kimberlitee❤️❤️💖 for taking your time😘

Ava Max-sweet but a pshyco

6.//Imagine getting killed over something you didn't know. Stupid.

Simi.

"One thing about secrets, is that they always find a way to blow up in your face, and it's never always a good sight."

"But what if it is really, really necessary," a young Simi asked her bright curious eyes upturned towards her mother.

"It's probably never necessary, but try as much as you can to stay away from them, and never trust anyone with yours either. It's only a secret if you're the only one who knows it, they always destroy you."

"Yes, mother."

                                         ***

Navigating through fallen debris and stinking sewage water, she set her eyes on her boss's... mzungu friend. She did not know of any better way to refer to him. She wasn't given a name, just a picture, and where to find him.

Dressed in her good old ripped jeans and a campaign t-shirt, faded from last season, she was inconspicuous enough, that's whats most people wore around that place anyway. It was the person she was following that stood out like a sore thumb. Didn't he know he couldn't go to that place dressed like he was going to a fucking business dinner with close friends. He had on jeans, Levi's, that anyone could guess the price tag from a mile away. A formal shirt that could pay rent for a few houses around that place and a midnight black tuxedo jacket. For some reason, she wanted to point it out, but that would break her cover, and he also looked like he was so used to being around those parts. Let him fend for himself, she thought, she was just doing her work. Doing what she was hired for, and minding her own business.

She couldn't imagine for whatever reason Sarah wanted him followed. Maybe they were having an affair and she had found out he was seeing someone else, but she wasn't supposed to be angry about that, right? She was married after all, and if he wasn't, naturally he would want to find someone who wasn't tied. Would Sarah have him killed if she found out the truth? Her mind was working in an overdrive and the last thing she wanted was to be caught in the middle of all this, whatever it was. And not knowing what it was, was even worse.

The advance money in her bank account encouraged her further into the area of houses built with scrap materials, carton, paper. Even she was horrified with the living conditions of that place and she lived there, well, the better part at least. The sanitation of that place was horrible, the water problems even worse. Electricity was a luxury they only heard of. Voices of women fighting over who got to fetch the water next carried over to her making her draw in a sharp anxious breathe, at least the people around, gave her enough cover, and a sense of security. Mosquitos buzzed around her head, the sound irritating, illuminated by the flickering candlelight from the transparent polythene windows of nearby houses. She swatted them away with a flick of her hand.

"Simi, hey," oh God, not today, not right now, not her. "Hey, Simi," she felt a hand on her shoulder after she had unsuccessfully tried to ignore.

    "Hey Lorna," she smiled pleasantly, with the ease of a practiced action, looking over Lorna's shoulder, from where she stood in front of her, she could see her target move further into the shadows.

"You're from these parts too?"

"Oh no," she brushed her off. "I'm just... visiting,"

"You look like you know your way around here too much to be 'just visiting'," she remarked making quote marks in the air. "There is nothing to be ashamed of."

"I am not ashamed of anything like I told you, I'm visiting, excuse me," she pushed her aside roughly.

"Why are you always so rough," Lorna inquired making her stop in her tracks. "You're always so closed off. Who hurt you? I'm just trying to be friends you know."

"Whoever hurt me, if there is, is none of your godamn business, you're not my therapist, quit trying," sneering, she said. "And I've learned that everything in life unless you grab, it will never be yours. That's what I'm doing. Grabbing. And another thing, I don't want to be friends, it's always painful when you're left behind."

She pushed forward leaving a wide-eyed baffled Lorna behind.

Following the scent of the person she was following in the air, she ran towards where it was leading. It was easy really, too easy, it was some sort of expensive cologne, and that was rare in these parts, she just had to differentiate and sieve the unique scents from the usual ones and she could tell them apart perfectly. It gave her direction.

"What are they planning to do with her?" She stopped in her tracks, that voice was very vaguely familiar. Peering around the corner, she saw two figures, illuminated by the street lights. Pale skin and long brown hair indicated that one of them was the man she had been following, but the other was shrouded in shadows created by the darkness. She couldn't see his face, and the light barely reached his shoulders, but that stature, she had seen it somewhere. Something awfully familiar about his pose and the way he moved. But why wouldn't her brain co-operate just when he needed it most? Damn.

"Right now," the mzungu answered nonchalantly. "Right now, Clement hasn't planned on doing anything, but in a few days, maybe."

