybe she would gain more confidence and trust in them too..."

"Obviously, gaining Dabi's trust would not be that easy," I said. 

"Exactly," Kelechi said with a twitch in her smile. "That was why they gathered that day for their final plan."

I blinked. "Final plan?"

"I mean, one way or the other, they most definitely had to get some evidence, right? So, if all their efforts to make her trust the one person who could help them get that evidence proved ineffective, they had to, well, cross the line a little."

"So, how did they do it?" I asked.

"They did what they did best: Spying," Kelechi revealed to me. "The plan was sneaky, but clever. After school that day, Casper had sent her a message, asking her to come and see him outside of her house..."

"And she went to see him?" I raised my brow in surprise and disbelief.

"I believe she didn't know it was Casper," Kelechi said. "Which would make their confidence that she would actually show up make sense. Dabeluchi is a curious cat, a bit too much for her own good. I wasn't surprised when I learnt she actually showed up."

"So, what happened then?" I asked, wanting to hear more.

"Casper was supposed to get her in close enough range to clip on a mini wireless microphone chip onto her dress, but without having her notice," She said.

I scoffed incredulously. "Excuse me?"

"His guilty conscience seemed to almost get the best of him." She said. "He almost did not pull through with it, and he rather tried to get her to talk to him, to open up. Apparently so, they sat outside of The Orji Mansion talking at length for almost an hour..."

"And what happened next?" I asked.

"Of course, Dabeluchi is not easy to get through to," Kelechi said. "So, with a heavy heart, he did what he had come there to do. "And as far as Casper was in close range, everything that happened in Dabi's house that very day was being collected into the mic chip and in turn, being recorded into his laptop. That was their audio proof."

"The fuck—"

"—I know."

"Isn't that invasion of privacy?" 

Kelechi scoffed. 

"You don't even want to know the number of times that this tactic was pulled against Dabi, Marcus." She said.

 Damn...

"I never listened to that audio though," I told Kelechi truthfully. "I couldn't bring myself to."

"You would have probably heard some counterfeit version of it, so I am glad you didn't watch it anyway," She responded.

Confusion came upon me. "What do you mean?" 

"The original audio was deleted off the Internet two hours after the post went viral," She told me. "So, every existing audio claiming to be the original audio trending online right now is a fake. It's just people clouting for fun. Unless you were able to view it before it got deleted, you can't ever see it again. Everyone who even saved the real audio and tried to reupload it on the Internet complained that their videos got shadow-banned."

"So, did you see it?" I asked her. 

She looked at me with siren eyes, then nodded quietly.

"What was in it?" I asked. I had to know.

"It was majorly screaming," She said to me. "A lot of screaming."

I didn't need more context. I didn't even want to hear more.

All these just rang so many disturbing sirens in my head, as I realized again.

"And this—All this happened the same day Dabi ran away? The same day that I took her home to live with me and my Mum." 

Kelechi had nodded. "You said so."

"I don't get it," I said, shaking my head as yet the main mystery of all these started to come to light. "Kelechi, how do you know all these?"

I mean, this was a bit too detailed, and a bit too sure. It was hard for me to believe that she would actually know all these right away from the blues. 

"I had to do my own digging," She said the truth. Her fingers seemed to play against each other, a subtle sign that she felt a bit nervous and I had to wonder why. "But, um... t-that's the part I am a bit afraid of telling you about."

I had become anxious off her own anxiousness. The way all the color in her face seemed to have drained out and the glow in her eyes deemed out had me very worried, the slight trembling of her lips as though she shivered at the next set of words that were going to leave her mouth terrified me.

I was not sure I was going to take whatever she had to tell me.

But I knew I had to hear all these down to the end of it.

And whether or not, I liked it, Kelechi was hell bound on telling me everything. Or confessing everything. 

"Go ahead," I asked her.

"I had to find information some way, Marcus," She sounded a bit too defensive for someone who had not even been accused of anything. "So, I had to play the same games they played, I had to gain their trust."

So far so good it didn't sound like anything that should have scared me...

"It all started on the Last Day of School. Remember when Dabi had come at me in the Hallway, accusing me of having something against her, because I had previously talked about her family?" Kelechi reminded me.

