Abducted – Episode 3

Abducted – Episode 3

© Onyinyechukwu Mbeledogu.

IB woke up with a headache and stretched out on the bed. But instead of soft silk against her skin, she felt a starchy material like something you would find in a hospital. She bolted up. This was not her bedroom. This bed was small. Her teddy bears were missing. There was one pillow instead of six and the bedroom was smaller than her bathroom.

Come to think of it, she was sweating. The air conditioners in her bedroom were always left on and when there was no light, the stand by generator came on. Her body was slick with sweat, something that hadn’t happened to her in years. And she was in her under wear.

She never slept in her underwear. She climbed out of the bed in the semi-dark room. Instead of soft rug, she felt cold carpet. If she had thought she was dreaming, there was no doubt now that she wasn’t. This was a real nightmare, no ordinary dream.

Where was she? Why was she here?

She wracked her brain, trying to figure out how she ended up in this place. She was supposed to be in a flight to Lagos this evening. She had left home quite early and made a few stops. She was driving back home, singing P-Square’s buzzy body when a male voice joined her, alerting her to the fact that she wasn’t alone in her car. He had held a gun to her neck and subsequently asked her to pull over. That was the last thing she remembered. She had been abducted. How he’d got into her car was a mystery.

She had heard stories and read novels about heiresses being abducted and ransomed by men who couldn’t bear to work for a living, men who wanted quick and easy money. But never in her wildest imagination had she thought she would one day find herself a victim. Now she wished she hadn’t resisted her father’s attempts to get her a driver. She loved driving and that was now her undoing!

It was dark and she guessed it was over 7pm. She had missed her flight to Lagos. Damn it. How dared he? Her abductor was going to pay dearly for what he had done to her! She moved slowly to the window noting, to her annoyance, that it had a mosquito net as well as iron protectors. There was no way she could escape from the room. She tried the door and wasn’t surprised to find it locked.

She had to get out of there! The room was like a cubicle and made her feel claustrophobic.

She felt the walls with her hands and found a light switch. She flicked the switch but the lights didn’t come on. She made her way back to the bed surprised to find her handbag there. She reached for her phones, surprised that her abductor had been stupid enough to leave them there. None of the phones came on. She removed the back of each phone and found that there were no batteries. Her sim cards were also missing. So he wasn’t stupid after all. She searched further and found that her purse and cheque book were also missing from the bag.

‘Damn!’

‘I have to leave this place,’ she thought and almost immediately, she heard the key turn in the lock and the door open.

A man stepped into the room with a lit lantern. Lantern in this millennium! The shadows from the light danced around his face making it difficult for her to discern his features, but he was a few inches taller than she was. Suddenly aware of her state of undress, she quickly grabbed the wrapper on the bed and covered herself with it.

‘It’s too late. I have already seen the merchandise,’ he told her.

‘Where am I? Where are my clothes?’ she demanded.

‘In safe keeping,’ was his reply and just then the lights came on. He blew out the flame from the lantern.

With the lights on, she was able to appreciate his features and recognise him as the man who had been leaning against her car a few days earlier. He was fair skinned with wide spaced blue eyes which she suspected were contact lenses, straight nose and full lips. His hair was curly betraying his foreign ancestry. He was obviously of mixed race.

His inscrutable expression annoyed IB who demanded: ‘Why am I here?’

‘You’ll know at the appropriate time. Now, come with me. I made an early meal for us.’

Early meal, ke. And he just expected her to follow him!

‘I have a flight to catch.’

‘It left a few minutes ago.’

‘No thanks to you. But mark my words, you’ll pay for it, you poverty infested being.’

‘And you are in no position to make threats, spoilt brat,’ he returned. ‘Now I want you out of this room before I am compelled to use force on you.’

‘You are not a gentleman.’

‘I never professed to be one.’

Her eyes gave him a once over, taking note of his black t-shirt and combat shorts. He was also barefooted.

‘I need my clothes.’

‘You’ll have to make do with the wrapper. After all, it’s not like you’re going anywhere.’

‘You can’t keep me here.’

He ignored her. She took a haughty position and walked past him ensuring that there was no contact whatsoever with their bodies. He shut the door behind her and headed in the direction of the kitchen which was just off the tiny sitting room. The sitting room was about a third of the size of her personal living room and furnished with old but neat cushioned chairs, (the kind she expected to find in the home of grandparents), a wooden table, a television so old it looked like it could only show pictures in black and white, the type that you hit twice before it started. There were no personal effects. No photographs to say something about the owner of the house.

The kitchen was so tiny it barely fit the two of them. It was furnished with a wall cabinet spanning the length of one wall, a cooking surface with two stoves and a sink. There was also a drum in the kitchen and she figured that it was filled with water. A table top fridge groaned like something about to die.

‘Why am I here?’ she asked for the second time.

He ignored her concentrating on the jollof rice inside the pot on one of the stoves. He deposited the pot on a wooden triangular pot stand.

‘Are you deaf or something?’ she continued rudely, her eyes scanning the room in search of something she could use on as a weapon, most likely on his head.

‘Where are we?’

