Hey guys, sorry for the long waits between chapters. I am really trying to be consistent, but it is one hitch after the other. It's well.

Anyways, apparently, the last chapter caused a mega uproar on top of the head of major characters that we did not expect to do some certain kind of things. And on that note, something in me is telling me that is chapter is exactly what you guys need right now. I don't know how you are going to take it or what opinions or conspiracy theories would come out of this chapter, but I can't wait nonetheless.

Just be reminded of something again, don't be too fast to judge anything in this book yet o. Your thoughts may be right, it may also be a misunderstanding, and it may be straight up wrong. But you know, let's see what conspiracies this chapter brings up. I honestly CANNOT wait lmfao!

Let's go! {Oh and the song for this chapter is I see Red and its in the Media. So, enjoy!}

~DABI~

"Look, Dabi, we can explain!"

"Dabi, please calm down and listen to us!"

"This sounds cheesy, but it's not what it looks like!"

"Look at us; let us talk about this!"

"Dabi, please..."

Their voices spoke at the same time, resonating everywhere at the same time. It was torture. First class torment. All the voices of people whom I would have never ever thought for once could do anything to betray me, trying to explain why they betrayed me.

People really expected to be given an ear to explain their betrayal.

With the way they all talked with speediness, anxiety, and fear, rapping a million and one words in two heart beats. Shrieking and spewing and stammering and stuttering. All in a desperate bid to be heard so desperately, by a person who could only stare at their moving mouths, suddenly losing the basic ability to comprehend a single word that came out of it while her heart broke into a trillion pieces at every second that reality dawned on her that this...

This was real.

This was actually happening.

With each second of its dawning reality, I felt multiple lashes whipping at my back and the coldest splashes of cold water hitting against the most sensitive spot at my back, every second I felt everything, but nothing at the same time.

And the worst part of it all is that everyone just kept talking.

And talking. 

And talking. 

And talking.

 And fucking talking.

Everyone, except her.

I wasn't angry. I... I couldn't be. I suddenly did not have the ability to feel an emotion as fierce as anger and I didn't understand why. All I felt was a dullness. That was all it was:  a very dull, sickening feeling at the pit of my gut. Blunt and uncomfortable. Just fucking dull.

Occasionally, that feeling stayed there in one spot, a dull, hollow ache, deflating my entire body defenselessly. Dropping my shoulders down in disappointment and leaving me in a conquered stance, confused and shocked. Absolutely defeated.

And as my stare remained quietly on them, absorbing their silence, the air in the room became more difficult to breathe. Sharing a room with them became intoxicating, a punishment. The sight of them was enough to turn and twist the inside of me, having every content of my growing disgust rising from inside me and finding its way up my throat.

While a part of me wanted to vomit, another struggled with the pain of the hole that was digging inside of my chest, deepening with every second that passed as I looked at Chika.

It felt like there was an injury right there inside my chest.

A burning injury that worsened, carving itself right there where my heart should have been.

My lips were shaking, vibrating against each other, as a thousand questions lingered at the tip of my tongue, and with eyes that burned with hotness, brimming with hot heavy tears, I dreaded the answers to the questions that I wanted to ask her.

She noticed.

I saw she had noticed.

The slight shift in the impassiveness of her face made me know. The way it seemed she had broken character for a minute, morphing from that rigid, non-feeling, heartless creature she was feigning to a more subtle, solemn person. The softness that subtly showed in her brown eyes. The way she looked at me like the first string of tears that streamed down my face broke all her defenses, I could have mistaken the sudden weakness in her demeanor to be genuine care.

And then, the silence in the room....

With the way the entire room had fallen silent immediately, with all eyes falling on me as little sob sounds escaped my lips.  I tried to hold in, tears I tried to control, they were all beyond my power now. What hurt more? I couldn't decide. Was it the betrayal? Or the fact that the Sisters all stood there, watching me cry a river, watching my legs get weaker and my body slowly crumbling as I doubled over onto the ground.

Watching me with no emotion.

"I-I don't understand, Chi," 

That was my voice, but it barely sounded anything like me. 

It was too fragile, too shaky, like a little confused child trying to make sense of a big, graphic situation. And before I knew it, I was feeling the cold, hard ground underneath me, hugging my shivering body as I sat on it, staring at the ground that blurred away in my vision as the tears ran down. And they just stood there. Stood there and watched me in cold silence.

For the first time ever, I cried and the Sisters did not comfort me.

I felt like dying.

"But the I-Igbo Sisters a-are g-good people..."

My own teeth were clattering against each other and my lips touching each other as they trembled the more, a thousand thoughts running through my head that I tried to debunk.

"You guys would n-never do a-anything t-to hurt m-me..."

I wish they could debunk me.

But, hell, the uncomfortable silence tore me to shreds.

My hands, legs, entire body was freezing. And it was not the cold.

A bullet lodged and remained in my heart, and in my head, I struggled between hating them and understanding them, bad mouthing them and defending them, crying because of them and crying because I was misunderstanding them. I was so, so confused. So, so hurt. Yet, so, so defensive of them.

Fuck. That little part of me still clung onto the pathetic hopes that there was something I was not understanding. For the first time in my life, I was horrified to jump into conclusions, even when the facts were glaring before my eyes like a bitch.

Anything the Sisters told me right now, even if it was a lie, I would have believed.

I'd prefer to live in the lie that they were good friends, the best Sisters, than sink into the truth that they hated me all along and wanted my doom. God knows I was willing to believe anything these girls told me right now...

But, Jesus, their Silence.

"W-Why won't you say anything?" I asked in anxiety, my heart was beating out of my chest and I felt my own breath on my tongue. "Why are so you quiet? Say something... Please."

Chika looked like she wanted to, only to hold back whatever it was at the tip of her tongue.

"Please..." I begged her.

My head felt light. Very light. Like clouds. I had to hold it to steady myself. 

"Chika, please," I became more desperate, more pathetic. "Please, Chika, I am begging you.—"

"—Dabeluchi, whatever we say at this point will just make things worse."

I stopped.

Gulped.

Fuck it, it felt like I swallowed a grenade.

"There is no point," Chika spoke again, and for the first time since she had walked in here. Her voice was stiff, hardly any emotion to it. "Nothing that we say will change anything that you feel about us right now." She said it like it was a deadpan. Like a Zombie. 

The lack of emotion in her voice scattered me.

I stared at her, eye lids fluttering as my anxiety rose by the second. My breath was really hot, I knew because I could taste it on my tongue, feel it under the crease of my nose, even in my ears. Hot air. I gaped with it, sucking in and out as I stared at Chika with shaky, terrified hands.

"So, you—"

I stopped, choking.

My own words were strangling me. Or maybe it was the tension in the room. Or the weight of this betrayal. Something had my neck in a vice grip, strangling air out of me for a second.