I remembered. Clearly, even. Because that was the same day that me and Dabeluchi had our first big fight. That whole day was literally a big, big test to our relationship.

And it was all because of Kelechi. Or rather, Dabi's insecurities concerning her.

"Remember we had free periods for most of the day because it was the last day of School, and a lot of teachers didn't turn up, right?" She said. I nodded, she continued, "Everyone was talking about what happened with me and Dabi that day, it was the gossip for the day. The rumor that took the trophy on the last day of School, and unfortunately, it was all to Dabi's detriment. People were saying a lot of mean things about her... "

Unfortunately, I had not stayed till the end of School that day. I had gone back home, pissed, shortly after Dabi had blew me off, but hearing that had happened made me a bit sad. I figured that Dabi was probably just having a bad day and didn't mean to come off to me the way she did.

"Meanwhile," Kelechi said. "I was still on a mission to get to the bottom of the conspiracy gathering, right? So, that day... I was trying to find the right moment to talk to Chika Chioma."

"For the first time?" I asked.

"Officially, I would say so," She responded. "Therefore, it was not easy. I was not sure the kind of person Chika Chioma was, but from a general outlook, her laid back confidence and cool could come off a little bit intimidating, so I was not sure how to approach her. And plus, I was the reason why everyone was dragging her friend's name in the mud, so I was not sure whether it was even safe to."

I could imagine...

"It was particularly nerve wracking, because I knew I had just one chance to rub off on her the right way, if my plan was to gain trust," She said to me. "And, well, I never really fully mustered the courage to actually go up to her and say hi... Until I found the chance."

I kept listening.

"The free period before Last Period that last day of School, I was with Emeka and Dozie in the Media Room. The one upstairs in the School Hall, it was a perfect quiet and isolated spot away from our noisy and rowdy classmates. Nnaemeka had to work on the Last Day of School's Media Report Collection and Dozie had offered to help. I was not much of a help anyway, but I stuck around for moral support," She spoke bit by bit. "However, I was beyond shocked when Chika Chioma walked in on us, with some of her friends: Soma and Ebere, right there behind her."

There on was the point where I started to get a bit worried...

Because I had no idea where this story was going.

"I remembered seeing Chika and Dabeluchi together in School that day for a fair number of times, but they weren't with Soma and the Onuoha Twins. I was certain they did not come to School that day. So, you can imagine how surprised I was to see them, standing in their PJs, flip flops, and messy morning hair with Chika Chioma, barging in on us like they had some kind of secret, urgent agenda."

"Secret Agenda?" I frowned. "What was their agenda?"

And boy, she broke it down to me, word for word. As Kelechi told the story of what happened and how it happened, everything played like a movie scene in my head. I saw it all happening live, as though I were even a witness to it.

Her story telling abilities was good enough to have me see it all in 3d: from the moment that Nana had sat there against the Media Room couch seat, eyes focused and lips pursed in concentration as his fingers moved with light speed against the keys of his laptop. Chido, right by his side, coolly leaning back, watching the laptop screen and giving inputs here and there as his friend did the bulk of the work.

And according to how Kelechi had narrated her position in all of this, it would have been accurate to imagine that she was somewhere sitting, somewhat far away from the busy duo. Spine straight, legs crossed, eyes fixed on her phone screen and earpiece fixed in her ears as she spoke back and forth to her phone while using it.

Following the story still, it would have been an off guard situation when footsteps were heard getting close to the Media room, only to see the Igbo Sisters appearing through the doors. According to Kelechi, Chika had a straight look on her face, one that was almost professional in nature. Like the light skin cool girl was about to walk in and talk business, with hands stuffed into her sweat pockets and an air of swag hovering her chill, yet stoic stance.

Not to mention her besties behind her who low-key gave off the same energy: Somadina Best, apparently, was not smiling as much as she would have on a normal day, which made sense since her name had been heavily stained from the rumors of her drug addiction that period. Needless to say, it was the first time that Kelechi had actually seen her keep a dead, unimpressed face for such a long time.

