The Duty of A Lifetime

“The last time I saw my mother, I was coming home from school and I tripped on my loose shoelaces. She was already at the door waiting for me with an envelope in her hand, and as she attempted to rescue me from myself, she opened the envelope by mistake. It was a letter bomb and with it, everything blew away– my childhood memories, all my merry Christmases, my laughters, my tears, and of course, my mom, along with our house.”

I stared into the blazing fire rapidly eating away at the firewood in front of me. The tears fighting for release at the corners of my eyes showed defiance. It was a battle to see who would outlast the other, but I had no fear. I had fought far too many tears ever since that day.

“…The day I lost it all. I swear I’m going to avenge you mom! I might have lost everything, but one thing I know I still have –and will not lose– is my will to kill them. I swear on my life mom that I’ll kill them all!”

I caught her staring at me from the corner of my right eye and I could see fear in her eyes. I couldn’t blame her, I was sure I was emitting a strong hateful aura. It was fine too, let her fear me.

“It’s not like I trust her anyway. She’ll know better than to try to mess with me.”

“We leave in T–wenty minutes. Rest up and regain your strength. The journey gets tougher from this point.”

Mitchelle mumbled her okay in her usual cute, small voice. She was strong for a fifteen year old and I couldn’t deny that. I had met her at the worst place you could imagine a fifteen year old girl to be.

***

While her mates were still at home worrying over their crush that refused to respond to their “I love you” texts, or worrying about homework, Mitchelle was tied to a pole. I found her that way, Her torn, faded pink T-shirt hanging loose around her neck. She looked lean and hungry and my first instinct action was to rush to her, bathe, feed, and clothe her in warm clothes.

Unfortunately for the both of us, I was about to join her sad fate. I had also been kidnapped and shipped to another branch of the same sex trafficking organization. I couldn’t tell where we were, and after the warden in charge of me threw me towards her, I licked off the blood from the fresh wound I had just received and set out to gather information.

“Umm… Hi, my name is Zipporah. I was just moved to this facility. You look like you’ve been here for a while, do you know where we are right now?!”

As much as I had tried to mask the urgency in my voice, I couldn’t stop it from showing. I wanted out of the facility. I had a revenge to execute.

I waited and waited for her voice to echo in the large empty room the way mine had just done while I spoke, but I got nothing. Heard nothing. I decided to be a bit calmer. I spoke carefully and added a little more pleading tone than I would normally use to ask for anything before.

“After all, she was not some tour guide at a luxury resort that I would be demanding answers from…”

I took a second look at her and that was when I realized how frail her body was.

“She looks just about the same age as Tomi. Tomi… it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you. I have only been separated from you for about eight months or so, but it feels like it’s been decades since they stole me away from you. I promise you that I’ll come back to you. I’ll escape from these bastards, kill the fuckers that killed mom and come get you.

I swear on my life Tomi… I’ll come get you…”

“I don’t know for sure where we currently are, but from their conversations…” she pointed to two guards standing in front of our door, “…I think we are in a remote village in Kaduna. I think I heard some people speaking Hausa but I never imagined they would drive me all the way to Kaduna.” she said. “I had been held captive and forced to sleep with rich politicians every night for eight straight months before getting moved here.”

The shock from her revelation was enough to knock my hands that I had been resting on off balance. I felt my back and head hit the wall behind me, but that pain was nothing compared to the fear that was slowly starting to strangle me. I pulled at the collar of my faded jersey. I needed to breathe.

“But…Kaduna?? What do I do now? Where do I go from here? How do I get back home? I was drugged throughout the entire ride so I can’t even retrace my steps even if I wanted to. This is all just a scary nightmare that I really want to wake up from…”

“Get your shit together.”

I looked up at the small body that had just produced the small voice that was telling me to compose myself. I was at least three years older than she was. I thought about teaching her some manners but I stopped myself in time. My instincts told me that I would be needing her in due time and I didn’t want to take my chances.

“My instincts never lie… it’s such a drag but I guess I would rather take any chance I get than none. I gotta escape! Oh and yes, I gotta get my act together. I can’t have a fifteen year old kid telling me how to behave. Let’s see how this goes then.”