‘Do I look stupid?’

‘You don’t want to know the answer to that, but I’ll tell you anyway. You are stupid because only a fool will mess with the daughter of a man who can put his sorry self in jail and ensure that he stays there for life.’

‘If that little speech is calculated at upsetting me, I must warn you that you are wasting your time, brat.’

‘What did you just call me?’ she demanded affronted.

‘Brat. Spelt as pronounced just in case you didn’t know.’

She recognised an insult when she saw one.

‘I’ll have you know that I have a first class degree and Masters from the Harvard University.’

‘How exciting,’ he said, sarcasm apparent in his voice.

‘It’s not my fault that you lack basic education, half breed.’ She told him nastily.

She realised she had gone too far when his eyes narrowed dangerously.

‘What did you just call me?’

Common sense warned her that she was already stepping on dangerous grounds but she still responded all the same.

‘Nothing more derogatory than what you used on me, half breed,’ she said.

He moved so quickly that she didn’t even see him coming until she found herself pressed against the wall, his fingers digging into her shoulders, his breath warm against her skin. His eyes were dark with fury.

‘Get your filthy hands off me,’ she ordered.

‘Or you’ll do what? Tell daddy?’ he mocked.

‘You’ll be in real soup when he gets hold of you. Death won’t even provide the relief you seek,’ she threatened him.

‘And I am so scared,’ he taunted. ‘Now, call me half breed one more time and I -’

‘Do you prefer cross breed? Because you are neither black not Caucasian.’

His fist slammed on the wall on the left side of her head and she flinched.

‘I am not scared of you,’ she told him boldly, thinking inwardly how much she would like to torture him by chopping his unfortunately great physique into tiny pieces and feeding each piece to him. ‘There are only two things you can do to me: ki*ll me or rape me and neither of these two can make you a real man.’

He gave her an insulting once over.

‘That’s where you are wrong. Call me a half breed once more and you will find out that there are worse things I can do to you than rape and ki*ll you.’

She parted her lips but sensibly shut them up once more.

He returned to the pot and she watched his back for a moment, hating him. He didn’t know who he was dealing with. Who the hell did he think he was? Filthy peasant and not worthy so much as to clean her sneakers let alone breathe in the same air that she did. He might be handsome with a good physique, but without money to his name, his physical look was useless unless you were looking for a temporary distraction.

Well, first things first. She had noticed the protector before one of the doors in the sitting room and it had been unlocked. If she was lucky, the door itself would be unlocked and she could make her escape. Her eyes scanned the tiny room once more in search of a weapon and she found one.

A rolling pin.

It was the last thing she expected to see in a bachelor’s kitchen but it was just her luck. Moving slowly as he dished the jollof rice into a bowl, she reached for the rolling pin and before it occurred to him that he was about to be attacked, she sent the rolling pin down on his head. She took off even as she heard the shattering of a plate. She shut the kitchen door behind her to delay him. The wrapper made running difficult but she was soon at the door. Her prayers were answered: the door was unlocked.

She shut it behind her and raced into the night. There was no light indicating nearby homes, just grasses but she didn’t let this deter her. She heard her abductor’s movement behind her. She gave him a good run, showing off her skills as a one-time 100 metres champion in her secondary school but the night and the lack of knowledge of her surroundings were her undoing and he finally caught up with her. As she screamed a large hand closed over her mouth and another clasped around her neck.

‘Brat!’ he swore.

She tried to bite into his palm but found it impossible to do so. His hold pressed her against his body so she could feel the heat emanating from him. She struggled with him and the grip on her neck tightened. She lifted one foot and brought it down on his own with all the strength she could muster but it didn’t have a satisfying effect since she was barefooted. If she had one of her long stiletto heeled shoes on, she would have successfully and satisfactorily maimed him for life!

He lifted her fireman style and ignored the punches she gave his back and neck as he headed back into the building. He released her, tossing her on one of the chairs. She landed with a thud. Before she could protest he assured her that the next time she tried to escape he would sh00t both legs and let her go through life as a paraplegic. His cold eyes dared her to contradict him and she sensibly didn’t.

He locked up and returned to her.

‘Let’s get one thing straight. I am not your babysitter. You are my prisoner and you shall do as you are asked.’

She eyed the gun he was waving over her face, not sure whether it was a real one or a fake one but not prepared to find out. Besides, she had heard of accidental discharges, and although he appeared to be in control, he could do it just to spite her.

‘Do you mind keeping that where you got it from,’ she told him, moving out of its range, ‘before you hurt somebody.’

‘It would serve you right,’ he told her before sticking it into the waist band of his jean.

‘And it would serve you right if you accidentally sh00t yourself in the groin. That way, the world wouldn’t worry about you producing more of your likeness,’ she returned. ‘Now, what do you want from me?’

He warned her to stay put while he hurried into the kitchen and returned with a tray and a big bowl of food, 2 ceramic plates, 2 aluminium cups and a bottle of water. One look at the water told her that he hadn’t bought it but had perhaps fetched it from a tap outside.

‘I am not hungry,’ she informed him, folding her arms across her chest.