And, Ebere Onuoha didn't have to do so much. With venomous eyes, snobby faces, pouting lips, and hands on akimbo, she radiated a heavy mean girl energy. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

They had all walked in and soaked in all the peace in an instant, stirring so much confusion in the air on their arrival. Kelechi who had been waiting for an opportunity with Chika had stopped for a moment, taking off one string of her earpiece in classic style. Unfortunately, they seemed to want to have no business with none other, but—

"Nnaemeka Obi."

The mentioned young man had blinked, taken a bit unawares by the straight forward confrontation.

"We have an offer for you."

It was Chika who had spoken for the gang.

And nonetheless, Chido hardly acted like he was fazed. The initial surprise seeing them was the most of the reaction he could care to give them. After that, he was back to the laptop, ignoring the presence of the Igbo Sisters like there were not even there.

Like it was not his business.

Kelechi, however, found it hard to mind her own business. Even when the Igbo Sisters had made it clear whom exactly they had really come for. Her eyes were on her phone screen, but her ears, heart and soul was on the Igbo Sisters confrontation of Nana.

"Me?" Nana Obi had a hand to his chest as he rose to his feet, the surprise in his pupils rising along side as he stared at the girls with pure innocence in his eyes. "Um, Is there any problem?"

"None," Chika had assured him with a quick smile. "But, we do need your help with something."

The curly haired kid lifted his brows in amazement, looking between Kelechi and Chido as though trying to get insight on how to react. With one awkward smile that showed his thick braces, he rubbed softly against the back of his neck.

"Um, okay, um, let me hear it then." He answered.

"We need to get a piece of information going on the School Media," Chika was straight forward. "And, unfortunately, we cannot get it done, unless we get through you."

Kelechi's ears had piqued to the highest at this point, her listening doubling its intensity.

"School Media?" Nana said, letting out another awkward chuckle. "Um, well, I am truly sorry to disappoint you, but contrary to how rumors' may have it, I am not affiliated to any of Castron High's Social Media pages. You've got the wrong guy."

Chika hardly budged.

In fact, the little smile tugging at the corner of her lips had lifted, showing itself more confidently. And with two strides, she stepped up closer to Nana, her composure still intact with hands dug coolly in her pockets and a little head tilt that caused her to get a better view of him.

"I think you misunderstood me." She spoke calmly to Nana.

A calmness that was deadly. Too deadly. Considering that small smile kept twitching on her face.

"Who is talking about the Social Media pages?" She asked him rhetorically, a little laugh rolling off her tongue with her words. "I am talking about Castron High's main Media page. The one legally connected to the School's main website, run by the School Authorities themselves. The one that students hardly give two fucks about. The one that parents inside and outside of Castron High are invested in. The one that occasionally makes headlines on prominent news channels like NTA and shit. The one you co-run with the School Authorities, Obi."

Nana took a little step back, his defenses down.

"Oh." He said.

Chika smiled brighter.

"So, you are our guy after all," She said.

He swallowed, nodding. "I guess so." 

"Good," She quipped, folding her arms. "So, what's up?"

At this point, Kelechi was too invested in the conversation to back down.

"You want something on the Media? No qualms, but there are protocols to follow though," Nana told her. "So, um, this is what we are going to do. I will send you my Email, and then, you forward your news to me. Attach any audios or videos or file documents where necessary and—"

"— Then, you take it to the Media immediately?" 

Nana paused, cut off in mid sentence.

"Well, it depends." He responded.

"On What?" Chika asked.

"If it passes the screening Test." He answered.

Chika hearing that, frowned. "Screening test?"

"Yes," Nana calmly responded to her. "I have to go through your news with a bunch of the members of the school authorities and if it passes the screening test, then give it two or three days and it is on the Media."

"What are the things considered in the Screening test?" Chika asked him.

"Well, the major thing is the Plagiarism check," He started off answering. "We have to ensure that the news is original for a start, and if it is, then we check the authenticity of other factors to ensure that it does not contain content that may be harmful to the school's reputation: like sensitive issues talked about in an insensitive light, frivolities and random school gossip, bad mouthing anything that has to do with the School, defamation of influential politicians and reputable public figures—"

"—And what if they should be defamed?" Chika cut him off again.