"So," I managed to squeal through the irritation in my throat as I asked Chika, "So, you'd rather stand there and watch me suffer?"

For a moment, it flashed again — that subtle look of softness in her eyes.

Or sheer pity.

"It has never been my intention to have you suffer,"

I hated that hint of genuineness that glowed in her irises as she said that, that bit of sincerity that accompanied the ever subtle tenderness in her thickly calm voice. 

"Never, Dabeluchi." She affirmed. She sounded like she had made an oath.

I hated that I was not convinced. I wanted to be convinced. If she was swearing an oath, then she must have been saying the truth. But quickly, oaths were starting to lose its solidity to me. It was our thing, our way of keeping promises to each other.

Emphasis on 'Was'.

Because they all felt empty right now to me.

"Never," Chika repeated.

It was as though she could read me, like she knew what was going through my head, and by all means, she was trying to assure me. And I wanted to be assured, I really did.  But, the more I forced myself to believe the words that came out of her mouth, the colder I felt.

I hated to feel this way, to feel this anger  towards her, but the more I forced it away, the more it fought for its rightful place in me. This rage I couldn't fathom, building a mountain of bitterness in the inside of my soul.

Not the kind of rage that makes you want to fight and throw things.

Or the kind that made you scream and pull out your hair in frustration.

It was the kind that weakened you, petrified you, and shook you everywhere, from the sole of your fingers to the base of your lips, the kind that made you tremble in the dread and fear of the unknown. 

"Really though?" I asked in a shaky tone, holding myself in a grim, shivering embrace as I stared at them from the cold, hard floor. "Really, Chika?" I zeroed in my disappointment on her, cringing slightly at how suffocated my voice sounded, how the strangled whispers that came out of me mirrored the brokenness inside of me. "You cannot stand here and tell me that it is never your intention for me to suffer, because Chika, you of all people—"

"—Dabeluchi.—"

"—You of ALL fucking people, Chika!" I shrieked out, erupting the fire in me through my scream. "You of all people should have fucking known how much I would have suffered if you did this! Do you even know much it makes me suffer right fucking now: mentally, physically, emotionally, to come to terms that the same people whom I trusted with my life: the same people whom have been been with me for years, walking with me, laughing with me, eating with me, FUCK! The same FUCKING people who have been fighting for me, crying for me, crying with me.—"

"—Dabeluchi, I—"

"—Fuck, you made me trust you the most, Chika! You housed me when I had no where else to turn to! You took me in, you treated me like a fucking Sister! You made me live with your family, eat your food, sleep in your bed, free of charge! You made me fucking trust you and then, you go behind my back and—"

"—It's not like that, Dabelu—"

"You made me feel pretty tonight, Chika! When you came to the mirror and told me I looked amazing, even when I didn't believe it. That's what you do, Chika, even when I don't believe it, you uplift me. You make me see myself in the best light, you make me hate myself less; you fucking held my hand through the bullshit I was going through, not just this term, but for years! You have fought for me on countless occasions. You got suspended in SS1 because of me, Chika!

 You picked up my inconvenience when no one else was able to, and you always do something, anything to make me better. To help me. To save me. Because that is the kind of person you are, Chika Chioma. The kind of Sister who will go beyond any reasonable and unreasonable doubts to be there for me, for the Sisters. To protect us, and not to harm us. You would walk through fire if you had to! So, you think I am not suffering right now, trying to grasp the logic that you were a terrible person all these while? You think its easy for me to accept that you are a bad person!—"

"—Please, let me talk.—"

"—How do you expect that I am not suffering, trying to understand that the very person whom I trusted the most, the people whom I had cried to, were the same people responsible for my tears. I expected you all to have my back any day, any time, and yet, my own Sisters chose to stay behind it.—"

"—I can explain.—"

"EXPLAIN WHAT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Explain WHAT, Chika! How the FUCK can you possibly come up with a good reason for this! How can you explain why you deceived me for years and how it should be fucking justified?!"

She backtracked, holding back a number of words at the tip of her tongue.

When I wanted her to speak, she didn't speak.

And when I didn't want to hear it, she was more interested in cutting me off.

"Was it fun?" I asked her.

She stuttered.

Chika Chioma could fucking stutter.

I laughed in more bitterness.

"No, tell me," I said, posing the question to the rest of the entire group who could do nothing more than stare quietly the entire time. "Tell me. Was it fun to watch me be so oblivious this entire time? To watch me be so dumb? How many times did you guys laugh at me? At how stupid I was? I want to know."

They all stared at me quietly, having nothing to say. The looks in their eyes held a lot of emotions, all of them, from Soma to Ebere, and even Casper; I couldn't decipher if it was guilt, but at the same time, I couldn't understand why they would rather keep quiet and respond to my question with utter silence.

So, I faced Chika again — the only person who was ready to talk to me.

Even looking at her gutted me.

It felt as though my insides were being dug out while I was alive, each second I looked at her. It was agony. Pure agony.

Once again, I was choked up. With all the anger and bitterness building up in me, my body was too weak to accommodate. The best way it could cope was to stay, seated still on the cold hard ground, letting tears stream down my face.

I was angry.

So, so angry.

For the first time in my life, I was furious with my friends.

And all I could do was sit down on the floor, cry, and ask useless questions.

"What did I ever do to you?" Earnestly, I needed to know. With hands that hugged my knees, steadying my shaking limbs, I stared up at them, at Chika in particular, "What did I ever do to you you? D-Do you— Do you hate me?" I looked at her, shaking in my own realization and horror, staring at the face of the person I trusted more than myself. "Do you hate me, Chika?"

My question seemed to do a number on her. 

A heavy number.

I saw it with the way the emotions in her face shifted, twitched, like they were suddenly triggered.

Slowly, her face was morphing into something that I could not pin point from its slow transition: a darker, weightier expression started to hover on her light skin face, like a thick cloud of something. Something strong. Something hard. Something I started to decipher was... 

Was...

Anger.

Anger?

I couldn't believe it as I was seeing it. That she was the one who was getting angry. She thought she had the audacity to be getting angry. After she betrayed me like she did.

Chika didn't fret or scream. With what looked like a growing rage I could not understand, she reserved an insane, unbelievable calmness. But even so, as she started to take cool steady steps towards the old, rickety bed by the corner, I could see the rays of fury, every speck of it, oozing off her calm, collected demeanor.

Best believe she was livid. For some reason I couldn't understand.

And, sincerely, I wondered what she was thinking or doing, and my eyes did not leave her until she was sitting at the edge of the bed, hunched over with the back of her elbows resting against her thighs, and her gaze circling the tiles on the floors.

