Beckoned Through The Dark

102 // Abigail // Madhouse

"Jessica!" Lwandle screamed.

We all stared at Karabelo in horror; she was just standing there, she was not trembling or shocked, she looked remorseless  as if she did not just pull a trigger on someone’s life.

"Why did you do that?" Lwandle bellowed, but Karabelo pointed a gun at her.

“She was going to slow us down,” Karabelo said bluntly, but Lwandle was not having it, she raised her gun at Karabelo, and they stood there head-to-head.

"Move and you die." Betty finally intervened, pointing her own gun at Lwandle. "Drop that gun. Now!" She shouted, shooting at the ceiling, and Lwandle instantly dropped her gun. "Pick that gun up and do what I pay you to do." Lwandle stood there for a moment as if studying Betty, her hands shaking on her sides, and then she picked the gun and pointed it at us. "Sello, pick her up and take her outside." Sello looked around the room in panic. “Now,” she repeated in a sharp voice, and he scrambled to his feet and carried her outside.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked her as he walked back into the house, but she just motioned for him to sit down.

She picked her microphone from the flower stand. "We have two dead bodies now, Jacobs!"

"You are only influencing your sentence, Betty!"

"Shut up, you coward!" She snapped, "I'm going to kill them."

"You are a monster," Dineo said in hot tears.

Poor kid, I’d even forgotten she was here. "She's still your mother, Dineo," Vincent said.

"Shut up you two!" Karabelo snarled. Surprisingly, Vincent and Dineo are not as startled as everybody else. "If you want to be next, just keep talking."

The room fell silent, but Nthabiseng was not having it. She seemed to have forgotten that she was the only person in this room who couldn’t die, because she was already dead. "She is right, Betty, you were still telling us a story - why you turned out to be such a shame," she said, intentionally provoking Betty who pointed the gun at her. "You can't kill me before you finish your story. I want to hear it."

Betty smirked. "You are right, where did I stop?" She asked sweetly. “Oh, Rorisang! Sweet Rorisang, hmm? Rorisang asked that we move into her mansion with her. After high school, I didn't have to go to University or try to look for a job - who needs a job when their mother is a billionaire?"

"People who don't value life. People who are spoilt. People who are irresponsible and people who are crazy like you!" Dineo yelled with anger evident in her voice.

"Betty. Do you think it is possible to take Dineo outside without harming her?" Bridgette asked worriedly, fear written all over her face.

Betty slowly shook her head. "The only time and way anyone of you is going out is when you get a bullet in your head."

"Betty, did you take your medication today?" Nthabiseng prompted.

Betty pointed the gun at her again, and a part of me wished she would pull the trigger. "What are you insinuating? That am crazy?"

"If you shoot me, then you are crazy. You can't kill a person who is already dead." That statement made everyone in the room uncomfortable, more especially Bridgette, she literally looked like she’d just seen a ghost.

Betty started circling us, taking a chance to look at each one of us. "One less problem without you. You know, it is not easy to choose the next person, we will just have to wait." She smiled cockily. "There are three more people who need to die," She said before moving towards the door.

"Elizabeth, look outside the window." The detective called out, but she ignored him and looked at Vincent.

She twirled the gun in her hand as if it was a toy. "My mother treated Rorisang as if she were her own child and I wasn't. That's when I started to develop feelings, I couldn't describe them then, but they were jealousy and hatred. I was jealous of Rorisang and I hated her, both she and my mother,” she confessed. "You know, that was the beginning of my problems, Rorisang. They were playing happy family and while they were playing happy family, I was plotting on how to get rid of them both. I asked Trevor Clements to move in with me, after all, I was pregnant with his child." She smiled dreamily and let out a heavy breath. "Nthabi's pregnancy was 8 weeks younger than mine, although they found out about hers first. After Trevor Clements moved in with me, we got married. 7 months later, I gave birth to a baby girl.” For the first time since I met her, I saw pain in her eyes, deep, raw pain. She gulped, tears rolling down her face. “She uh, she died.” My heart soared for her; I knew exactly how she felt. “But, lucky for me, Rorisang gave birth to twins when she was eight months pregnant," She said with a smile.

Nthabiseng's face filled with pain, it was as if all the memories were coming back to her. "You are a witch," she whispers. "You are crazy!" She tried to get up, but Sello held her back.

Betty laughed maniacally. "Anyway, when Rorisang gave birth at Green City Hospital, I contacted a friend of mine there - Nomalanga." She looked at me as she said that. "She was a nurse there and she helped me to steal Rorisang's little baby girls and of course, my dear friend, Bridgette, helped me with a little potion to kill Rorisang. Nomalanga helped me stage the twins’ death, all she had to do was to find two dead babies as proof."

Nthabi tried hard to fight off Sello's hold, but she failed and ended up breaking down.

"How could you?" Vincent asked, tears flooding his face.

The room went silent, apart from Nthabiseng’s cries.

"She's going to kill us all," Tiffany whispered.

“Anyway, after losing his wife and kids, my brother was devastated of course, but as soon as he met my babies, he healed. I actually named the twins Lesego and Karabelo just like their real parents were planning to."

Karabelo, who had gone mum since Betty started talking, gasped, her eyes wide as saucers as she stared at Vincent and Nthabiseng. She shook her head in denial. "No. I'm your daughter. You said I was your daughter!" She snapped, “You said they abandoned us because they didn’t want us, you said…” Betty laughed hysterically.

I could see Karabelo’s mind working, if she still had her powers, she would have snapped her mother’s neck right there and then; she just realised that she was being manipulated all her life.

“This is more than just about money, we are all going to die here today,” Tiffany said.

My heart drummed fast in my chest and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Karabelo,” I pleaded, and she gave me a teary gaze. “Please don’t do this, there’s still time to fix things. Your sister is alive, and your dad and grandmother are here.”

A lone tear rolled down her face, and she gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”