"Excuse me?" Nana raised a brow.

"Not every 'public figure' should be put in a light for glorification. What if they were genuinely awful people?" She fired him with a question.

"Um, I sincerely apologize," He answered lightly. "But, I don't make the rules."

"Then, break them." Chika deadpanned.

Nana did a double take, shocked to have her offer such a thing to him.

"I mean, come on, you don't 'sin' sometimes if it may be necessary?" She asked him, using the language he would understand. "If I told you that there was a bad 'reputable' man out there that deserved to be put in hand cuffs for the rest of his miserable life and all you had to do was break a few of Castron High's rules to get that justice, you wouldn't do it?"

"I don't know what this is about, Chika, but I am sure there are other options." He calmly retorted.

"So, bottom line, you are not going to do it," She said. "Right?"

"I am sorry," He said. "But, if you have a sneaky plan for a good cause, then it may not be the right plan after all. That's just how I see it."

"You don't understand, Nnaemeka." She said.

"Perhaps," He agreed. "But, until I am able to, I am sorry to not be of any help."

Unfortunately, Chika was not ready to relent just yet. She still tried to push or persuade Nana.

"Why don't you set aside your 'morals' for once and do something that would make a big change in someone else's life?—" 

"—And why don't you get it into your hard head that No means No." 

The air in the room thickened into Chlorine.

Chido rose from the seat, an air of authority around him, just as he finally barged into the conversation, though uninvited, to give Chika the boot.

Her friends seemed to be more offended by his raw attitude than Chika herself. Soma had been caught off-guard and Ebere had backed up, completely stunned, yet ready to bite back, with a load of words at the tip of her razor sharp tongue.

However, Chika barely reacted. Her lingering gaze transferred from Nana to Chido, calm and untriggered. Only her brow spoke, lifting in surprise at the uncalled attitude thrown at her.

"Excuse me?" She said to Chido, her voice had no edge or undertone of offence in it.

"He said No," Chido spoke again, folding his arms dominantly. "That's a cue for you to get out. We have a ton of Work to do before School closes, so if you don't mind, there is the door," He really gestured towards it for them, "Use it efficiently. Thank you."

Ebere lost her mind. In no time, she was foaming at the mouth, firing back at Chido immediately.

"Excuse you! Are you stupid or are you stupid?" She attacked him without waste of time. "Who do you think you are to talk to us like that? Does he think we would have ever crossed paths in this our lives or had the privilege to talk to us if not for the fact Chika insisted she wanted a favor from Nana? Nonsense! And, you, Chi Ma, are you actually going to take that from him?! Don't tell me you are actually going to take that?!—"

"—Relax, Ebere." 

Chika, surprisingly, had stopped her short in the middle of her rant, waving her off in dismission with a simple hand gesture.

"Calm down. I will handle this, yeah?" She said to the raging twin.

Kelechi had insisted that the air around Chika was too calm it looked like a set up. It seemed to not be trusted. Like there was some catch to it. A 'plot twist' of some sort.

And not breaking character, she took one bold, yet calm step towards Chido, getting close enough to ne able to look him close and dead in the eyes, the distance between them barely anything to write home about.

And Chido, of course, stood his ground too, staring right back at her without any aggravation in his body language. Needless to say, it was embarrassing how easily he had completely and tactfully ignored Ebere's dragon outburst and stood there, barely fazed by Chika's physical closeness.

So, the both of them just stood there, neither speaking to one another as the air around them, around everyone else in the room thickened and threatened to suffocate anything living in the room. 

"We apologize if we caused any trouble."

Unpredictably, Chika once again surprised everyone in the room.

"It was not our intention. We will use the door now," She quipped Chido a brief smile, and her brown eyes lighted with an odd glow as she added, "Efficiently."

She had dropped her guard down and Kelechi was clear more than ever that it was a deliberate action. She didn't feel threatened or intimidated, Chika simply decided not to fight. Whether it was an act of maturity or she had another sneaky motive behind it, she simply took blame, apologized, and saluted her way out of their presence, as Chido had ordered. 

And her friends left alongside with her.