She seemed to be collecting her thoughts. What thoughts? I genuinely wanted to know. Her golden long dress was truly a contrast to the boyish, hunched over, leg-spreading posture she had taken upon herself, and for a hard, solid ten seconds, she spoke not one word. 

I stared at her. Quietly. Angrily. Anger prevailed in our silence.

Until she broke it.

"Dabeluchi."

She started off by calling my name, her voice was a solid, firm tone that hoarded all the tension in the room.

"What?" I grudgingly responded.

With hands clasped together, Chika carried her gaze from the floors and transferred it up to me, retaining her calm, untriggered posture as she spoke.

"You do understand the implications of what I did, right?"

Her perfectly arched brow lifted at me, questioningly. 

Waiting for me to answer.

And when I didn't say a word, she carried on.

"I bit the tail of a wounded tiger, babe," She said to me, a bitter, somewhat manic  smile lingering at the tip of her rose coloured lips. "I threw dirt on the name of a dangerous and blood thirsty man like Ugochukwu Elliot Orji.—"

My father.

"—I am basically threading on a deadly dangerous path that could cost me everything in one snap of a finger. I am messing with a man who can utter one word and my life is gone, a man who could not only end me, but end the existence of my entire family and everyone that I know, Dabeluchi.—"

She wasn't wrong.

"— And, Dabeluchi?" She called me again. "You think I am doing all these... Because I hate you?"

That kinda hit me differently.

Or rather confused me all the more.

"Make it make sense," She continued, saying, "Why in the heavens, hell, or this bloody earth would I make such a risk, go this far, for a person I hate."

I looked at her, tongue tied and more confused, as I thought of an answer that would make sense.

Chika was angry. For someone who had done what she had done, she sure had some nerves. And, I recognized that particular look of anger on her face, that very one that mixed in with disdain and disappointment tangled up with a little bit of hurt.

Or a lot of hurt actually.

The kind she preferred to cover up with a mask of fury, as though to appear stronger.

To pretend like she was not seconds away from crying, showing weakness.

I recognized that look.

I recognized that look all too well.

And as I stared at that pretty face that masked hurt with anger, it all started making more sense to me...

That was the exact look on Chika's face that day.

That awful, heart wrenching day that she told us about her father. 

A humorless laugh escaped my lips as her question resounded in my head again;

"Why in the heavens, hell, or this bloody earth would I make such a risk, go this far, for a person I hate."

I cocked my head to the side, scoffing bitterly.

"Why wouldn't you?" I asked her back. "Your father, Chika.—"

"Dabeluchi, I understand you are angry, but you really don't have to remind me of that godforsaken man!" She seethed through her teeth, fuming. "Don't you dare!—"

"—This," I shook my head in disdain, "Chika, this whole risk you are taking, these lengths you are going through: putting your life in danger, risking multiple lives at the same time, betraying your friend without a second thought; all these you are doing is a result of your anger towards your father.—"

"Stop talking about him!" She snapped, voice shaking.

"So, I'm right," I continued, livid. "You're looking for an indirect means to get revenge on your father, right, Chika?"

"—Stop!" She was nearly ripping out her weaves at this point, shrieking like she was in a lake of fire and torture, the veins of her neck, eye lids, and forehead boldening and on the verge of snapping. " Fuck! Stop! Stop it!"

"Do you know how INSANE that sounds, Chika?!" I was screaming at her. "Putting everyone else around you at a disadvantage because YOU are on a quest for some self vindication!"

Her hands were turning pale, the blood in it seizing, as she squeezed onto her hair with every physical strength in her.

"That is so fucking selfish!" I shouted, enraged. "Do you know how messed up that is, Chika Chioma?! Fixing ONLY yourself at the expense of others! You damned the consequences. It doesn't matter who ends up broken, innocent or guilty, all that matters is YOUR exoneration! You! You! YOU!—"

"—For God's sake, I am trying to save YOU, Dabeluchi Orji!"

Her voice exploded out of her, startling me into sudden muteness.

Along with the edge in her voice came a fierceness that she could have only been holding inside of her, ripping through her ferociously. And truth be told, there was something about the way she said it that made me feel severity. 

A heavy kind of severity, like we were walking on a thin thread that was about to snap.

It scared me a little and I couldn't ascertain why.

So, I stopped talking...

At least, momentarily.

"I don't need saving," I eventually said to Chika. "Especially if saving me means having to deceive me first."

Chika looked at me like I had shot her an arrow to the heart, a chilling cackle quaking her shoulders as she shook her head.

"No, Dabeluchi, you won't do that," She said, rising from the edge of the bed and shaking her head with another bitter laugh. "You are not going to stand here and pretend like you didn't feel even the slightest bit of relief. A part of you never ever felt even the tiniest bit glad that finally, everyone knows the kind of man your father is. That finally, after years and years of torturing you, your mother and brother, justice is on its way and that messed up home wrecking wife beater of your father is closer and closer on his way to get what he truly deserves. His comeuppance.—"

I stepped back when she got close.

To think that was a reflex action that came with me being around strangers: the discomfort, awkwardness, and paranoia that came with it. And to think there would ever come a day I would feel that around a girl like Chika Chioma.

"—Because that's what people like your father deserve, Dabeluchi. Every man on the planet like Ugochukwu Elliot Orji does NOT deserve a happy ending and you know that!" She pointed accusingly at me, her trembling fingers were shaking just as hard as the rest of her. "Because how is it fair, Dabeluchi? How the FUCK is it fair?! How is it fair that we have to be the ones to suffer at the end of everything? How is it fair that people like us have to be so goddamn unfortunate to be brought into a world where we are the ones who have to suffer for their own actions?!"

Chika was red with fury, every part of her. I shuddered at the potential of her rage, the veins on all the sides of her head and neck that popped dangerously, matching the aggression of her anger, the vileness of her bitterness, the vengeance in her demeanor. 

"They steal our joy, kill our peace, destroy our purpose of existence!" She raged on, eyes red with a murderous, nearly demon possessed glare. "They cheat, they lie, they abuse in every form they have the power to: emotionally, physically, mentally. They wreck destruction, disability and havoc to the family, rip us apart and rip our sanity along with it, and they do this without a single care in the world, Dabeluchi, then at the end of the day, what, they go scot free?" 

Something heavy started to weigh on my shoulders.

Heavy and Uncomfortable.

In turn, it triggered that disturbing feel lingered at the pit of my gut, nauseating me as I analyzed, although slowly, the painful and bitter reality of everything she was saying.  

And, how she was saying it too: the bitter certainty in her tone, the lividity that shook her hot red body, the way she occasionally grimaced like the words in her mouth had a bitter, unbearable taste, the way she cringed as though she couldn't stand the suffocation stench that came with such a wicked, unfair reality.

I knew because I could feel these things too.

Just the way she was feeling it.