“Luckily for me, these guys here only speak Hausa. I think all the guards are Hausas but the ones in charge of moving enslaved girls like us can be of any ethnicity. I have heard Yoruba, Urhobo, Igbo, Esan and some other slave traders moving girls. As fate would have it, Hausa is the only other language besides English that I understand. I plan to make a break for it.”

“She’s already thinking about escaping? What kinda girl is this? Is she really just a child?!? Where does she get that courage from?“

“From what I have gathered, a shipment will be arriving in two fortnights. We will escape then. Eight girls will be brought to this location, but I heard something weird…”

She looked frightened and beneath her bold front, I could see her faintly shaking just thinking about what she had heard. I was both scared and curious as to what she had heard but I didn’t want to pressure her to tell me. Judging from what I had seen, she appeared to be someone that would like to do things at her own pace.

I swallowed hard, the fear threatening to strangle her slowly transferred to my hand too, but then she stopped shaking all of a sudden and her shaky fingers curled up to create a firm ball of fist. Almost immediately too, I could feel courage seeping into my cold spine. It was as if she possessed some sort of influencing power within her.

“There’s something about this girl that doesn’t quite add up. There’s more than meets the eye. Maybe I should include her in my revenge plan? She certainly looks like someone that could become a dependable ally… no! This revenge is mine and mine alone! It was my mom that was killed and my life that was destroyed. I’m not going to bring anybody else into this!”

***

“Hey! Hey! Psst! Zipporah! What are you doing spacing off at a time like this?! I can literally hear the guard dogs coming in this direction and they are closing in on us fast. Or have you forgotten that we are currently on the run?!? Jeez… c’mon!”

I jerked off from my reverie and stood at attention. It was at that moment that I heard the dogs and three other men shouting at each other wildly in Hausa. They were coming for us. Mitchelle had gotten us out of the warehouse. It was my turn to get us to safety so I could finally carry out my revenge on my killers.

“Just one last lap, Zipporah. You are one step away from getting your freedom and enacting your revenge on the bastards that took everything away from you. You can’t give up now! You gotta win this!”

“Mitchelle, listen to me! When I give the signal, run with everything you’ve got towards our attackers, then when you are about two hundred meters away from them, I want you to stop dead in your tracks. It’ll throw them off balance for a few seconds, then dash to your left and keep running into the woods. No matter what you hear, don’t stop running! I’ll sneak up behind them while all this is going on and take them out one by one. Okay?! On the count of three… two…one… go!”

Mitchelle ran back in the direction we were coming from, while I ran east. My plan was to take a curve and sneak up behind our attackers so I could take them out under the cover of the darkness. It was a risky plan and there were too many variables, but it was the best I could come up with while we were on the run. I would simply have to trust Mitchelle to do her part right.

If she could stall them well and long enough, I would be able to take them out with my wooden stake that I had spent the entire night carving by the fire. When I first met her, Mitchelle appeared strong and bold. I even felt intimidated by her, but in the past one hour, she had been acting a bit off, like she was scared or worried about something.

“Well I guess it’s normal for her to feel scared and worried, we are running for our lives after all. Maybe I should trust her a little. She has been of immense help if I really want to look at things fairly. On the other hand, I haven’t been of any help at all. She got us out and now she’s even acting as bait. When this is all over, I’ll ask her if she would like to help me with my revenge. It would be really nice if she would agree.”

I ran up to the back of my first prey and jumped up to stab him in his back when he suddenly turned to face me and smiled. I was too stunned to respond. Next thing I knew, I heard a loud thud on the floor. It was my own body lying on the dew-damped grass. I tried to will my body to move but I could slowly see the lights leaving my eyes.

My eyes felt heavier than they had ever felt before and I fought hard to keep them open, but I could not look past their legs. There were supposed to be only three pairs, but another more slender pair walked forward. I forced myself to lift my face up. It couldn’t be who I was thinking. As if in a bid to make things easier for me, she crouched in front of me, her menacing smile piercing into the very depths of my heart.

“How could she?!”

“Looks like we finally caught the last scapegoat, boys. Geez! Took you guys long enough! I was beginning to get worried that she would really escape. This is what I get for hiring incompetent fools to back me up on an assignment.”

“Why?! W-Why are you doing this Mitchelle?!? I thought we were friends? I thought we were going to escape together? Why are you betraying me now?!”