"So, you still didn't talk to Chika?" I asked Kelechi after she narrated the entire thing to me.

"I did," She told me. "I couldn't bring myself to miss out on such an opportunity, so I followed them as they walked out. I ran after the Igbo Sisters."

I didn't need to have her explain what she did thereafter, I got the hint immediately.

"So, you used the opportunity to offer them help, since Chido and Nana had given them the boot," I suggested.

She nodded nervously, confirming my suspicions.

Again, I had gotten anxious to hear more. In fact, a bit annoyed too.

"So, Kelechi, what are you really trying to tell me?" I asked sincerely.

"First off, I was never going to do anything behind Chido or Nana's backs," She said, her tone assuring. "I just had to make them believe that I could, so they could open up to me. So, I could know what they were up to. Who they wanted to expose. I had a feeling it was all connected to Dabi in a way, and when I found out the plan was against her father, I knew I was right."

"So, they believed you?" I asked her again. "They trusted you that easily?"

"It was a bit difficult initially, but they needed something in short notice and I was the only hope they had of getting it, so yes, they had no choice eventually," She told me. "But, it was really difficult. That entire day was the scariest day of my life, there were moments they doubted me. And, badly. There were moments that I was even threatened if I did anything to stab them in the back. But since they could use me, I figured I could use them too. But then, later on that day, I met a dead end, Marcus, and something really bad happened."

The way she had said it...

Fear had gripped me.

"What happened?"

I even dared to ask.

Kelechi gulped, scaring me even more. But she told me. Everything.

"I didn't have much time for frivolities with them, Chika wanted their news alongside with the Media on the School Page that very day," She told me. "She had invited me over to Soma's house for a meeting and that was where they told me everything: About Dabi, her broken family, their plan, the conspiracy gathering, Chika's diary, everything. They even showed me the audio they had snuck in to post alongside, they poured everything out to me. But with a condition."

"A condition," I repeated, my heart literally beating out of my chest at that point.

"I couldn't leave until I had done what they wanted me to do for them," Kelechi told me. "Chika was absent from the meeting in Soma's house that day, but she gave all the orders from wherever she was. I had the email and password to the Media page Nana runs with the School Authorities, and Chika told me that I had to put up everything online for them. That I had to post the news about Dabi's family onto the Media."

My blood thickened, chills running through my veins in a flash.

"So..." I had swallowed. Hard. "D-Did you?"

"Not exactly," She hesitantly answered.

"What do you mean 'not exactly'?" I nearly snapped at her.

"Oh come on, Marcus, I could never do that to Nana!" She told me. "That would have been the ultimate betrayal. I could not bring myself to do such a thing to him. That could have even caused him an expulsion."

"So, what did you do?" I asked impatiently.

The question had tripped her a bit, and immediately, I was afraid of the answer.

But, I wanted to hear it. All of it.

"I was still hard on getting their full and total trust," She revealed to me. "So, I had to do something. But I swear, I had a back up plan and these girls completely outsmarted me."

My impatience was building up...

"The news about Dabi's family went viral on an anonymous Twitter account, an account that could not be traced or hacked to find out the person behind it," She said, looking at me with slightly trembling lips and fingers. "That anonymous account belonged to me, Marcus."

I remember my head splitting, a throbbing migraine hitting the sides of my head in brutal aggression.

"The account used to be an old Castron High Social Media page that stopped running years ago. All the posts were deleted, but many of the top tier CH pages that have over a hundred thousand followers and some, verified, still followed the account, so that was a way to attract them into this account and distract them away from the main School Media. But, before you attack me, I had thought it all through: the account was shadow banned and the Igbo Sisters didn't know that. Since it was shadow banned, no post made on it could be seen by its followers. It was basically a ghost account. So, I was certain that the post was going to be seen by anyone."

"Then, what happened?" I had to ask.

 "Somadina Best is too intelligent for her own age, Marcus," She said. "It didn't take two seconds after she put up the post that she discovered something was wrong. Instantly, she figured out the account was shadow banned and for a moment, I thought I had been caught up in my own scheme..."

Shit.