"They go scot free," She shook her head, laughing resentfully, "They go scot free and then, guess what? We get to be the ones to suffer for something we did not do. We have to be the ones to struggle in this wicked, unfair world, trying to fix ourselves! We have to be the ones to battle all sorts of dark, suffocating feelings: Shame, anger, resentment, confusion, existential crises, trust issues, fear and paranoia, low self esteem, depression, anxiety, insanity.—"

My breath hitched in my throat.

Chika stopped talking. Momentarily. As though she needed a moment to catch her own breath herself. The uncomfortable quietness that ensued between us for that short moment of reflection on the unfairness surrounding this situation spoke volumes.

And, I stood there, deafened by the loudness of the torturing silence, boning every whiplash of disdain, while she ran her hands through her hair in clear, undisguised frustration.

"—But, then, they go free."

She said this with a whisper; it was clear how tired she was, it showed in every involuntary action her body did: from the aimless pacing to the ragged breathing, the messiness her hair had become as a result of raking her fingers aggressively through it one too many times than necessary. 

Chika was tired, yet so restless. So angry, so vengeful. Like a lion wounded in battle, vengeful and filled with loath, ready to pounce on its attacker, even though it was bleeding from the side and limping on one foot. Even if it was worn out, fatigued, completely weak and vulnerable, it still wanted to charge, damning all the consequences.

Truth be told, many times I had failed to recognize Chika, and now was one of those times. Yes, she was always a fighter, and yes, she never stayed on the ground even if she managed to get there. But something about the rawness of her emotions right now felt uncomfortable to behold; she rarely or never showed herself in this light, as though she were one second from ripping the weaves off from her hair, one second away from tearing the skin off her body, one second away from screaming until she ruptured her throat and started to bleed from her nose.

I had never seen her so battered, confused, and angry. Self destructive. And, easily, one would have conclude her daring behavior for boldness, sort of like the undeterred lion from before. And maybe, Chika was a brave, young girl...

But...

As I stood there and watched her, observing the subtle shaking of her fingers and hands, as she basked and feigned a 'courageous' rage, I saw past what she would have wanted me to see.

What she wanted no one to see.

Fear.

I saw Fear.

And, a bit of remorse too.

But Fear...

And, fuck, a shit load of it.

Chika Chioma was, the least to say, petrified.

Although I couldn't pin down the angle of her fear, it shook me how hard she tried to cover it up, how much she forced herself to believe that was the last thing she felt. How she was torturing her own self, trying to mask in feelings she didn't want to have... 

But I could see it in her. The fear in her eyes, the lost that accompanied it. The softness in the glow of her eyes, one that showed and told me a thousand stories, all about the brokenness that dwelled in her spirit and lingered in the depths of her soul. When I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. 

Chika, whom I had always seen as an unmovable mountain, a fearless creature, was just... Human.

As I stared at the lost, broken girl before me,

all I could see was me.

"Dabeluchi," 

I felt worms crawl down my back, goosebumps covering my skin, as she called my name with a voice that sounded like mine.

"What if," She said to me, her moist eyes following mine carefully, "What if after everything your father put you through—"

Blood and Fire.

Memories of blood and fire were triggered in me as I recalled all the horrors we had to face through because of that man who called himself a father.

From Delilah, his mistress. The Devil's Mistress. Hell in a red dress. A wicked witch who had her long, decaying nails latched around the throat of my father, having him gladly give her the absolute power to control his entire family. And, while he sat there with a glass of champagne and a bouquet of roses for her, she turned him, his wife and his children into her own personal slaves, tormenting us with their sinister version of 'Love'.

A Love he could even kill us for. 

And, my mother. A woman I knew loved him with all her heart. Because how could a woman stay with a man who had zero respect for her if she didn't love him. Only people who were drowning in toxic, deadly love were that blinded. It didn't matter if the Love was unrequited, it didn't matter if he beat her to a bloody pulp everyday, if he strangled her and set her on fire for disrespecting his new lady in the house they shared; it didn't matter if she had to give up her wealth for him, if she had to cry and scream to God every night to either heal her marriage or take her life before the next morning. It didn't matter if she was treated like a servant, a bought slave, or an animal in the house of the man she married...

It only mattered that she loved him.

And one day, he would 'change'.

Then, Stephen...

Stephen, my brother, whose voice I hadn't heard in ten years. Sworn to a life of silence from trauma, he walks around the house, still trapped in the mind of the seven year old little boy I used to play with once upon a time, the only thing capable of giving him joy being those old broken toys and long beheaded action figures. And of course, those scribbles in his drawing book that he never let anyone see.

My brother never smiled, he never cried either. The only thing closest to an emotion I ever saw in him came out once in two blue moons. It was Fear. And only two times had I ever seen that look of horror on his face;

The first time being that day in the Living Room when Mum almost had a breakdown, pleading and crying that he at least say one word to him, and I remembered he stayed uncooperative until the very moment that his eyes had met with Delilah.

The second time was when I had looked through his drawing book, and he had caught me.

For years now, my brother had remained a mystery to me. I started to fear that maybe, he was even starting to forget who I was. 

There was me, then.

I was another living proof of how much my father had destroyed his children. 

Honestly, at this point, I didn't believe I needed to explain to anyone how. One way and the other, this man had singlehandedly ruined all of us, broken all of us, terrorized the entire home that he, as a man, was obligated to protect.

Then, what if? What if after all these...? After EVERYTHING this man has done to us...

"—he wins?"

My eyes reverted to Chika, her rhetorical question hanging the tension in the air on a thin rope.

And, I could hear the beating of my heart, our hearts, in the eerie silence; all the way, those two words were hanging at the very tip of my shaky tongue.

"God forbid."

Chika stepped up to me, again.

In one quick action, she had closed the space between the both of us and this time, I didn't step away. Not even from that narrowed look in her eyes that zeroed in one me, concentrating with a hundred percent focus. 

"Look," She spoke again, "I know that my actions may have caused you to feel otherwise, but Heaven knows that I do love you and I do care about you from the bottom of my heart..."

Again was that sincerity in her eyes, the very one I had once made up my mind tonight on that she was manipulating me with. But, there was something about the desperation in her voice that was starting to make me feel otherwise.

"Dabeluchi, I am your friend."

I stared at her, looking for reasons to either believe or not believe her.

"And, I am genuinely sorry to say it, but I will not sit down and watch you make the same mistakes I made," She told me, a dead certainty punctuating her words. "Because, trust me, in the long run, I know how this all will end."

A sigh left me as I shook my head, exhausted.

