UNTAMED

Part Nine

{You’re a loin’s cub, home fresh from the kill, my son. Look at him, crouched like a loin, king of the beasts; who dares mess with him?}

  “Tamed you have less than thirty seconds to get out of there, the fire has gotten to the car park. You know what that means? Over” Mark said.
“Copied.”
He was already by the door leading to the outside of the boy’s quarter. He had placed her on his shoulders after putting her to sleep.  He did not care whether what he did was medically proven to work or not. All he knew was that it had worked most times. During their Kung Fu training in which they spent six months in Beijing, the kung Fu master had taught them the trick. He had called the tiny hole at the center of the wrist and the hole at the side of the neck the spirit gate.
     There were so many thoughts running through his mind but what he needed to do now was to concentrate on leaving Ologbo, he would try to understand what had just happened in the room. It was risky to go through the gate but more risky to go through where he came from. The fire had already licked its way to the car park and before he would find a way to pass both of them through the fence, the explosion that was certain would catch up with them. With his Rugger pistol in his right hand, he started running. Few seconds after he had come outside, he heard the sound of the explosions in the car park. He kept running. He did not see anyone as he ran but his quick glances at the houses he passed, showed some had pulled down the curtain of their windows. They wouldn’t see much even if they looked. He was even the one seeing them because those who did not pull down their curtains had their lamps and he was also wearing his night vision spectacle.
“Mark you guys changed a rescue mission to a burning mission. That house is gone” Major Ahmed said.
“Major you would have been worried of bigger things if I was on ground. Chief should be grateful his cars and his houses are the only things damaged for now” Wild answered.
“Wild don’t put ideas into Tamed. This is a situation I have to deal with Mr President and I don’t plan on making it worse” Major said.
“Major, were you following at all? Who cares about a dumb protocol? Chief is not human….”
“Doc. I get it. I followed everything, and from what Tamed had earlier reported, the girl had been in captivity for at least fourteen years and I don’t want to imagine what she must have passed through, but rules must be followed. Right now, the mission is to rescue and nothing else. Tamed do you copy?” Major commanded.
“For now” he answered.
If there was anything he liked about the Circle, it was the freedom of expression, they were all equal. Their meeting was done in a circle table and Jason had done a lot of work in eliminating military gibberish, as he had called it. Only few remained.
“Major you know you can’t let the President know the exact rescue mission we did” Fast said.
“I’m not stupid Fast. We will wait and see how Chief will report it. That will determine the next line of action.”
He saw the van coming towards him and stopped running. The door was opened almost immediately the van got to where he was. He placed her in the back seat and also joined her. Jason was on the move.
“Trouble alert. Over” Mark said.
“What is it Mark. Over?”
“A pick-up van is coming towards you. Up to ten targets and they are all with weapons. Over.”
“Jason you drive I will face them. Wind down the back screen” He said looking at Jason to get his response.
Jason shook his head. He raised his right hand and signaled to him, he was already on the targets. He wanted to ask what he had done but heard an explosion.
“Targeted missile?” he asked.
Jason nodded and increased the speed of the van.
“Tamed, she is going to wake up soon” Doc said.
“And she would be in a state of frenzy. She will be worse than before” Wild added.
“Tamed open the first aid box and prepare just 1mg of Midazolam. We must be careful of the amount to give her. At least that would hold her down till you get to your destination. You know how to give the injection. Just wait till she wakes please” Doc said.
“Okay. Mark any more targets? Over” he asked as he prepared the midazolam injection.
“Absolutely none.”
Just then, he felt her stir. She opened her eyes but inside the van was dark, he could see because he was still putting on his spectacle.
“Where am I?” she asked trying to sit up but he held her back.
“You are safe. You don’t….”
“Tamed no” Wild interrupted him.
Almost immediately, he understood why Wild had stopped him but it was too late.
“You are not Chief, no… get me out of here. Where is Chief…take me back to Chief, I'm not going with you” she screamed struggling to pull herself away from his grasp.
He quickly injected her with the Midazolam.