I didn’t understand what was going on. I couldn’t. The very person I had shared a room with for almost a month… We had shared meals and gisted till day break various times. I didn’t completely trust her but I had begun to open up to her. Yet, she was standing right in front of me and calling the very guards that beat and raped us countless times “boys”.

“Was all that a farce too?! Our laughs, our talks, our cries together? All those times I would hear you screaming, begging to be let go off when these same bastards were supposedly raping you, was that also a lie? Was I just a play thing to you? An object of amusement?!? How could you, Mitchelle?!?”

“First off, shut that lousy mouth of yours. It’s annoying. Second, it’s Arizona to you. Does the letter ‘Z’ with two swords ring a bell dearest Zipporah?…”

All the fear and lightheadedness I had been feeling immediately got replaced with wrath and bloodlust. The very person I had been searching for to kill was right in front of me. Actually, had been right in front of me, and I didn’t know it.

“Again, why…”

“…did I kill your mother? Although honestly, my assignment was to take down the entire family that day. I was thinking the stupid woman would at least take the letter in first after you and Tomi had settled in, so you could all have your happily never after together in the afterlife. Sadly, she opened the damn thing before you guys collided and I had to hunt down Tomi so I could take care of you last…”

She sounded so casual about the entire thing like she was summarizing a movie to a friend. I had never felt so much hatred for anyone in my entire life. I wanted to kill her at that moment. I wanted her to choke on her very words as she choked on her stinking blood. Livid couldn’t not properly describe how I felt.

“…but of course, I had to ensure that you were kept all nice and busy, so I arranged for your kidnapping and shipment with some sex traffickers. I didn’t want you trying anything stupid like escaping, so I arranged for you to be moved to another location where I could watch you myself till we had taken care of Tomi. Now that that’s done… It’s your turn to die Zipporah. Say hi to your mom and your little sister for me.”

The three other men that had been blindly standing by since Arizona started talking seemed happy to be animated again. They had not moved a muscle since she entered the scene. It was almost as if they were scared of her.

“I was.”

“One last question Arizona… What did my family ever do to you to deserve all these?! You killed my mom, killed my little sis, sold me off to sex traffickers, had me raped by all kinds of scoundrels, and now you want to kill me too. What did we do?!?”

“Well… let’s see… nothing actually. My organization was hired by a client whose name I do not plan to divulge, to erase your entire family. Although the kidnapping and sex trafficking part was all my idea. I haven’t had any fun in a while so I felt it would be good entertainment. Then… let’s see… oh I’ll drop a hint for you since you’re gonna die anyway…”

“Is this really the end for me? Am I really going to die without avenging my mom and sister?…” I couldn’t believe the words I was hearing anymore.

“…that client I told you about? The one that hired me to erase your family? He’s a top politician in the country right now. And you know what? I’m feeling generous tonight so I’ll tell you his only initials since you won’t be able to do anything with it. His initials are J. K. Figure it out yourself. In the meantime, goodbye. Lovely meeting you.”

She motioned at all three guys and next thing I knew, a sack had covered my face. I started screaming wildly.

“I’ll kill you! I swear on my life, I will kill you Arizona! I swear that I will or my name isn’t Zipporah!”

It seemed like she told them to pause because they suddenly stopped moving. My face was still covered so I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear her footsteps approaching on the wet grass.

“Wait, I need to clarify something… you swear on your life? The one you’re about to lose? You swear on your name?!? You are such a clown. Who the hell is ‘Zipporah’ supposed to be?? I often heard you talking about wanting to carry out your revenge. Lol, it was so cute. You’d sometimes even shout it in your sleep, calling it your ‘duty of a lifetime’. Clown.”

I heard her voice so close, it was almost as if she was in front of my face. She had been shouting but now she spoke in a soft whisper.

“Now, dearest Zipporah, what do you plan to do about that ‘duty’ seeing as your life is about to come to an end? Cry yourself to eternal sleep?”

It was all that was left in me after running for days on an empty stomach and with a fever. It was all that was left before I eventually fainted, but I wanted to make sure she heard it.

“I will kill you Arizona. You and that politician that ordered you to kill us. I won’t die until I’m done fulfilling that duty. You are not the one that decides when I die, I do!”

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