"Chika, you cannot know everything.—"

"—Well, I know that you are terrified," She said in a deadpan. "You are terrified to make a move. To do something. To speak out about what's happening in your home. And, I understand, you're afraid. Of everything. And, Dabz, you may think you have solid reasons why its better you keep quiet about what you go through, but believe me—"

"—I don't think, Chika," I pitched in immediately, clarifying. "I don't 'think' I have better reasons why its better to shut up about all these. I know I should keep it all to myself. You don't understand, Chika. My father is a dangerous man. A very dangerous man. And, everyone who has ever tried to get involved in our family affairs—"

 "—Winded up dead."

She completed for me, impassively.

I backed up, taken off guard for some reason.

For every reason, to be honest. 

"Everyone who has ever tried to get involved in your family affairs, thereby crossing Chief Ugochukwu Orji, winded up dead." She said, repeating it all again. "I am aware, Dabeluchi."

I moped at her, wondering in my head the extent to which Chika even knew.

No, really...

How much information did this girl have to feed herself in the process of this entire scheme?

"I know a lot about your father, babes," She told me easily. "More than you would like to admit you do too." She said that like she was challenging me onto something.

And, I refused to give in to a threat I did not understand.

"Your father has some dark secrets, right?" Chika said, looking at me like she expected some sort of input from me, and when I gave none, she carried on, "He is a hard man to discover. A difficult person to keep tabs on too. But, trust that I know everything. Everything, Dabeluchi. I know what he is capable of doing, what he has done in the past," She looked at me closely, a terrifying carefulness in her eyes. "And, what he is going to do in the future.—"

I ignored the lump that formed in my throat, and my next instinct was to cut Chika off.

"You shouldn't be keeping tabs on a man like my father."

She regarded me attentively.

"It's a dangerous thing to do," I told her. "It's very dangerous, Chika."

"And so is sitting back and letting things happen," She easily countered me. 

Again it came, that uncomfortable tugging at the pit of my stomach that aroused every time I hated to admit that somehow, even though it sounded bat shit crazy, just somehow, she may have been right.

"You're in 'surrender mode' right now, Dabz," She said to me. "I would know because I have been there, before. Dabeluchi, I have been you before."

The thudding inside my chest sped up a beat. It became more and more aggressive.

"And, if you can see right through and decipher that I am not bullshitting you, I reckon you take my advice, b," She shook her head, assuring me a terrifying fact next. "It will not end well."

I swallowed. Hard.

"Because in life, Dabeluchi, you don't surrender," She said to me. "It doesn't matter what the stakes are, you get up, you charge head first, you strike with a fist, you knock out, you win."

"Life is not one of those your underground fight clubs, Chika," I said.

"Wrong," She debunked. "Life is a fight, Dabeluchi." Her tone was solid, almost threatening. "Everyone fights one way or the other: For food, for water, for a roof over their head, for a means of fucking survival, Dabeluchi. You don't lay low and take what Life is going to throw at you unless you want to end up a dead man."

I face palmed, frustrated.

"You can't fix my family, Chika; you will just end up getting yourself hurt," 

"Well, best believe I will not 'surrender' either, Dabz."

"You are writing yourself a suicide note," I warned her, desperately. "You can't fix everything, especially when it has to do with my family. There are too many broken things, too many shattered pieces, you will hurt yourself picking them up.—"

"—I told myself the exact same excuse many years ago," Chika cut me off, a heavy undertone in her voice. "And, I know you enough to know that if anyone doesn't force you to do something, if anyone doesn't quack you out from that surrender mode, you will just end up doing the same thing that I did: Living in fear and keeping your mouth shut instead of seeking help, wallowing in the fear of all the horrible consequences that you could be subjected to if you spoke up, being embarrassed to even speak up. Your hands will keep remaining tied with those chains of paranoia and you will think its better to stay low and surrender. To bury it all. But, Dabeluchi Orji, do you want me to tell you what happens next?"

A lump froze in the middle of my throat, and so did my breath.

"Yes."

I can't believe I even had the nerve to answer.

And gladly, Chika didn't relent to tell me.

"What happens next is that at the very last minute, when you see everything crumbling down beyond what you can control, when your reality starts to be on a weight scale between life and death, you will try to fight back against your father," She rapped on, her words coming out in measured speed. "But, then, it would be too late."

The weight in my throat was enlarging, threatening to choke the little air out of me.

"I—"

"—I don't think you will be able to understand me when I say you will never be able to forgive yourself afterwards."

Chika spoke with so much certainty that it terrified me. No one without experience spoke that surely, without hesitation, assured that they were speaking facts. It truly terrified me to imagine what could have actually been left of us if we were subjected longer to my father and his mistress's treatment. With Mum barely becoming a shadow of herself, I wondered how much more she would have been able to take...

Chika's Mum, for one, didn't last long.

And, I didn't need a saint to tell me what angle Chika's regrets formed in. The lost in her eyes were enough for me to know, it was more than enough to show me the extent to the grief that she was still suffering. Even after so many years.

I felt my heart break and fold over for her all over again.

Just like that night she had cried her eyes out to us about how she lost her mother.

Losing people was by far the most traumatic experience a person could go through; it tore you up and ate you inside. The gutting feeling that came with it, forcing you to come to terms with the fact that you were never going to see them again. It didn't matter if you were unprepared to lose them. There was nothing you could do, but sink into the torturing reality.

A torturing reality that you would rather erase from your mind, if you had the power. God, if you had the power, you could even go ahead to create an alternate reality, one which they existed in, one which they never left. But in reality, these things were impossible. Some things could only stay and live in your imagination. Or completely just not exist.

"Do you think you will ever be able to forgive yourself if anything went wrong?" She asked me, the shakiness of her voice rose goosebumps on my skin and the question sent chills down my spine. "With your mother? Your brother? If anything went wrong, do you ever think you could be able to forgive yourself, knowing that you could have done something, anything, other than sitting back and letting it continue, just because you were 'afraid'?"

Each word she said had her voice losing its firmness and thickness that it was used for, with every syllable, her tone shifted more and more into something more frail, breaking by the second.

"Do you think you can really get over that, Dabz?" She asked me, her blood shot eyes flickering with a trigger, lips quivering hard, her emotions rising with the frustrated, regretful pitch of her voice. "Do you think you could ever get over the fact that instead of keeping quiet and watching your family fall apart, you could have seeked help? Saved them? Got them justice? Instead, all you did was sit back and watched them suffer, because not only were your hands tied, but YOU WERE A SICK, LITTLE NINE YEAR OLD WEAKLING WHO COULDN'T FIND THE FUCKING BALLS TO FIGHT BACK AND SAVE THE PEOPLE YOU FUCKING CARED ABOUT!—" 

The air in the room was hotter.

Unbearably.

It was easy to forget that there were more than just two people, me and Chika, in the room, but there was no debate that everyone in here could feel it too. That sudden suffocation thickness that lingered in the air as we witnessed Chika's composure snap and break and fold into something vulnerable. 

