TEENAGE TRAUMA

THIS IS DANGEROUS

"The woman you know as my mum isn't my mum. I don't even know who she is. But she has asked me to call her 'Aunty'. I've been an orphan for as long as I could remember. Until I got adopted by a lovely couple. Mr. And Mrs Adebayo. I was really happy there. They were honestly the perfect family and I had the perfect life. Until, suddenly, Aunty came into our life and turned our household upside down. I had often seen her come to our house and ask for my custody but my foster parents refused. I knew she wanted custody of me and I was beginning to think she was my biological mother. One night, I waited at the door for my foster parents to come home, but they never did. Till the next morning. I got up very late and rushed to get ready for school. I dashed to their room to find out why no one woke me up. Only to find out they weren't there. I grew very scared and I sat in the living room, staring at the door with all the hope in me that soon, they'll come in and comfort me. But they never did.
    Aunty came into the house. She just walked in with the house keys and told me to get all my stuff and come with her. "That's mum's pair of keys! Why do you have that?" I asked her, refusing to comply to her orders." She stared at me in disgust and just walked into the kitchen. I saw her pick up a knife and I thought she wanted to stab me, but she just said, "I'm giving you an option here, believe me, you do not want to come with me and leave all this behind" Aunty responded. "I'm not going anywhere with you, you freak! Where are my parents?" I asked her. "Answer me! I'll call the police on you!" I threatened. "You don't have a phone", she replied. "I'll scream for help!" I said. "I'll like to see you try" she answered and took a deep bite of an apple she had picked from the fridge. I ran out of the house as fast as I could and to my surprise, aunty didn't chase me. Suddenly, I was caught by a bunch of men who put a huge piece of paper in my mouth and taped my lips shut. It was indeed the worst experience ever. They handled me as if they were handling a grown man. They tied me down and stuffed me in the back of a truck. I kicked and struggled as much as I could but they injected me with something strange which made my blood itch and I passed out. I woke up in a small room which I was at first, sure was a prison.                  The violent smell of the place made me regret regaining consciousness. At that point, I didn't even struggle. I was just about 7 years old when this happened. And ever since then, I lived with aunty. Not as a maid, or a hostage, but rather as a property. I had very limited access to a lot of rooms. I understood that she was the reason behind my missing foster parents. Aunty really abused me. She often used me to transport substances or weapons, or to distract people. Many of her men treated as they pleased, they hit me as they wanted, made me run errands, they often risked my life to save theirs.

You might be thinking, 'why haven't I tried to leave that house?' Aunty is killer. A cold blooded murderer. The first time I witnessed her kill someone was on my first week in that house. A teenage boy visited her and informed her about something which I couldn't hear. Aunty lost her temper and began to hit the boy angrily. When she stopped, the boy was so close to leaving the house when he promised to report what aunty just did to her boss. Aunty charged towards him and the young boy struggled to open the door to run off. Aunty had somehow locked it. She lifted him to her shoulders and marched up the stairs into a room which I wasn't able to enter. When she dropped him, he was able to get out of the room and run for the stairs. He saw me and was screaming for help but I didn't dare to intervene. I stepped behind the curtain to hide and in no time, aunty caught up to him and began to strangle him at the top of the stairs. The boy screamed, gasping for breath and aunty threw him down the high stairs. I saw the boy go splat on the ground and die. His bones were so badly dislocated and I could swear I saw his femur sticking out. The whole ground was filled with blood and aunty came and dragged his corpse back into the room.
I couldn't help but wonder the amount of bodies that could be in that room. Since then, I knew she wouldn't hesitate to kill me if I tried to act funny. She calls me 'Rita'. I don't know what it means or why she called me that, she keeps a very close eye on me and I dare not be late to the house from school. I can't stay there anymore. She's killing me! I beg you guys, don't make me go back there. Please". Saying that, Tricia burst into a pool of uncontrollable tears. I was flabbergasted. She really has gone through a lot. "You've never told anyone about that?" I asked. "The last person I told went missing the next day, she's still not been found." Tricia responded. "It's okay, Tricia, you don't need to go back there. You can stay at my place for as long as you want. It's okay Tricia, you don't need to see that demon ever again." Kevin offered.

"I can't ask you to do that, she'll come for you too" Tricia mentioned.
"Then we have to get to the police, she's a hardened criminal! How is she not behind bars?", I suggested.
"Trust me, referring to the police can't do us any good. I know of people who have tried to do that, it did not end well, apparently, there was no evidence of her doing anything wrong. Let's not even try that, people who do always end up dead", Tricia mentioned.
"We'll worry about that later. But you are not going back there. Okay?" Kevin assured her.
"Thank you", she said.
I grew really sad for the rest of that day. Kevin, Tricia and I remained quiet too. Tricia had indeed been through too much for someone her age. I wish I could tell someone else about this. I wished I could tell Chloe, my neighbour and best friend but I promised Tricia that I wouldn't.

I was pondering what we could do to get rid of Aunty finally when Josh spoke to me, "I took care of Mr. West."
"That's great", I replied
"You don't look too relieved or happy about it", he remarked, "He anyway got transferred to another school, he believes this school is very dangerous now. I couldn't have done this without Amber, she that one who convinced her dad to forget about all this and said it was all a prank."
"Of course, Amber gets whatever she wants, thanks to her dad", I said, rolling my eyes.

It hurt a bit, leaving my mum out of this. We were now dealing with a criminal, a murderer and I knew my mum would not want me getting involved in this. Especially without her consent, but a promise is a promise. Right?