Tarasha

the dress, her hand touched the handle of the knife. She

searched around with her eyes to see if there was anyone

hiding around. She took the knife in between her fingers,

ready to take out Jefa if he made an attempt to attack

her. She dropped the bag from her other hand to the

floor.

Jefa halted as he noticed something on the hand which

she dipped into the pocket, he gave a bold smile and

used his hand to wipe his forehead.

"So you still love tattoos?" He said with a broad smile,

fixing his eyes on the point where the tattoo was.

Omotara took a quick look at the tattoo and returned her

gaze to his face, wondering what was amusing him. "Do

you remember that Catwoman tattoo you drew with

your blue Biro on your belly when you were seven?" Jefa

continued. "Mom would have flogged you if I didn"t keep

my mouth shut but you never kept your side of the deal."

That was it. Omotara"s knee trembled and gave way, she

fell and sat on the ground. She was broken. Only Jeffery

had seen that tattoo and had promised to keep his

mouth shut on the condition that she"ll help him request

for something from their father but like he accused, she

never kept her part of the deal.

Her eyes were full of tears as her whole body trembled.

She made sure no tear fall off her eyes by wiping off her

face with part of the headscarf. She could see Jefa"s legs

right in front of her. She looked up to his face.

Jefa stared into her eyes pa.s.sionately, unknowingly

transferring the pains which were in his eyes to hers. He

tried to squat and touch her shoulder but winced in pain

without success.

Omotara got up and picked her bag, she took out a

polythene bag it. She avoided his gaze. "Please, change

into these clothes." She handed over the bag to him and

walked out of the room without taking another look at

him.

Ten minutes later, she returned already changed into

another set of clothes, this time a Yoruba native wear.

The tattoo on the hand had also been cleaned off.

Omotara took a look at Jefa and realized he needed help

in completing his dressing. He had only been able to

change his trousers successfully but had not been able to

put on the top because of his arm and head injury. She

walked closer to him and took the top from him, she

then helped him to carefully fix in the top.

Jefa kept mute and raised no questions, having faith in

his sister"s instructions. He kept staring at her eyes as she

helped him wear the top but he noticed she tried

avoiding his eyes, he was only able to get glimpses

occasionally.

"We have to go now," Omotara said and helped him up

from the bed. "We"ll take the other stair case down."

Jefa obeyed without questions, he struggled to fix his legs

into his sandals but she quickly bent down and helped

him put it on.

"Okay," Omotara said after successfully fixing the sandals.

Her eyes met his as she raised up her head. He was

staring at her lovingly. She took away her eyes and

sniffed in, unable to describe her feeling at that particular

moment.

As he took a step, she felt he was trusting her too much

and she was taking it for granted. She needed to explain

her actions to him.

"I want to get you to another place," she finally spoke as

she held his hand and he continued to take slow steps.

"Somewhere where I"ll be able to watch over you myself."

~~~

**Present**

Agent Dakolo and Mr Sylvester were still seated in the

Doctor"s office quietly when the Doctor and Officer Ken

returned. Sylvester was still in a very pensive mood.

Dakolo, due to the nature of his job and experience had

been able to shake a little off the impact the news had on

him.

"Where"s the patient?" Dakolo asked the Doctor as the

man returned to his seat.

"He left with his sister," the Doctor replied, after settling

into the swivel.

Dakolo glanced at Ken and Ken nodded in confirmation

of the Doctor"s words, Dakolo did not bother to raise any

other question. "So about Henry"s case," Dakolo cleared

his throat and continued, "is he going to remain like that

for the rest of his life?"

"Agent, like I said before, there"s no remedy yet. Some

part of his body structures have been rendered useless

and his brain is fast degenerating." The Doctor answered

in a sad tone.

"Degenerating? Is there nothing you can do to stop the

degeneration?" Dakolo asked.

"We"re doing all we can and all we should but it doesn"t

seem to be producing much results."

"I don"t understand." Dakolo stared at the Doctor with a

confused look.

"You see the mixture had gone a long way in circulating

around his body with his blood, the liquid is what is

responsible for the degeneration."

"Is there no way you can remove the liquid from his

body?"

"Except we remove his blood too. It has mixed with his

blood and flows through the veins with the blood.

There"s a way we can still purge it out and that"s why are

conducting several tests on the remaining liquid, we

could get another mixture that"ll be able to nullify the

effects or help him excrete the poison."

Dakolo hissed.

"But let"s still thank G.o.d he didn"t receive the whole

contents of the drip bag, that would have been the

required quant.i.ty to initiate the full reaction. His brain

degeneration wouldn"t have been slow like this and we

would have faced more difficulties in getting the liquid as

what we"ll have would have only been traces which we

would get from his blood samples."

Dakolo heaved another sigh of frustration. Several years

ago, his thoughts would have been to fly Henry to

another country for medical treatment but this was

2031, Nigeria was one of the countries with the best

medical facilities and he also expected that the Doctor

would have suggested it if there was need for Henry to be

transferred.

"Can we see him now?" Dakolo asked, after some seconds

of total silence.

"Yes, of course. He should be awake." The Doctor replied

and stood to his feet. He waited for the other men to get

up and followed behind them as they walked out of his

office. He locked the door.

"This way," the Doctor said to Dakolo and turned who

were facing the opposite direction. "He has been

transferred to another ward."

"Okay," Dakolo, Ken and Sylvester turned and followed

the Doctor.

Seven minutes later, they got to the new ward. Two

officers were in the corridor while one was seated inside

the ward. The three officers were the same ones asked to

keep an eye on him at the house.

Henry"s clothes had been changed to white top and

trousers, his eyes was open and liquid from a drip was

running into his veins.

Henry"s face twitched as he saw the man staring above

him. He made no other movement and had no

expression on his face.

"Henry," Dakolo called. Henry blinked his eyes and turned

his gaze to the Doctor as if he didn"t hear anything.

"He"s only conscious but his brain cannot really process

things, especially communication. The Doctor explained.

"Is it that bad?" Dakolo asked.

"It happens," the Doctor replied, "to several mentally

challenged patients.

The door opened and a younger Doctor came in. He

proceeded towards the turned gazes of the men and

greeted the elderly Doctor first.

"Good afternoon Sir."

"Good afternoon," the elderly Doctor replied and then

turned to Dakolo. "Meet Doctor Tobi, the new Doctor in

charge of Henry. And here"s Agent Dakolo and Officer

Ken," he said turning back to the Doctor. "Officers in

charge of the patient. This is Mr Sylvester, the patient"s

Boss at the NSCC."

"Good afternoon Sirs," Doctor Tobi greeted with a warm

smile.

"Good afternoon," his greeting was replied reluctantly.

"You"ll be relating with Doctor Tobi directly from now on.

As you can see, my office is quite some distance to this

new ward."

"It"s okay Doctor," Dakolo said, examining the new Doctor

with his eyes.

The elderly Doctor"s phone rang, he checked the screen

and exclaimed, "Oh! Gentlemen, you have to excuse me

now." He said before rushing out of the ward, leaving the

officers and Sylvester with the new Doctor.

"Sirs, I made an important discovery." Doctor Tobi stated,

attracting attention to himself after several seconds of

silence.

"What"s that?" Dakolo asked, less enthusiastic about

knowing the discovery.

"It"s possible that the patient did not place himself on

drip," Doctor Tobi stated.

"Huh?" Dakolo and Ken"s eyes widened, they showed

more interest now. Sylvester looked interested too on

seeing the officers new interest in the Doctor"s

conversation but he was lost on what they were talking

about.

"There were traces of some sedative gases in his blood,

it"s possible that somebody drugged him first before

placing him on drip." The Doctor explained.

Ken and Dakolo stared at each other in silence,

wondering how possible that was. There was n.o.body else

in Henry"s house on that day they had checked and there

was nothing that suggested that someone had being in

the house with him. The officers who followed and

monitored him also saw no one enter the compound

with or after him.

