Ex Officio (#3 EX TRILOGY)

Chapter 19

The other road users had no time to waste in checking for survivors from the crash because they were hurriedly leaving for their homes following the curfew that had hit many cities nationwide. Somehow, only few parts of Accra were still alive because they had a little more time to close down shops and return to their homes. The unforeseen resultantly overwhelming number of motorists travelling in and out of the city had caused a terrifying traffic jam and people were getting more agitated besides the outrageous orders from the presidency.

The driver's door was forced off its hinge by a strong kick from Sly as he emerged from the maimed vehicle with scratches on his face revealing metal underneath his skin. He clenched his jaw and cracked his knuckles and neck as he sighed and turned to look at the twins stuck in the backseat.

Pee turned his head slowly to his right and found his brother stuck between the passenger seat at the front and the driver's seat that looked bent away from the door after the impact. Pee himself had suffered a dislocated left shoulder and some injuries on his left leg and head. Before he could move, he heard a loud bang and the car shook. Pee shook the daze off his eyes and tried to reach for the passenger door to his right. There was a second bang and he glanced at the ceiling of the car which was bulging out. One more bang informed him that Sly was hammering the car's roof with his fists, judging by the fist-shaped bulges. The fourth one shattered the windscreen and caused the roof to give.

"Kay, wake up!" Pee groaned and tried freeing his brother. He reached for the collar of his jacket and strained to pull him out, but one more jolt from Sly's hammering shook him off balance. He reached for his backpack, but suddenly, the door got ripped off and Pee felt a vice-like grip on his left leg as he was wrenched out of the vehicle and hurled onto the sidewalk. Lucky for him, he managed to take the backpack with him and opened it to scramble for his handgun, momentarily ignoring the excruciating pain from the fall that inadvertently forced his shoulder back into place. "Leave my brother alone!" he cried out and pointed his gun at him. None of the motorists were prepared to intervene, so he was left on his own. They simply reacted and drove away. That was the first time he had seen fellow Ghanaians behave this way in that desperate moment of their lives.

Sly gave him a backward glance and shrugged, and then he clenched his hand into a fist. Before Pee's eyes, there appeared symetrical seams in the synthetic tissue on his arms, and in a series of clicks, his arm had reassembled into a long blade. Pee gaped in horror. "Bon appetite!" Sly shouted and slashed the car into two halves in just one heavy swipe, and Pee feared his brother was lost. He covered his mouth in shock, and despite the grief, he bent over to puke.

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Dufie clutched her bleeding shoulder and covered her mouth while hiding behind a stack of fallen shelves in the wrecked strategy room where the other Realer members lay dead after a brutal clash with TT under Poku's spell. She had managed to pick up one of the guns lying around while fleeing for her life, and with few rounds left, she had a strong feeling that she would not make it that night.

Poku pushed the door only a crack and peeped through it. Just as he opened it further, Dufie rose and fired at him, but he was quick enough to dodge it as the bullet tore a hole through the door. Poku replied with two gunshots at the wall and the edge of the top shelf respectively and waited, and then he simply closed his right hand into a fist and watched as a portion of skin on his wrist lit to reveal an LED panel. He moved it closer to his lips and whispered, "Come in."

Dufie heard footsteps entering the room slowly and closed her eyes. This was her chance to take Poku down and save Akoma before anything bad happened to her in Scenario. She counted to three and rose quickly to fire three consecutive rounds at Poku in the chest. He choked and dropped to his knees, toppled over and fell face first on the floor. Dufie kept her gun pointed at him as she approached his body to make sure he was dead. She saw blood oozing from the gun wounds and sighed, and then she took out her phone to contact Pee. Unfortunately, the phone was unreachable. Something caught her eye beneath her and she reacted quickly without hesitation. Poku's hand twitched, and that awarded him three more rounds in the head.