Yesterday's Future 2✔️

12. The memories came back, like always.

***Past***

"You! Wake that dada girl for me. Come here. Today is your day." The room went dead at the sudden flinty voice except the cackling sound of the bunch of keys as it unlocked the gate, and all the inmates looked at the direction the voice pointed at.

In the corner of the cell where she sat on the floor with her hands hugging her legs tight, face buried between them, she looked up, it was her. Her weak eyes popped, heart beating faster.

Immediately, she dragged herself  up in her dirty clothes, and without looking back she walked hurriedly towards the iron barred door that was now opened for her.

Following after the female sergeant, Officer Shile, a short burly woman in her late forties, she wondered what was about to happen to her now, whether they were finally moving her somewhere else? Court? She began to panic, tears stung her eyes, her hands shaking. Her end had come.

"Ma? Ma? Officer, please where are we going? Do I have a lawyer now?"

The officer gave no response, she continued until they were at the end of the dark hallway. Opening the door of an office on their right, Officer Shile held the door out, and gestured to Simi to enter.

First she paused at the door and looked at the officer whose face held no emotion, before she decided to enter into the room where a woman wearing a white stoned turban and expensive abaya sat backing them, waiting for them.

Without joining, Officer Shile closed the door, leaving Simi and the woman alone.

"Who are you? Are you my lawyer? I don't know anything about this. I swear... I.. I just resumed school and...and I... " She started immediately, stuttering where she stood by the door, not moving an inch further into the room.

The woman stood up from her seat and walked towards her. That's when she stopped to really observe the lady. Everything she wore sparkled golden, from her head gear, her dress and luxurious set of jewelry. Even her make up stood out. She didn't recognize her and she knew she was not the lawyer.

"I'm not your lawyer Simi. I'm Shaffy, Sammie's aunt. I'm here to take you home. Nice to meet you." She held out her hand to her.

One hour fifteen minutes into the drive and nobody had said a word to the other. Not the driver, Aunty Shaffy or Simi.

Shaffy was in the owner's seat of the black Hilux, talking to someone over the phone in a language that sounded like Hausa. Simi didn't understand but from the tone, and the way the mysterious lady looked back and forth at her, it had to do with her sudden release and it didn't sound good either.

She on the other side of the seat, was looking outside through the car's window, her fingers intertwined between her shaky legs, twitching.

"How many days were you in there?" Aunty Shaffy broke the silence, Simi looked into the front mirror to meet the driver's eyes before she faced the strange woman who looked to be in her late thirties or early fourties'.

"It would have been two weeks ... tomorrow." Her voice was edged with fear and weak from crying. She raked her hands through the rough locked strands on her head.

"Two weeks? Why didn't your family try to get you out of there? I was told no one had come for you."

Simi looked away outside the window at the long trees, her eyes met with the driver's again in the front mirror again and everything felt awkward.