Tethered To Your Heart

Chapter-9

The next day Damien attended the wedding of Cheyenne Williams and Phillip Ekwensi. There were lots of known celebrities who arrived at the wedding. Damien could not help but feel frustrated towards Phillip. That man has everything now and always had. First Rosalia and now Cheyenne.
He congratulated Mr. Williams and then the couple. Phillip recognised him instantly. "Mr. Korealis so glad you could join us. Lia talked so much about you. I am happy for you both. "
Damien felt irked by that statement he expected Phillip to be rather jealous instead of openly optimistic about his ex-wife's boyfriend.
"Can we talk in private Mr. Ekwensi."
"Please call me Phillip. Let's go on the balcony. Cheyenne I'll be right back."
Cheyenne smiled back at him as the two men went outside onto the balcony.
"First of all Phillip if you liked my Rose so much then why did you divorce her?"
The question took Phillip by surprise.
"Damien my marriage with Rosalia was not a real marriage, You see Rosalia was a Doctor in the same hospital where I was admitted for pancreatic Cancer. She was very friendly and helpful and she always inspired me to keep writing novels. We became friends in a short time and one day when I needed surgery which was very expensive for me to transfer to another hospital I had no money to pay for it so Rosalia thought she could let use Medical insurance to pay for the surgery if we were spouses. I owe my life to Rosalia."
Damien felt as if the earth is removed beneath his feet. He felt his heart clench tight and sweat trickled down his neck. All this time she was just being a helpful charitable person again and he called her names for sins she never committed. She had suffered so much backlash.
He didn't deserve someone like her. He cannot forgive himself for not digging deeper into the matter and judged irrationally.
"Phillip honey, my grandparents are calling you!" Cheyenne called him
"Damien just tell her how you feel about her and I am sure she will forgive you. From what I gathered being with her all these years she loves you and I know you love her. "
He turned and walked away leaving Damien alone with his train of thoughts.  His Rose never betrayed him and after last week he knows her much better but now the question is when she'll come back to London and after Finals he had planned to propose her he has everything ready according to his plan except Rose herself. He missed her even more.

It's been 3 weeks since Lia landed in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Day in and day out the medic team carried out their operations and vaccinations. Mr. Henderson and Mrs. Thompson were flown to another hospital in Cape town South Africa.
Damien's team entered finals and Rosalia promised to be there.
Many locals  started cooperating
Lia finally got the information from their relatives about the group of captors in the name of justice people of their tribe over the loss of their local businesses. Two of them are militia leaders who have served their sentences before. The outbreak of Ebola however is finally officially declared to be over.
"Dr. Haynes last time when you were rescued by Captain Morgan his team found you unconscious in an abandoned cabin in the southwest Forest. There are at least ten more people under their hostage. Is their anything you can recall about the conversations between them?? Any critical information we can use??"
"Sergeant Welch the cabin was more of a staging area. The place he kept me was always dark and suffocating. There wasn't enough ventilation except they kept the AC on the entire time. Those guys seemed very confident with whatever they did. I remember one of them got drunk and started talking about how when he came back to his village his kids died of malnutrition and famine due to the close down of their local factory. "
"Factory? Hmm and how was that place always so dark perhaps due to curtains wooden boards stuck infront of the windows??"
"No that isn't it. There was also a distinct smell all the time like Rusty metal and paint. They were always fixing the corner of the walls of  room with paint."
"We need a list of factories which was closed down in the span of two years within the areas of their Krio people." She said as she hoped to find Maria who she befriended when she was caught by the militia leader asap after all Lia had promised that woman to come looking for her and her son.
"Sir, we found one suspect in Grafton, Western Province. It's about twenty miles away from Freetown."
Said Corporal Lance.
"We need search places likely for them to use. Let me see here, mostly abandoned buildings in that locality."
Sergeant Welch typed keywords and searched for any places such as that.
" Dr. Haynes you said they kept you and those ten people in a dark place and could you look at this and tell me if I am right that you might have been kept in an abandoned underground nuclear bunker established by the US military. "
Of course it had to be a bunker that's why it smelled rusty and there's no sunlight and suffocating. Their troop was quick to the command sent back from London RAF, it was early evening by the time they reached at the bunker and the winter December air was chilly.
Lia was feeling better today than yesterday since she vomitted her meals in the morning. It was the food she had trouble digesting and she decided to just sleep it off and only eat fresh fruits.
"Dr. Haynes keep this Walkie talkie with you all the time and stay back here until there's an emergency, what codename do you want us to call you on the radio?" "How about Rose?" replied Lia.
"Okay then. I'll add it to the list of channels. The weather is not good today so we better hurry."
They scattered in groups while Rosalia stayed back in a tent not so far away with medic team on standby.
Suddenly the items on the table shook and fell off the table. It's an earthquake! All of them covered their head with their hand and waited until it was over. The tremor lasted for a minute and a half. She heard gunfires sounds in the background and then she heard a beep on her Walkie talkie.
"Rose, emergency." The voice was not clear but she headed out of her tent to see that there's been a landslide.
"Guys, it's Code Orange." One of you prepare a crash cart and contact the centre for more supplies. There is a possibility of mudslides too. "
"Mudslides? Are we going to die?"
Cried out the attending nurse.
"C'mon hurry." The other doctors were on their way to the site.
She spotted Sergeant Welch his cap a crumpled heap.
"Lia! Lia!" A hoarse cry came from far she ran towards that direction to find an injured Maria but her son was fine with a few scratches. She hugged them right and talked in Krio a  little with them. Lia dressed her wounds and thanked for her help last time. A man came up behind her it was him!!
He is under custody. "I am uh sorry for what I did to you. I thank you for saving my son Life."
"That's my job. Let me see your arm you have cut yourself there you need stitches."
Lia quickly patched him up and he was sent away. A sense of relief flooded her heart. However the atmosphere was chaotic.
The nearby farmers were also trapped in the debris. The soldiers were doing there best to rescue each and every one of them. The nurses quickly checked up the remaining eight of the captured people from different ethnic groups. It started raining at midnight and the aftermath of landslide was still not over. She kept praying in her mind for no mudslides because if that happens the numbers of casualty will double up and there's no resources to help anyone. She came across a man who was choking on a tiny debris.
"Help me I cannot breathe.."
"Just hold on don't panic. You want to go back home to your family right??"
The man nodded as Lia used her scalpel to make a small cut and  She cut the length of the tube to half inserted the plastic tube. He took a precious breath and a soldier took him away on a gurney. Lia kept shouting of there's anyone left in the between the Debris using her torch light. "Here! Here !" She followed the voice and there's a young man stuck between two layers of the debris. It's still drizzling. "Hello ! Can you see me? what's your name?" Asked Lia. As she flashed her torch towards his direction. "I am Jamar. No. No. I have poor eyesight. Everything is so dark and blurry. I am scared."
Lia quickly send word to Corporal Lance to help this man. She went around the other side and saw a hole and the distance between her and Jamar. "Hey if you follow my voice and the light just turn your back and crawl towards me. "
"Okay. I see light." "Okay  Jamar now slowly come towards this direction and I'll flash my light twice so you grab my hand and I'll pull you up  alright?" He kept crawling towards her and she extended her hand as far as she could. The rain made the debris slip and it crashed down. James was in grave danger she spotted Corporal Lance coming towards her as she tried pulling James up with her strength but suddenly the whole thing toppled down as darkness surrounded her and she felt the pressure of something hard trapping her body and then she heard voices as she felt herself falling deeper into a dark tunnel void....
.....