“You are evil, you are a beast, a…..”  The midazolam did not permit her to finish her statement as she once again went numbed in his arms.
“At least she got that last part right” Ghost who had been silent spoke.
He heard Mark, Fast, Major and Doc laughing. Somehow Ghost had find a way to ease the anger and tension.
“Ghost seriously?” Wild said.
“Wild calm down. I’m angry too. She even look and sound like someone from my tribe, but I’m also happy. Let’s look at the bright side.  Apart from the trauma and the debriefing process, she is now free. And as long as the beast is with her, she is safe. Let’s not cry because it happened, let’s be happy because it’s over” Ghost said.
“I wish I could see things the way you see it Ghost” Fast said.
Ghost words were somehow calming his raging mind but something clicked.
“Wait. What do you mean by as long as she is with the beast?” He asked.
Jason stopped the van just when he had asked his question. And he was coming out of the driver’s seat. They were at the underground house in Benin.
“Jason what the heck is going on?” he asked but did not get a response.
He opened the back door to ask Jason why he had stopped but Jason was nowhere to be found.
“I hope is not what I’m thinking Wild?” he shouted.
“It’s originally your mission, you are the body guard for now till we can handle Chief.”
“Major? Wild are you crazy? You set me up. How dare you Wild? Do you want to die? I thought we are all equal in the Circle. I said I will come back. In fact I’m back, so why will you abandon her to me? I’m not a psychologist nor a doctor. She needs both profession. This is you and doc’s work” he shouted.
“She needs a bodyguard too.  You know the Circle no longer work with the Special Force. And you know we are very few and almost everyone have an assignment.  Doc and I will be temporally coming over tomorrow morning. And as the leader I’ve made my decision. You will be standing as a guard, use your house. Toll your pickup with the van. Do you copy?”
“Fuck you Wild?”
“You too. You think what you want to do is the only option. You were not the only one who lost someone. You lost your wife, but we also lost a sister. We all loved Abigail too. You were not the only one mourning, we were mourning too. You only took your feelings into consideration, forgetting Circle is like a family. One person’s loss is everybody's loss. We lost Abigail and we are not going to lose you too, not when we are still mourning George’s death” Wild shouted back.
“And you think placing her in my care is going to keep me in check” he said, same time, he felt the rage he had been longing to feel.
“I did not think, I know it. If you don’t want her to wake up when you are still driving, you better get moving now. Just put her in your master bedroom and lock it until we come. Mark rescue mission is over. Disconnect. Over and out” Wild said.
“No wait…”
Mark had disconnected.
He knew it because there was no sound coming from any side. If only he had thought about what Wild meant by ‘he had a plan’, he wouldn’t be in this mess. As Wild said, he had no time to waste. He held down his boiling rage, connected the chain of the van to his pickup, then he quickly entered the van driver’s seat. He ignited the van and started driving. He made it to Asaba in less than an hour. He carried her to the master bedroom. The room that had belonged to him and Abigail. He had moved out to the second room after her death. He placed her on the bed, then switched on the rechargeable torch in the room.  He had removed his spectacle but he could still clearly see the new bruises.  Ghost might be right, she had some of the features of the Hausas and she was also very dark in complexion which was disturbing because her dark skin should have been able to hide some of the marks but some of the scars were too deep, they looked like marks from wires. Looking at those scars brought back some memories he would rather not remember. Although his injuries were long gone, the memories had remained. The great difference between him and the lady on the bed was he had to rescue himself and his mum.
  He never had a great memory of his father, all he remembered was a little boy lying down beside a sick man. His mum had told him his dad, a hunter had encountered a wild bull in one of his hunt and after his battle with the bull, the bull had ended up dead and his dad was carried home with a broken and torn back, he never recovered till he died. The few times he had heard his father talk which were no little feat, it was to beg his mum to let him go.
“You are wasting money Obinna would need for his education” his dad had always pleaded.