Did he really expect her to eat anything he had cooked? Or even worse, use a ceramic plate? She had never eaten in one. Even as a little child. And aluminium cups? God forbid!

‘Starving yourself isn’t going to make me sweet on you.’

He picked one of the ceramic plates and dished out food for himself.

‘I’ll pass,’ she told him stubbornly. ‘You eat your own poison.’

He ignored her and began to eat.

‘Where are my batteries and sim cards?’

‘In safe custody.’

‘I want them back.’

‘You’ll get them when I am ready to release them to you.’

‘And my purse and chequebook?’

‘The same applies to them.’

‘I don’t trust you.’

‘I would be feeding you for the duration of your stay here and it is only fair that you pay for your keep,’ he simply told her.

‘And I didn’t ask to be abducted. Look, this joke is getting too expensive. Which one of my friends put you up to this?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Don’t you? If you had been a regular kidnapper you would have made a call to my father by now and asked for a ransom.’

He ignored her and walked over to the television, turning in on.

‘And to my surprise, you didn’t have to hit it for it to start,’ she said sarcastically. ‘And look, it actually shows colours beyond black and white.’

He ignored her.

‘Well, who put you up to this?’ she asked, returning to her earlier question.

He picked up his plate and focused on the programme that came on and this annoyed her. She rose to her feet and stood between him and the television.

‘Get away from there this minute,’ he told her.

‘Or you’ll do what? Assault me?’

‘I am sure you would love to have my hands all over you,’ he said insultingly. ‘You can come to my room later tonight and I will give you the night of your life, but at this moment I have no use for your body. Now move!’

‘You bas***d!’

‘Move Ibitoru.’

The dangerous glint in his blue eyes made her move aside even though she was physically steaming.

‘Enough is enough. I want my things now,’ she insisted.

‘And you are becoming a nuisance.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ she demanded with righteous indignation. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

‘Ibitoru Davids, the spoilt and undomesticated daughter of Senator Sotonye Davids. Now leave me in peace, woman.’

‘Woman! Don’t you dare use that condescending tone on me. On a good day you wouldn’t have the guts to speak to me.’

‘You are trying my patience.’

‘You should have left me in peace. By now, I should have been in Lagos.’

He ignored her and continued eating.

‘I’ll pay you N1,000,000.00 to free me.’

I am being too generous, she thought.

‘All right, N3, 000, 000. 00,’ she amended when he said nothing. ‘I am sure it would make a huge difference in your life. I’ll get the money back from my father and we can both pretend this incident never happened. You’ll have your money and I’ll be on my way for my vacation. I am sure I can get another flight to Lagos tomorrow morning.’

‘Shut up.’ He snapped at her.

‘I can pay you. Keeping me here is very risky. My dad has his connections and when they find you what will happen to you will make the holocaust look like a Sunday picnic. I am actually doing you a favour, you know. I don’t owe you one and if you had any sense at all you will take it.’

‘If I need your money, I’ll let you know.’

‘My father may not give you that amount of money. Even if he does, you would have to pay through your nose and you may not be able to raise N3,000,000 even if you were given the rest of your sorry life to do so.’

He didn’t bother responding.

‘N3,000,000 is a lot of money,’ she continued. ‘I won’t ask for a refund.’

‘I am sure you won’t,’ he ground out. ‘But one more word about your money and I shall silence that thing you call a mouth.’

Her lips parted to make a suitable retort but his look shut her up.

‘Ill-tempered mule,’ she thought as she headed for the bedroom he had kept her in.

He ignored her completely to her annoyance and she banged the door with relish.

~*~*~*~

The young man told himself that he had his hands full keeping Ibitoru there with him. She was proud, saucy and stubborn, a total spoilt brat, but he was going to tame her. He was going to make her useful to herself and to others. He wouldn’t have wasted his precious time with her if he didn’t have to pay her father back for a wrong he had committed while he was a serving Governor and thus immune to criminal and civil suits. He could call her father’s line right now and make a huge demand on him but that wouldn’t make up for what her father had done. Keeping his only child for a long time would have more effect.

He was no rapist. He believed that only a man who had serious issues with his sexuality would force himself on a woman and he frowned strongly at that. But Ibitoru didn’t know this and that would work to his advantage. She said there were only two things he could do to her: rape or ki*ll her. And for all her boldness, she wouldn’t survive a rape. She hadn’t kept her virginity this long only to have it taken by force. It was something she used as a bargaining chip, to get the guys interested, dangling it over their noses like a bone before a dog.

She was beautiful. He would give her that. She took after her paternal grandmother who at the age of seventy-nine was still breathtaking. But her parents hadn’t given her the least home training, unlike his mother who had domesticated all her sons.

Let Chief Davids lose sleep wondering what he was doing to his beautiful little girl. When he was tired of keeping Ibitoru, he would make his request known.

To be continued

 

ALL EPISODES

6 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also
Close
Back to top button
error: Content is protected !!
Close

Turn Off Data Saver

To enjoy the full functions of our website, kindly turn off your data saver or switch to mobile browsers like Chrome or Firefox. Reload this page after turning off data saver