(Continued from The Spiritual Father III)
There are four men in Dorcas’ house. She does not know any of them but it does not matter. She knows where they have come from. There is no doubt that they are the Apostle’s men. One of them slaps her hard on the face.
“Shut up woman,” he growls. Dorcas stops screaming, but not in obedience; it is because she is stunned by the slap. She feels as though she has been hit by a rock.
“Why did you choose to betray the Man of God? Hasn’t he been good to you? Wasn’t he the one who picked you up when you were homeless and gave you a job?”
“What are you talking about? I did not betray the Apostle in any way,” Dorcas replies innocently.
“Don’t treat us like children, woman. We heard you on the phone. We were standing right outside your door. You think that boyfriend of yours can protect you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. Which boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend.”
The man, who appears to be the team leader, gestures to the others. The three men start raining blows and kicks on her. Dorcas starts screaming again. She tearfully wonders where God is while His Apostle’s messengers are tormenting her.
Dorcas is hopeful when the gang leader gestures to the others to stop beating her. Her body is aching all over, and she is certain she would have died if they had continued beating her like that. Her hope is short lived; the gang leader tears away her clothes and then drags her to the bedroom. Two of his colleagues follow, and one is left guarding the door. Dorcas’s house has only two rooms, the bedroom and the sitting room which also doubles up as the kitchen. The toilet and bathroom are outside and she shares them with other tenants. Dorcas instantly realizes that the men want to rape her before killing her. The men are not wearing masks, so she is sure they are going to kill her. There is no way they will let her live. She screams again but the gang leader slaps her hard.
“Shut up woman,” he growls as he picks her on the floor and pushes her onto the bed. “If you cooperate, your death will be swift. If you continue resisting, I will make sure your death is very slow and very painful. Now open your legs wide!”
Dorcas resists and crosses her legs. They are going to kill her anyway, but if they are going to rape her, they will do it when she is unconscious, or dead. The gang leader slaps her twice and then orders his men to hold each of her legs.
“Each of you will have her, but I will start,” he tells his accomplices while lowering his trouser. Just then, there is commotion in the sitting room and the fourth man screams to his colleagues that he is under attack. The three men dash to the sitting room and the commotion quickly escalates into a melee. Dorcas sits up in bed with difficulty. Pain shoots from every part of her body, no doubt because of the beating she has received. She leans on a wall and waits. The wait doesn’t take long. Someone fires a gun and then there is a stampede. Two young men enter the bedroom; they are kids really, but one of them has a gun. Dorcas knows them. They are kids she has seen around Kangemi. Dorcas now remembers that she heard from her neighbors that a group of young people from the neighborhood have been doing patrols at night to keep the estate safe.
“Are you okay, Madam?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Those men are criminals, and we only overpowered them because we were many and we surprised them and took their gun. We suspect they will come back with back up and more weapons. I would suggest that you don’t stay here tonight.”
As they are talking, Dorcas’ immediate neighbor, a woman who appears to be in her thirties, joins them in the bedroom.
“I am the one who called these young men. I think you should listen to them. Find somewhere you can stay.”
Dorcas can see their point, but she doesn’t know anybody she can stay with.
“Is there someone you can call?” the woman asks.
“I don’t know where my phone is,” Dorcas says helplessly. When she tries to get off the bed, the pain that attacks her entire body forces her to lean back; tears roll down her cheeks. The female neighbor, whose name is Lucy, heads to the sitting room to look for the phone. She finds it under the table. It fell and the battery came off. She puts it together and hands it to Dorcas. When Dorcas switches it on, a call comes in immediately.
“Oh thank God. I thought something bad happened to you. I have been calling you but your phone was off,” Aaron says.
“Something bad did happen to me,” she says with a forced chuckle. “And if my neighbors are to be believed, worse is yet to come.”
She quickly narrates her ordeal to him, and the assessment of her neighbors.
“I am coming for you,” Aaron says.
“No, you don’t have to…”
“I am coming right now. Where in Kangemi do you stay?”
