Safe

Two

The car eased onto the road. What was usually a mildly busy mid morning traffic, non-existent obviously due to the incident and they drove away from the mall. The mall, where her sister was. She dared not speak but kept her eyes glued to the road they were taking in case she got away.
She jumped when something cold touched her and a turn of her head told her it was a gun.
Mr stranger was pressing a gun into her side and she looked at it, surprised that it looked so ordinary in his hand when the feel of the cold steel, alive and ominous scared any movement or thought out of her.
She looked from the gun to the stranger and he said in his thick but unassuming voice, "bend down and put your head between your legs."
Nike did as he asked bending over and wedging her head between her thighs, her head swimming as she did so.
"Good girl." Stranger said and she shivered as he moved the gun even closer to her.
"Let's keep this here to encourage good behaviour okay."
His voice, calm and laughing scared her almost more than the gun did and she swallowed a cry wondering if he would shoot her for crying.
They continued moving and she realized that each minute took her farther away from her sister, from safety, in a car driven by a murderer and his equally psycho colleague.
She thought about Lekan and Lola at home expecting her to return shortly and Sade, what fear she must be feeling standing in the car park waiting for her to appear. Unconsciously she sniffled and stranger cooed at her.
"Don't cry, I'm not going to hurt you. You be a good girl and you'll be okay."
A sob burst out of her and she quickly stiffled it in fear.
Time dragged on and she lost her sense of direction, disoriented by the many turns they'd taken.
Gravel crunched under the tyres and the car stopped. The door opened and a hand took hold of her and pulled her out pushing her roughly to the ground.
It took a moment for her head to stop swimming and Nike thought she might vomit. Footsteps crunched around her and she heard voices but didn't register anything they said.
She realized they were out of town, the air was cooler and not a sound apart from the men could be heard. She risked lifting her head and saw that they were in a clearing in the middle of dense forest. The crunch was from gravel that covered the floor she was currently lying on.
She dared not turn around to see what the ruckus behind her was and she stayed down resigned to her fate. The forest looked so thick that if she ran, she might get lost or worse still, not make it far and provoke her captors so she held still and waited.
The noise stopped and a door slammed and Nike still wired on adrenaline tried to raise herself up. She was surprised to find booted feet in her line of vision and she looked up to see stranger looking down at her, leaning against the car, looking completely at home.
"Get up." He said.
Driven by fear, Nike stumbled to her feet and he grabbed her when she buckled and almost fell back down. He ushered her into a building, a house by the look of it and shut the door behind them.
"Sit." He said pointing to a chair in the living room and she sank into it watching wide eyed as gun man and two other men stood at the wooden table in one part of the room, an array of guns and other weapons laid out in front of them.
One of the men turned, caught her looking at them and headed towards her putting his hand gun under her chin when he got to her.
"Who's this beautiful thing?" He asked gruffly. His voice matched him, she thought looking into his wild eyes with fear.
She shook like a leaf in the wind when he ran the gun up and down her face and laughed.
"Fine girl!"
He turned to the other men, "where you find this one?"
Gunman sent her a fearsome look and answered, "the place wey we go. She see me when I put that fool for back."
"Eh, a witness." He said looking back at Nike. She quickly looked down avoiding his gaze.
"So wetin we go do now? Boss don talk wetin we go do?"
Someone grunted something and she heard a click then the cold metal pressed to her temple.
"Ehyah, you be fine girl o" then he pulled the trigger.
Nike jerked and cried out then realized with shock that she was still alive. There were no bullets in the gun and the men laughed at her, obviously finding her fear funny.
The man left her and went back to his business and stupidly, she let her eyes fall closed.
When she opened them again, she was alone and it was dark outside. She sat up and looked around, the table had been cleared and the men were gone. She looked at the door and wondered if it was locked.
"Don't even think about it."
She turned and caught Stranger's eye. He offered a plate with two slices of bread to her and she shook her head terrified of taking anything from him although the sight of food made her realize she was hungry.
"Take it." He said.
She didn't know what about the simple command made her obey and bite into the slice. She finished the bread quickly and took the water he offered not caring that it could be poisoned although she doubted these men would poison her when they could just shoot her.
She was stunned when he dropped two tablets of Paracetamol in front of her.
"For your headache." He said.
"My head is fine." She croaked out.
"She speaks!" He said with a smile. "Take the pills girl. You can't be okay after that brute hit you."
She obliged and quickly swallowed the pills then watched as he sat across from her.
"Now sleep." He said looking at her so intently that she felt her eyelids droop.
She closed her eyes still completely alert to her surroundings and heard Stranger groan but she didn't open her eyes and she eventually, listening for any sounds, fell asleep curled up across from her captor.