And Vulnerability was not something we easily saw off her. So, yes, that explained the deafening silence that lingered between all of us. And, as I stood there, I knew we all felt the same thing for Chika. 

Pity.

And, I knew she hated that.

Nonetheless, I couldn't help it. It broke me. Beyond words, really. To see her beat herself so much for something she somehow thought she had the power to avert. Honestly, I didn't know how she did it, how she took the responsibility to deal with such a damaging amount of Guilt.

I could never.

Honestly, I would have run from it.

Nonetheless, it did break me. It broke me how much weight she carried on her shoulders for so many years. How she hated a version of herself so much over something that was truly beyond that little nine year old girl's control.

Unfortunately, sympathizing with her was not an option. I could tell from her demeanor that even the pity gazes we all gave her in our quietness only frustrated her the more. Drove her absolutely crazy.

"Chika.—"

"—Fuck me."

Frustrated by her vulnerability, she ran her hands through her hair again, a sigh escaping her as she turned those bloodshot eyes away from me and weighed in the gravity of her explosion. 

An explosion she clearly hated to show us. Again.

She looked like she regretted it. Like she was embarrassed by it. It broke me all the more. She had been accustomed to feeling weak for so long, so long that it became a stigma for her. Her biggest fear now — Weakness.

Even showing it terrified her.

I was surprised at how much I had softened for her, the reason for my anger previously momentarily leaving my memory.

"It's okay, Chi," I said to her. "It's actually okay."

Maybe she needed to hear it.

Maybe.

If that would help.

Chika had to understand that it wasn't every time she had to front the tough baddie in front of us. She had to understand that it was okay to break, or cry, or show emotions she misunderstood as being 'weak'. 

After all, she is a human being.

Not Batman.

 "Let me ask you something, Dabeluchi." 

I perked up, breath seizing for a moment there.

"Go ahead."

Chika took one deep breath. Then, another. It was a desperate, deliberate effort to hide the loss of composure around her.

"My ultimate goal is to help you, to prevent you from making the mistakes I made,' She started off saying to me. "But, what if a part of me also wants to seek some self vindication and maybe indirect vengeance for my father... Does that make me a bad person?"

"Well, I—Well. You. Er.—"

I stuttered.

Shamelessly.

Indeed, I was confused on how to respond to that question. I never felt she was a bad person, not even after finding out what I found out tonight. It was the strongest point of debate for me, although, and I didn't know how to pretend otherwise.

But, Chika wanted an answer from me.

"Answer," She urged me on. "Does that make me the Villain?"

"Chi, if this is because of what I had said earlier, I—"

"—Because you said I was sick and selfish for wanting that exoneration for myself and even possible revenge against him, and I genuinely want to know if that being a part goal for me makes me such a bad person.—"

"—I was angry, Chi. And, I think I had the right to be!—"

"—Dabi, I understand that you are and I can't blame you, but I just want to understand if you would see me as a bad person if I told you I wanted the worst for my father!" She cut me off, venom dripping off her bile-bitter, seething tone. A tone that shook me to the core and out of my comfort zone. "Am I a bad person, huh, Dabi?"

I stared at her, unsure of what to say in response to this question that directed to me from a place of raw, undisguised resentment.

"If I told you," She stepped up once, saying, "That I wanted him to suffer for what he did to us. If I told you that I wanted to see him suffer in his old age and make him cry blood and beg our dead mother for forgiveness. If I wanted to bury him alive with my bare hands, after pummeling him to the earth's dust and making him eat every word of degradation she ever uttered against me, my mother, or my siblings. If I wanted to see him burn and burn in hell for eternity and never find his redemption.—"

"—Jesus Christ.—"

"—Then, would that make me a bad person?" She asked, brow lifting questioningly.

"Chika, I am not sure how you want me to answer your question—."

"—Dabeluchi, I watched that woman die right in front of my eyes."

Her words struggled to make adherence through gritted, angry, gnashing teeth.

I felt a string somewhere in my heart snap in half, a suppressed trigger from deep within lashing me on the back.

"Do you know what it's like to see the  life snap out a living person before your very own eyes?" She asked me.

The air was choking me, like nail-coated hands were wrapped tightly around my neck, and I wanted to open my mouth and say the word 'No', but I couldn't find my words.

"I watched her die, Dabeluchi," Chika seethed, her eyes accumulating all the pain like I have never seen before, twitching against its lids as she confronted her trigger.  "Dabeluchi, I watched that woman shake in her own blood. I watched her shake in agonizing pain, until her hands weren't moving anymore.—"

Jesus.

"—I watched the sheer horror in her eyes. I have never seen her so afraid in my life, Dabz. That dreadful look in her eyes torments me till this day," Her teeth chattered against the other as she told me, a string of tear dropping down her face and carrying along a dark streak of mascara along with it. "And the moment that I saw that horror, that fear, disappear from her eyes, I knew. The moment that nothing but an emotionless, blank stare gazed right back at my tear-filled eyes, I knew that woman had fucking gone.—"

My eyes fell down to the ground, reflexively, a dangerous thudding slammed in my chest as I tried to stop myself from giving in too deeply to this.

I failed miserably.

The moment I imagined it all, it all became blood and fire for me.

"—I heard her whimper, Dabz," Chika said to me, her face red and hot with the tears that drowned her make up in it. " Do you know what its like to hear a person whimper for their life? Do you? Do you know how fast it takes a person to die, Dabeluchi? Because, I was shocked at how many seconds it could take. One second, they're in front of you, whimpering in pain, crying out for help, and the next second, without a freaking warning, they stop.—" Snap!

I gasped, startled, at the snap of her fingers.

"—And, there is no night I go to bed without reliving every torturing moment of that bloody night, Dabeluchi," She said to me. "And, there is no morning I don't wake up and curse at myself, because I should have done something before it had to get to that point. I should have prevented it, Dabz. I should have fought, and I should have won. But, I didn't.—"

"—Stop, please," I begged her.

"I did nothing, Dabeluchi," She cried, her voice shaking with pain and regret. "I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even fight."

"It wasn't your fault, Chika," I told her. 

"How?" She asked in sincerity, and my heart broke again at the sound of her innocently guilty voice. Like a lost child who genuinely failed to understand a simple situation. "How?" She asked again. "How was it not my fault, Dabeluchi? I could have protected her."

"For God's sake, Chika, you were nine years old!" I cried out. "You tried to fight off a grown man who was more than five times your age, and I am so, so sorry that you had to go through something so traumatizing, but you have to let go of all these self blame and regret, because NOTHING was your fault! He was a terrible man and that was NOT on you!—"

She had to know. Chika had to know this!