"...But, I genuinely pretended to not have a clue and I hated the fact that I had to lie my butt off to stay clean in their eyes," Kelechi said. "They became skeptical, and for safety measures, Soma connected my phone to her iPod, did some configurations and messed up with the algorithm. Right before my eyes, the ban was lifted. And worse, she locked me out of my own account."

Kelechi was practically shaking when she told me, the girl was petrified.

"The twins took the wheel from there, and the moment they did one or two, I watched the video start counting in thousands in a matter of seconds. It was a bloody nightmare." She confessed.

I listened, horrified myself.

"And Chika monitored the whole thing from start to finish," She told me. "She was making calls, sending messages by the second, making sure nothing went wrong." 

"Fuck." I had commented, my hand on my boiling hot head. "Fuck, Kelechi, fuck." 

So, there I was, after having my girlfriend find out about what her friends did in the most awful way she could have, drowning in my thoughts and worries about her. How she was taking it all. If I should have done things this way.

I had tried many times to tell her, but couldn't bring myself to be straight forward. So, I came off with hints and bits, things she must have missed: Like the day of the Committee Hang Out. And the day after that when she called me to spend time with her in her lonely dance class.

Now, I was regretting being so far away from her at a time she needed me the most.

But, I needed to find Kelechi though. I still needed to ask her some questions. Asides how Gadhafi ended up in the Hospital when it somehow should have been me or her in his place, I had a few more things concerning her story that I needed to understand.

Things that were not connecting.

And as though God was in heaven answering my prayers, a figure of an angel appeared before me as I sat there, exhausted near the large lonely pool in my serene backyard. In the haziness and dizziness around me, the blurriness that was becoming my vision, I could still make out its silhouette, the fine contour of the fine creature's form, in the fogginess of blue and gold that hovered beautifully around it.

Around her.

"Get up, Marcus." 

She spoke softly, daintily, her voice matching the tenderness of her warming presence.

"Kelechi?" I called her name.

Her laughter was like serenade. Healing in some way.

"You look stoned." She said bluntly, yet not judgmentally. "Come."

Sighing, I took her hand and let her guide me up to my feet. Her grasp was gentle, caring, like a motherly hold, and even though she was light in size, my staggering did not seem to make her lose balance. She steadied me, skillfully, holding me until my legs weren't shaking anymore.

"Thank you," I said to her.

I meant it.

For a long time, I had been a bit annoyed with her. As much as nothing was out rightly or directly her fault nor was it her attention to hurt anybody, I was annoyed at everybody who somehow had a hand in what happened to Dabeluchi: Her friends, Casper, even Kelechi.

But Kelechi only ever tried to help.

Even when she really didn't need to.

"I have a question though," 

I had to pop the conversation nonetheless. I did have a little question, one I couldn't quite understand or answer myself for a while since she had told me what she knew.

"Ask." She gently probed. "I am listening."

So, I fired on.

"I don't seem to understand," I began, "You said you needed to gain the trust of the Igbo Sisters. But by the time that they wanted you to expose the things about Dabi's family online, you already knew their plan because they had already told you. You already knew about the diary, Dabi's family, everything. You had gotten what you wanted to get from gaining their trust already, hadn't you? So, why did you stay in character? You could have just run away."

But as far as I remember Kelechi had stuck around even after that day. I remember the next day in the Committee Hangout, she was the Igbo Sisters the entire time. I had remembered visibly cringing when I even heard one of the twins nickname her 'Uwa Boo'.

If she had already found out what she needed to find out, then what was the point of lingering around? 

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Kelechi said to me.

I walked with her.

"Try me," I challenged.

The girl was an open book. In one sentence, she revealed something else that had never crossed my mind till this moment.

"After I stole Chika's diary, I found out—"

A death grip again latched around my throat, again.

"—That the Igbo Sisters know something about where Dabi's mother and brother are."

#Drinks concentrated bleach mixed with vinegar.

Um, how are we? 🌝

Did you see my inline comments and did you go back to the chapters? If you didn't, come back tomorrow by this same time, I promise I would have updated all the inline comments.😂🤲🏾

For now, bye!

I want to say see you next week, so God help me sha!♥️✌️