~~~~~

Jefa laid on the bed wondering how Omotara had so

much knowledge of medicine. She even had a room in

her house that was well arranged with a bed for the

purpose.

Omotara continued in silence to clean and redress his

wounds which were exposed while they escaped from

the hospital. She felt like saying soothing words anytime

he groaned or made an uncomfortable noise but she

decided against it, preferring to maintain the silence

between them. She knew that he had so many questions

running through his mind, so, breaking the silence and

talking to him would only give room for the questions

which she wanted to avoid.

Finally she was through with her redressing and cleaning,

she packed up the tools and returned them to the shelf.

Jefa was absent-minded and was still seated slantingly,

thinking that the treatment was still going to continue.

Omotara stared at him, unwilling to break her silence but

she had to tell him to rest his back. One more thing that

she had to do was to ask him what kind of food he would

like.

"You can lie down now," she finally said, walking towards

him. "What kind of food would you like to take?"

Jefa smiled and sat upright. "What are you going to take

too?"

"Nothing," she lied, "I"m not ready to eat now."

"Okay, you bring me food when you"re ready to eat too"

Jefa said and rested his back in the bed.

"Come on," Omotara moved closer to him and stared at

his face which she had been avoiding all through. "You

really need to eat something now for your medication to

work."

"You really need to eat something too else you break

down," Jefa countered.

She sighed. "I took something in the morning," she lied

again.

"I took something this morning too," he replied

adamantly.

"Okay," Omotara finally gave in. "What do you want to eat,

so I can get it for the both of us."

"You can get anything for me to eat as far as you"re going

to bring a chair and sit in front of me and we eat

together."

Omotarashook her head in frustration at the new

condition. He stared at her, she knew he wasn"t going to

change his mind. "Okay," she said and turned back

immediately. She walked out of the room, closing the

door softly.

The first thing she picked up in the sitting room was her

phone. She clicked open the browser and began to type

some words into the search engine. The search results

displayed and she selected an option. Soon, a page which

displayed a list of restaurants in the area popped up. She

picked the car keys from the centre table and proceeded

out of the house.

All through the drive to the restaurant, she was

wondering was how her life would be now that she had a

brother. She thought of calling one or two of her co-

a.s.sa.s.sins to ask for suggestions but she discarded the

thought, she already knew that their advice would be to

kill him, except if he was also an a.s.sa.s.sin with a rigid

heart, that way both of them may be able to work

together without anyone bringing in emotions.

She returned with two plates of fried rice after thirty

minutes. Jefa was still awake when she entered back into

the room. He sat up on seeing her bring out the plates

from the bag.

She dragged a chair closer to his bed and dropped the

plates on it. She went out twice to get a small table and

tray and also two bottles and cups of water. She finally

settled to eat.

Jefa was the first to begin with the food. He had taken

about three spoons already before noticing that she

wasn"t eating. He paused and stared at him. She quickly

began to eat to avoid queries from him.

They finished the meal in silence and Omotara began to

pack the plates and cleaned the place. After taking out

other plates and cleaning the place. She returned to pick

the last bottle and cup of water that Jefa used.

"Tara, we need to talk." Jefa finally broke the long silence.