"— I understand you think you could have helped, somehow, but Chika, listen, you were a kid; You were just nine years old! How could you put so much responsibility on a nine year old little girl, Chi? Why do you have to shoulder so many responsibilities and feel like it's your obligation to save everyone? You were a child and you still are a child! Stop holding everything that happened, all that resulted because of your father, over that innocent, sweet little nine year old girl who only tried her hardest to help and couldn't.—"

She hid her face in her hands, I knew she was hiding the mess that was her crying face.

"—And, you don't need to be so scared of being weak, Chika, because as far as I am concerned, you are the strongest girl I know. Physically AND Emotionally!" I had to add in, telling her. "But, you have to understand that you should not hoard all the responsibilities in the world over your head. You are a human being, Chika, not Jesus Christ. And, I know that this will be hard to sink in for you, but babe, some battles are just not yours to fight!—"

"—I was just—I just— I'm just trying— I just want to help—I—"

"—And, helping is fine," I said to her. "But cut yourself some slack. See what you had to go through because you wanted to 'help' me. You threaded dangerous paths by stalking my father, and you—" Didn't mind deceiving me for years.

As much as my heart broke for Chika, I hated that I couldn't wade off that disappointment that still lingered in me for her.

Was I a bad person for still feeling a bit betrayed and even angry at Chika?

"I'm sorry, Dabeluchi," She said softly.

Those words melted my heart instantly, like butter.

I wanted to run and throw my arms around her in a hug and tell her it was okay and that I loved her too, even though deep down that part of me was still struggling to wade off the slight repulsiveness I felt against her and what she had done. 

Time heals all wounds, yeah? With time, I would trust her again. Completely.

"I am sorry because I feel no regret for what I did to you."

Her words hit me like a slap to my face.

It caught me completely unawares, whiplashing me with the sudden lack of show of remorse or regret she showed thus.

Chika and I looked at each other, eyeball to eyeball, and as soon as she was able to stand up straighter and get back her composure, ignoring the make up that was draining down her face with her tears and feigning a thick skin, an undeterred aura.

I felt even more betrayed.

Truthfully, I was still angry with her, but I was ready to fight it and reconcile. I was ready to struggle to let it go and just hug her. If only Chika could just say she was sorry and she was wrong, I was ready to put everything behind us, forgive, forget, and start over again.

I just wanted Chika to be my friend again.

"You may hate me," She said, "You're allowed to..."

Well, I don't want to.

"Because its easier to hate what you don't understand," She added.

I didn't want to hate her. Not now. Not ever.

"But, Dabeluchi, you expect me to stop having your back and I don't think I am ready to do that," She said to me, a deadpan in her tone. "I am not doing what I am doing to harm you, but to protect you, and like I had said before, it is never my intention for you to suffer."

"Chika, how could you even.—"

"—No matter what I say, you will keep convincing yourself and giving reasons why you can't understand the head or tale of my motives. You will never agree to this and that was why I refused to include you in the first place. You will never let yourself understand this point of view and that's okay, because at the end of the day, you will thank me. But, until then, Dabz, I know you and I know that you will only make yourself see what you want to see.—"

"—Are you seriously turning this on me?" I had to cut in and ask.

"Do me a favor," She said; she had the nerve to even ask me of something. "Stay quiet about all these, please. There are things being set in place for your own good, and before the end of today, you will see these good things unfold in your behalf. But, Dabeluchi, if you do anything stupid, you will just end up frustrating this mission and putting everyone in trouble."

Appalled by her audacity and tone, I stepped back.

"Jesus Christ." 

She even looked like a different person. I must have been stupid to think I could try to talk her out of this. And the hardness in her eyes, the assurance in her voice, everything proved to me that I could slit my own throat if I wanted and Chika would not give up.

But it wasn't that which even scarred me...

It was the fact that she was unapologetic doing this.

She wanted to help me, but she was hurting me in the process. She had hurt me for many years, lying to me, deceiving me, watching me cry over things she masterminded, and if a part of me was thinking that she felt remorse for making me feel so bad and hurting me like that, she just proved it to me that she couldn't care less.

She said it herself. She was not sorry. And that scattered me.

"Chika, you do know you should be sorry, right?" I asked her, my voice breaking slightly. "Because, I am hurt. I feel bad. I feel very bad, Chi. You deceived me, since Jss3. That is almost four years, Chika. You lied to me for four years, watched me behind my back, without my consent, gathered details off me and off loaded into your diary, stalked my life, a life I would have preferred to keep silent, then, without my permission, you told the whole world my family dirt. You subjected me to ridicule, pain, heart ache, social media bullying, negative attention, and when I broke down, when I cried to you and everyone else in the room, you lacked the decency to tell me that you were behind it all. In your quest to 'help' me, you hurt me. Very, very badly Chika. And... And... And, you truly say that you are not sorry?"

I was practically tearing in half at this point, this pain was worse than anything I had ever felt before. It felt like daggers were in my chest, stabbing aggressively, and with such unbearable pain came tears.

Tears that leaked out of me as I tried to stomach such a throbbing ache inside of me.

And the worst realization was yet to hit me.

"You were there when I needed someone the most," I told Chika, reminding her, "Remember? In Jss3? After the whole set was hating on and bullying me for what I had done to Jelanie. You came up to me at my lowest, remember? That afternoon after School, when I was crying behind the class block. You said Hi. I didn't trust you. Because I was scared. I didn't think someone as popular and loved by the set like you could genuinely care about me... But, you made me happy. You told me I was badass. You praised me for standing up for myself. You called me your 'gee'. Told me that I should always fight back like that, and punch anyone who troubles me. You sat there with me till evening, making me laugh. Making me feel good about myself. You told me you liked my hair, I always hated my hair. You told me I had a pretty smile, I tried to see it in the mirror that night. You told me that from that day onwards, I was your 'friend'. Remember? Because I can't ever forget it. Chika, you were the first person who was ever that nice to me all my fucking life.—"

I felt a panic attack rising. But, I ignored it.

"And, you stayed true to your words. I thought that you would pretend like you didn't know me the next day in School, but then, you were so nice to wave to me in the Assembly, even in front of your confused friends and everybody else who saw you and wondered why you were waving at the School's outcast," I reminded her. "You didn't even stop there. I remember how confidently you bounced into my class and held those mean girls by the collar, threatening them to touch me again if they wanted to see you at your worst. You dragged me to the Hallway and announced to everyone that I was a new addition into your clique. Before everyone, you made me say a pledge and announced publicly that I was the new Igbo Sister. You warned everyone to not bother me. You swore in front of everyone to always protect me, and not harm me.—"

My heart. Christ, My heart...