But his mum had refused and she was left with so much debt after his father had passed away. He was just seven. His mum had remarried a year later. She had married his father’s friend who had promised to help pay the debt and sponsor him to the university. But that man became a monster few months later. He had hit him with sticks at the slightest provocation, and he had become a drunkard. His mum had started the palm fruit business and the money was mostly devoted to paying their debt. At first, he was the only one to receive his stepfather’s beatings and his mum was only pushed away anytime she tried to intervene. He had always feared his stepfather, especially when he came home drunk but things changed when he started hitting his mum. At first, he had only watched and cried as slippers, shoes, legs were used on his mum.
He had come back from school one day to see blood gushing out of his mum’s left leg, then he was ten and in elementary four.  Something had begun stirring in him, he could not place it but he just knew he would not watch his mum being beaten anymore. At first, he had ran into the bush to get the plant which was used to treat cuts. The leaf was usually squeezed and the liquid was put on injuries, but he had returned to see his stepfather still hitting his mum. He did not think, he just picked the biggest fire wood he could carry and used it to hit his stepfather on his back. He had used all his strength and the force had sent his stepfather to the ground. He had almost landed on his mum. He must have been possessed that day because he did not stop there, he had ran and picked the axe used to break the firewood. As he ran back to use it on his stepfather, he had seen it, the fear, even if it did not last long but it was there. His stepfather had wrestled the axe from him and had given him a good beaten after overpowering him. But everything had changed from that day. He had promised his mum he would protect her after his stepfather had gone out for another drink.
“Obinna, you are just like your father. He was very fearless and did you not see where it had landed him. Please don’t ever fight him again, please my Obi. You are just ten, you are the only joy I have, please” his mum had pleaded.
But he had not listened as he had set a trap for his step dad. He had always set trap for rabbits at their hole. He did not have the time to smoke them out, his mum had told him he got the talent from his dad. That night, they had been woken up by his stepfather’s scream.  He had removed it after his stepfather had promised never to touch them again. But two weeks later, his stepfather had broken his promise. He was coming from school that day when he saw people trying to hold a man hitting a woman close to a pickup van by the market. It was his mum. For the second time in two weeks, he was once again possessed. In his school bag was the knife he had used to sharpen the sticks he used for traps. He brought it out and before the crowd could understand what was happening, he had stabbed his stepfather at his back almost at his waist.
“I told you, I will kill you if you touch my mum again” he had shouted as he raised his hand to stab him again but some people had already recovered from the shock and held him back. Luckily for his stepfather, he had survived the knife wound. He and his mum were taken to the council. They were brought before the Asagba of Asaba, there were also elders and council members. If so many witnesses were not there, the council wouldn’t have believed a ten years old boy had stabbed his stepfather. When he was asked his reason for stabbing his stepfather, he had simply said he did not want to stab him but had wanted to kill him and he would kill him in his sleep if he touched his mum again. Surprisingly, many of them had burst into laughter, saying he was the reincarnation of his great grandfather. They had called him Ogbuenhi, killer of elephants. The Asagba had dismissed the case after confirming from the witnesses that his stepfather had been beating his mum for refusing to give him the money she had sold when he had stabbed him. His stepfather was told to stop beating his mother. The Asagba had reminded him of how hot tempered the great Ogbuenhi was and told them the story of how Ogbuenhi had fought with three herdsmen who had wanted to rape his wife and how he had castrated the both of them and had left them to bleed to death. They had sent them home believing what he said about killing his stepfather was a joke. But his stepfather had known he was not joking. He did not sleep in the house that night and had packed out the next day. That was the beginning of his journey of becoming the beast the Circle had nicknamed him.
A movement on the bed brought him back to reality. She was awake. He was not ready to deal with her.
“Where am I?” she asked.
He ignored her, he went back to the door but before he could open it she was already on him.
“No, take me back, let me go back to Chief. Let me go” she screamed pulling at his jacket.
He was going to kill Wild tomorrow. He gently pulled her away amidst her futile struggle, then he quickly shot the door. Almost immediately, she started hitting the door.
“Let me out, you are an evil beast. Let me out.”
Like Ghost said, she was right. So many people would soon be hunted by the beast and Wild would be the first to have a taste of his wrath. For now he would make do releasing his wrath on his punching bags.