"St. Claire, I want answers, how the heck am I supposed to work with nothing," he shouted his anger clearly rising and his hand gestures showing he was awfully irritated. "I want her to suffer, but she is going to suffer in my hands, no one else's,"

"Give the poor girl a break will you," the one he had called St. Claire bellowed back. "The girl has had enough already. Goodness. They wanted her to die in that accident, isn't it enough already that she survived? Isn't that a sign enough that you should let her be and hold your plans a little bit."

"Her parents were not so kind to mine..." the wind blew over to the other side, carrying their voices away. Why did it have to blow the very moment the man wanted to say something important. She wanted something, anything that would give her a grip on the situation.

"... she doesn't even know about it," St. Claire voice resumed when the wind calmed down. "She's working her ass off. She doesn't even know that she's working in a dying place. That place is practically a sinking ship. That company is breaking to pieces, faster than the titanic, losing finances every single day, thanks to you, and no one is even telling her that, spare her, will you?"

"No," he started pacing again. "I can't, I won't."

"Why are we even meeting here in the first place? It's shady," he remarked looking around.

"My wife is having me followed, but I'm sure her high priced investigators wouldn't venture this far."

Simi gasped loudly enough for the two men to be suspicious of the sound. They turned around and she dodged behind a wall hiding away from sight. The footsteps got closer until she could hear them right behind the wall. Just a slight move to the left and she would be seen, her cover would be blown.

She held her breathe and said a silent prayer to the big guy above, a cold sweat broke on her armpits and her brows. Adrenaline kicking, her body prepared itself for the fight or flight action, and she really hoped it would be neither. If they were talking about killing someone, then they were capable of killing her just to protect their secret, a secret she did not even know. She was a third party anyway, a loose end who had stumbled upon them unknowingly. She did not want to die, she was way too young and had way too many things to do. Imagine getting killed for nothing, that would be stupid.

A scuffle a short distance from her distracted them and she didn't even want to check whatever it was about. It had saved her, she turned, her shoes sticking in the mud, making squishing sounds. She fell a few times, rolling in the mad and broken sewage systems. She ran for her dear life.

                                       ****

"Findings?" Sarah inquired the very moment Simi entered the house. It almost seemed like she had been waiting for her. She stared at her, blank.

Sleep had successfully managed to escape her the previous night. Turning and tossing had been the order of the night and when she did get to catch some sleep in the early hours of the morning, she had been plagued by nightmares of people she couldn't see killing her. She had managed to wash out the mud and rid herself of the smell around her, she had even burnt her clothes, they were too dirty to wash.

Every time she thought about the meeting last night, a slight shiver passed through her nerves shaking her to the very core. Anyone who saw her would think she was a hangover, her eyes were bloodshot and her clothes wrinkled. She did not even want to start on her head, it felt like someone was hammering on it from the inside.

"I asked you a question," she repeated. "I expect an answer."

"He met someone," Sarah raised an eyebrow obviously waiting for more. "A man," she let out a noticeable breathe she had been holding, Simi could feel the relief pouring out of her small body.

"What did they talk about?"

"I..." she debated between telling her, and not. Even though she had never really liked Sarah, the piece of information she had with her could put her life in danger, but why not tell her it was Sarah who had sent her in the first place, it was she who had been curious. On the other hand... What was her relationship with that St. Claire guy anyway, what if they were in whatever it was together. Maybe Sarah did know what the men had talked about and telling her would confirm that she knew and they would kill her. She felt her throat go dry. Her life was more important. She concluded. "I... I didn't hear what they were talking about. I wasn't close enough,"

"Who was the man?"

"I didn't see," she shrugged her shoulders, her shoulders slumping forward. The gesture looking more defeated than careless.

"You look like shit, freshen up and get to work," she did feel like shit and didn't need anyone to remind her. Sarah turned, her heels the only sound heard clicking after her.

She wasn't aware of how long she stood in that same place, the events of the previous day going through her mind, trying to figure out what wasn't adding up, when she felt a strangely familiar hand on her shoulder.

"Simi," her eyes widened when she turned around. Now she knew why that voice sounded awfully familiar. It was a voice she knew. A voice that she had heard for more than two years in her life. She knew why the gestures she saw, were like looking at someone she was familiar with and she realized why the stature had been like that of someone she had seen before. Because that person haunted her imaginations. "Why are you so tense?"

How did I do guys? Honestly, I don't even have a plan for this story<cringe>, I'm just writing the first thing that comes to my mind. I don't know how it's going to turn out. Don't know what I was thinking when I started it. Just a way to occupy the lockdown days I guess.

But do tell me what you think of it

And don't forget to vote.

Love you❤️❤️, kisses.