"—And, to be honest, I don't see any of what you are doing as help. Because if you wanted to help me, you would have been open from the start. You would have respected my decision to say No. But, like you said, 'helping me' was not the only reason you started doing this. You also had your personal agenda. Your own personal motives for yourself and against your father. And, with what I am seeing, one thing is certain to me now; you care more about that over how I feel. Right, Chi?—"

"—No. Dabeluchi, you're letting yourself think the worst right now.—"

I cackled bitterly, cutting off the rest of everything she was babbling in my head as the rage I was trying to suppress all these while started to build up again, triggering more tears and confusion on me all over again.

"Chika, can I ask you something?" 

There was that little hope in me, that pitiful desperation, that part of me that was willing to still give her a redemption nonetheless, even in spite of the hurt that damaged me within. In spite of the tears she caused to fall down my face, uncontrollably. The unbearable hurt she caused me.

"Dabeluchi, you can ask me anything." She said to me.

I found her hard to understand. She was sympathetic, then unsympathetic. She cared, then she didn't care. She looked remorseful, then she looked hardened with coldness. She looked good, then she looked evil. I was so distraught, confused, unsure of which side of her to lean onto . To believe. Was she a good person? Or was she a bad person?

"If, somehow, in some other world, you had a better father. You didn't have to go through all you went through and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding me and you were non-existent.—"

"—Dabz, where are you going with this?—"

"—And, maybe, there was no push or urge to save me. No trigger. Nothing. If you didn't see yourself in me. If I was just some random classmate, like the others, who was invisible, lacking anything special. If I was just that random girl in your set that you hardly noticed, the one who was tagged 'crazy' for stabbing someone else with a Mathset Compass.—"

"—Dabeluchi, I don't understand what you are trying to ask me.—" 

"—Chika, if we existed in a world where there was no reason to 'save' me. Would there have been any other reason, anything special about me, that could have caused you to notice me?" I asked, looking at her with eyes that feared the answer to the question I was asking.

My voice was shaking, dread climbing me with each second I knew counted closer to an answer.

 "Chika,"

I called her name.

"If I didn't need saving... Then, would you have still wanted to be friends with me?"

 She answered me back with silence, but with the multitude of words I knew that hung there at the tip of her tongue, worried of letting itself out, and that terrifying softness lingering in the glowing irises of her brown eyes... I knew her answer.

And, it broke me.

Shattered me.

I was nothing more, really. Nothing more than a broken, damaged girl who needed saving.

Chika Chioma would have never been friends with a girl like me for any other reason.

"Wow."

It sure hit different. To know exactly all that was your worth.

Embarrassment synced with my pain. I felt naked before Chika. Before all of them. 

It was not until now that I had felt the intensity of all their eyes, boring holes into every part of me. Since Chika and I had conversed between ourselves, they had remained mute. Something I was realizing was now actually very strange. Too strange.

Suddenly, I started to feel uncomfortable around their abnormal silence. It almost felt like they were not in the room with me and Chika. From Soma, who talked the loudest out of all of us, to Ebere who was ever ready to chip an icy note into every topic, and even Casper, whom with us, was known as one of the nosiest boys in the set. None of them said a word, and that made me uncomfortable.

Truthfully, I didn't even need them to say anything anymore.

It had become clear to me that people like them, popular and well liked, perfect and glamourous, could never truly accept people like me. I was stupid all along, to think these people could have been my friends. I was so, so stupid.

But, genuinely, the curiosity ate me up. 

I still needed to understand...

"What was in it for the rest of you?"

It was me, to them.

The rest of them who quietly said nothing, behind Chika.

I wanted someone to talk. Anyone. I needed to understand why they were in on this too. How it was their business. Why they would waste their time on a person like me whom they could not genuinely bring themselves to give a fuck about, if it were another world.

"Lulu, we—"

"—Dabeluchi." I corrected Soma.

I was relieved that she could still talk, and as a matter of fact, she sounded like herself. Soft spoken, caring, and loving. However, I refused to be moved by frivolities anymore. I didn't know who these people standing before me were anymore.

"Dabeluchi," She said, correcting herself.

Damn it, it sounded so fucking weird in her voice. Somadina Best had never called me by my name before. I hated this. I hated all of this.

"Dabeluchi, the truth is—"

"—Soma, no." Ebere cut in immediately, stopping the taller girl from saying what she wanted to say, and further driving me into more frustration. "I don't think she is ready to hear that..."

"Ready?" I frowned, confused. "Ready to hear what?"

"Well, I beg to differ."

Casper's voice sprung for the first time ever, causing the entire room to cast their gaze his way, mixed looks of caution and uncertainty hovering around him as I stood there, watching the scene I couldn't understand.

"She needs her closure, so I beg to differ."

There was suddenly an alert energy in the room.

As though Casper had said something that had set everyone instantly on their toes.

The gazes that rested on him hinted out to me that I couldn't be more right. Immediately, I could sense it, from the sudden alarm in their eyes and the silent debate that sprung up between them, using their darting, cautious eyes. I immediately knew something was off.

Something was terribly off.

They were hiding something from me.

Something Casper wanted to spill, but something they would rather keep to themselves instead.

I always did feel it, in some way, that this story was incomplete. Even in my conversation with Chika, I felt it in the pit of my stomach, that there was something she was avoiding bringing up. Something she was not telling me. It all felt like there was one massive loophole that I could not pin my hands on.

And, Casper looked ready to spill the beans, undeterred.

"I'm sorry, but hiding more things would make everything worse," He said to the girls, his tone announcing. "I think its best we just tabled this entire matter once and for all and avoid more drama in the future. So, I will tell her. At least, for my sake."

My interest piqued as high as my anxiety.

And why didn't I ever wonder for one second, what exactly was Casper's business with my family issues, and why was he so involved in all of this?

"Cas, I don't think its the best time. She is already distressed enough!—"

Chika tried to come in, but he had already started fondling with that little backpack over one of his shoulders, dragging down the zipper at one go, completely ignoring the fucking shit out of Chika.

"Casper, please, stop!" Soma tried to plead.

But, it was too late.

The boy had whipped it out of that bag, dashing his 'confession' into the air for my full view.

I watched in all forms of horror as he showed it to me, bravely, letting me sink it in: that old, tattered booklet that rang multiple bells in my brain, triggering memories of its pages and content.

And its owner...

"Fuck."

Ebere had sworn, slapping a hand onto her forehead.

I was still frozen in static, unrecoverable shock, a dozen whiplashes carving marks onto my back.

Because, for the life of me, I couldn't understand it so...

What Casper was doing, holding my brother, Stephen's drawing book in his hands.

Omoh!

I have to go somewhere real quick, so no time for long author's note, but comment everything on your mind. Your conspiracy theories, your conclusions on Chika and how she handled this situation, the future and fate of the friendship of the Igbo Sisters, and what TF you think connects Stephen's drawing book to all this mess!

See you in the next chapter. Bye!