Tokunbo.

                      "Did she pass out again?"

                      "But the fever is down na."

                       Someone sighed and she felt the hair on her skin prickle as heat engulfed her. Her nose wrinkled at a pungent smell.

                       "What..."

                         "Oh my God she's awake!"

                        "Well stop screaming! You're going to give her an headache. We don't want her fainting again."

                        Tokunbo winced and tried to move her head. Her vision was still blurry, something still roved above her and the unharmonious sounds turned out to be her friends talking incessantly.

                      My friends.
  
                       "What happened?" She managed to croak. Someone grabbed an object and held it to her face while another helped her sit up.

                      I feel so tired. Why can't I see?

                      "Here drink. You've woken up and fainted repeatedly."

                       "Betty?"

                        "Yeah it's me." Betty muttered and she felt a hand squeeze her right hand.

                        It wasn't Betty's.

                         "I would never have forgiven myself if anything worse had happened to you."

                         She turned to the direction of his voice and gave his silhouette what she hoped was a smile. "Hi... Enoch."

                       "Skinnine you scared all.of us to death!" Eli yelled and wrapped her in a bone crushing hug. She gasped and sputtered until the rest of the crew pushed him away.

                       "Give her space idiot. She's been muttering nonsense for hours. She finally stops and the next thing you do is try to kill her again. Drink the water kid."

                        "Missed you too Vi..." Her voice trailed off in a whisper and Vicky chuckled.

                        Someone nudged a cup between her lips and she gulped the liquid hurriedly. A few swallows and she pushed the hand aside.

                      "What happened? How... I'm in a hospital. That's why everything smells like disinfectant right?"

                       "Yeah. You are." Betty replied. A few clicks disturbed her ears for a while. 

                        "My dad? Where's my dad?"

                        "He went to get medicine. Old man wouldn't let us in to see you. We showed him we were made of hard stuff too." Eli said with a chuckle.

                         "You weren't so brave when he was here, fool." The hand squeezed her right hand again. "You should've seen him Tokun, he was literally rattling in his shoes."

                          Eli scoffed. "I wasn't even wearing shoes."

                        She laughed softly and somehow the air in the room felt lighter.

                          "I am so glad you're okay Skinnine. You have no idea. I was scared that we had killed you with our drama. You weren't meant to go through all that shit. You're like the gooey stuff that holds all of us together, you know that right? If you hadn't interfered a lot with..."

                        She smiled and shook her head at his rambling. "What exactly happened?"

                       A hush fell on the room. Feet shuffled awkwardly until Vicky cleared her throat and began.

                       "Your plan sort of worked. Betty alerted your dad. She ended up telling him the whole story on the way. But what is expected? Your dad was going to come to Demi's place, but she didn't know the address and I was in the middle of... Something. Not exactly a situation where I could pick a call. So he came with three police men, to the warehouse and there was this mighty shoot out with the Skylars that I hope I never experience again."

                      Tokunbo could picture Vicky shuddering at the memory. "So I guess I got beat up pretty bad and landed here."

                      "About that..." Betty murmured. "Your dad rounded up the Skylars, but when they counted, two were missing."

                        Vicky sighed. "It was obvious then that during the shoot out, the guy Emma had sent to collect the diary had slipped away. So well, your dad went all crazy. Enoch had to drive Eli, me and him at a very ridiculous speed to Demi's house and when we got there..."

                      At Vicky's silence, dread creeped up her spine. She held Enoch's hand tight. "Tell me."

                     "You were unconscious Skinnine. You were curled up in a ball all bruised with a bloody bicycle handle in your hands. The other guy looked worse though. He... He was battered all over. There was so much blood."

***
Vote, like, comment and share.(^^)