Dorcas gives him the directions to a nearby petrol station, which is the closest a car can get to her house and then makes one more attempt to discourage him from coming.
“I know I am the one who brought you into all this, Aaron. But you don’t have to be involved. You can forget me and Julia and leave the Apostle alone. He is a dangerous man.”
“I am already involved, Dorcas. See you in a few.”
*
When Dorcas hangs up, Lucy offers to clean her up and massage her to ease the pain. After making sure she is in safe hands, the two young men follow their colleagues who had left earlier. Lucy goes back to her house and comes back with a basin of warm water. She wipes Dorcas’ body and massages her gently. Aaron calls just as she is concluding. Lucy quickly helps Dorcas to change from her restaurant uniform into more comfortable clothing. She also helps her pack several clothes and personal items and then supports her by the shoulders as they walk to the petrol station.
“Oh my God!” Aaron says when he sees how badly beaten up she is. “I swear I will make this apostle of darkness pay for doing this to you.”
He and Lucy help Dorcas onto the back seat of the car.
“I think I should tag along so that I can support her until you get her to safety,” Lucy offers.
“No, it is okay,” Aaron protests. “I think she will be okay strapped up with the seatbelt.”
“I don’t think you understand how badly beaten up she is. I had to wipe her with warm water and then massage her just so she can be able to walk. Trust me when I tell you she needs human support.”
“Okay,” Aaron says reluctantly. “Get in. We need to get out of this place quickly.”
*
Apostle Mutuku is furious.
“What are you trying to tell me?” he bellows on the phone. “That a bunch of kids overpowered men I hired because they are professionals?”
“They were over fifteen kids, boss, and there were only four of us.”
“But you had a gun, and all they had were rungus!”
This is the sticky point in this conversation. The gang leader, Jeremy, cannot admit that they lost the gun to the estate kids. At first he had thought he could blame Kenneth, the guy they left holding the gun at the door, because he is the one who allowed the kids to overpower him and snatch the gun. The single gunshot that was heard at the scene was fired by one of the kids and it is the one that settled the contest. When Jeremy realised that his team had lost the weapon he quickly ordered his men to run away. Fortunately, it appeared that the kids only wanted to scare them off, not to kill them, otherwise they would be dead by now. Jeremy gave Kenneth a dressing down later, but when he threated to report him to the Apostle, the guard quickly brought him back to planet earth with a simple question.
“When you tell the Apostle I am the one who lost the gun, where will you say you were?”
That shut Jeremy down. He understood the veiled threat. If he reported Kenneth to the Apostle, Kenneth would be able to easily tag along Jeremy and the other two into the mess by truthfully saying he was left to guard the door alone while his colleagues went to the bedroom to rape the woman they were meant to kill. There is no telling how the Apostle would take that, given that he has a child with the woman. Jeremy doesn’t even mention Kenneth’s name in his conversation with the Apostle.
“Everything is under control chief,” he tells the Apostle quickly. “We just need two more men and three guns and we will get her.”
“It hasn’t occurred to your dumb heads that you will not find her sitting in the same house waiting for you, has it?”
“It has sir, and that is why we have pre-empted the move. Our girl, the girl we hired to live next to Dorcas and watch her, has suggested to Dorcas that she needs to move. Because Dorcas is badly beaten up, our girl has offered to go with her. The good thing is that our girl tells us that this Dorcas is going to be staying with the man she was betraying you to…the man at the restaurant. Apparently his name is Aaron. She will send us the pin to whatever place Aaron goes to hide Dorcas, and we will eliminate both of them tonight.”
“Good. Maybe you are not so stupid after all. Kill the informer girl as well. With Dorcas and Aaron dead, her work is done and so she will be a loose end. She might get drunk and start talking. Call me when all the three are dead.”
(This is the last free part of this story. To find out what becomes of Aaron, Dorcas and Julia, follow the steps below to purchase a copy of the novella for only Kshs. 100)
Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/jesus-christ-god-holy-spirit-bible-3706347/
*
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