Trafficked

11. Phone Calls and Talks

CHINYERE LOOKED AT the phone on the table and ran to it without a second thought.

She turned on the phone and fortunately for her, there was no password.

She unlocked the phone by swiping upwards and clicked on the phone call app.

The phone was only nine percent and she knew she had to hurry.

Mom's number or Amanda's number? Chinyere asked herself.

"Chinyere, open the door," Mr. Oko said from behind the door. His voice snapped her back to reality and she knew she didn't have all the time in the world.

Eight percent.

She punched in her mother's phone number and brought the phone to her ear.

Her mother immediately answered the phone. It was as though she had already been waiting for a phone call.

"Hello?" her mom said. "Chọtala ya? Please tell me you have found my daughter. Sh–"

"Mommy," Chinyere interrupted her mother. She wanted to cry at the sound of her mother's voice and pour out how sorry she was for leaving home but her time was limited.

"Chinyere?" her mother, Chioma, said and by the sound of it, Chinyere knew that she was crying. "Is that you."

"Yes, Ma," tears dropped from Chinyere's eyes as she whispered into the phone. "It's me."

"C-chinyere, my daughter, where are you?" Chioma asked.

Chioma's voice was shaky as she spoke. She'd been staying up all night for the past few days to open the gate for Chinyere when she would return.

She knew Chinyere hated being at home but for Chinyere to not be at home for more than three hours when she wasn't at school was something new to her.

It had been days since she'd last seen her daughter and she yearned to hear her voice once again.

Chinyere struggled to remember where she was but then she remembered the state, "I'm in Ebonyi state."

"Chai!" Chioma exclaimed. "Chinyere, what are you doing there."

"I was kidnapped and sold but I can't tell you everything over the phone," Chinyere whispered. "I-I need you to come and rescue me. T-the gate of the house is the same colour of the Nigerian flag a-a-and Amanda's father is the one who bought me."

Chinyere waited to hear a response from her mother but she got no response.

She removed the phone from her ear and looked at it. The phone was completely dead and it was shutting down.

She brought it back to her ear and shouted, "Hello? Hello?"

She still got no response.

She threw the phone back on the table and dropped to the floor.

She lay on the ground and wept. She wept for herself and for her friends and family.

She couldn't imagine the kind of pain and stress that they were going through.

At home, she always felt like the unloved and unwanted child.

Her parents scolded her for every single thing she did wrong and never praised her when she did anything right, but when she heard her mother's voice, she knew that her mother had been waiting for her daughter's call.

The banging on the kitchen door had stopped and she could no longer hear Mr. Oko's voice.

Chinyere wept as she thought of the circumstances under which she was married.

She didn't want to marry someone who she didn't love, someone who drank and smoked from morning to night and someone who was a rapist.

His father sent him to school for nothing, Chinyere thought.

She remembered the tale of how her parents met.

Her father was the son to a chief in the village and the next in line to the throne. He was, and still is, an African traditionalist.

Her mother was a Christian but both her parents were African traditionalists but from another village.

Chinyere's parents' marriage was an arranged marriage to unite the two villages that were in a conflict.

Chinyere had followed her mother's religion but a few of her siblings had followed theirs father's.

Her father's other wives were African traditionalists.

She remembered telling her mother that the story of how she would meet her own husband was going to be way better, but it wasn't. She was married to someone who she didn't even know, let alone love.

The back door of the house opened. The back door was connected to the kitchen and the kitchen led to the outside.

Chinyere wondered how the door had been opened because she knew that it had always been locked after she came into the house, except on the day of her wedding.

She sat up and looked at Mr. Oko who had just entered the kitchen.
"I remembered that I had the key to the back door in my room," he said.

He extended his hand to help Chinyere up but she ignored it and stood up on her own.

Mr. Oko cleared his throat before speaking, "I just wanted to tell you that you should be submissive to your husband. I know what he did was wrong but he is still your superior."

Chinyere looked at Mr. Oko as though he had grown two heads.

Is he serious? Chinyere asked herself.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and insult him.

Her mother had taught her better. She had only broken one of her mother's rules and look at where she ended up. She didn't want to break another one.

She simply nodded and proceeded to walk out through the back door but Mr. Oko blocked her path, "The door is that way."

Chinyere turned around, unlocked the door to the kitchen and walked out.

She didn't want to be in the same room as Chibinobim, so she found herself in the dining room.
Their plates of food were still on the table but the food had gone cold.

Chinyere pushed away the food and rested her head on the table. She cried herself to sleep.

     THE NEXT DAY, Chinyere avoided Chibinobim at all costs.

She did not talk to anyone, not even the maids.

During breakfast time, she made sure to occupy herself with something else, just to avoid sitting beside Chibinobim.

It was now afternoon and Chinyere was sitting in her bedroom, looking outside the window.

She was just about to close the curtains when a knock on the door interrupted her.

"Come in!" she said.

Tina flew into the room with the speed of a falcon.

Chinyere wandered if someone was chasing her.

Tina quietly shut the door and sat on the bed.

When Chinyere first met Tina she did not bother to know what the girl looked like but now that she looked at her face, she felt as though she had known her before.

"Good afternoon," Chinyere greeted, "why are you here?"

"My husband, Amadi, came to visit his father and I followed him," Tina sounded excited as she spoke. "I have been thinking about the day we spoke and I know your plans were ruined because they didn't have a death anniversary ceremony."

"And?" Chinyere asked.

"I have planned," Tina answered with a smile on her face, "to run away with you."