Songs for this chapter are:

Glimpse of Us - Joji

Feeling like the end - Joji

Die for you - Joji

Dissolve - Joji

Wanted U - Joji

***

As soon as the gate was opened for Celine, she saw a fierce-looking guard shooting daggers into her soul with his ferocious stares. She cleared her throat, although no phlegm was standing in its pathway. She tried to stay as relaxed as possible and pretended she was a visitor who had the right to be there.

So she waltzed into the premises, taking in the architectural structure of the building which had a grim hue. She'd never seen a house in Nigeria that was painted in black. This alone had made goosebumps pour out on the pores of her skin. She wondered how the coloring of the walls themselves must be inflicting a dimension of psychological torture on the girls.

Celine didn't get to walk into the building before solid arms gripped her elbow and pulled her backward. She turned and stared at the bodyguard, who was breathing heavily as though a storm would gush out of his nostrils in the next moment. She feigned surprise and stared at the guard's meaty hand clamped tightly on her wrist as though it were a fly.

“What do you think you're doing?” She tried to pull her hand away, but it was a futile effort. It was even impossible to flex her wrist.

She used her other hand for support, but the guard's hand was like an iron rod, robust and weighty.

“Do you not know who I am?” Celine scoffed in frustration when her exertions remained fruitless.

“How did you find this place?” The guard asked in his gruff voice, ignoring her balderdash.  

“David is my friend,” Celine cried, hoping that she sounded as if she was truly baffled by the harsh treatment. “Of course, he told me about his new house. Let me go!”

The guard took the captivity to the next level. He grabbed her free hand and clasped it together with the one under his hold and brought them together behind her back, and held them with one hand. There was no chance for her to struggle and make another attempt to yank her hand away. The hold grew so intense that Celine could no longer feel blood flow into her fingers. All that her being registered was the twinge of pain that emanated from the guard's hand. Since she was too weak to fight and there was no longer a chance at it, she resorted to screaming and crying.

She shook her head hither and thither, wriggling her body and moving her feet recklessly as she wailed. Soon, when it dawned on her once more that her tantrum-throwing would not come to her aid, she remembered that she was the one who had been stupid enough to come in here alone and assumed that she wasn't going to encounter this kind of difficulty. It was childish to believe that David's guards wouldn't stop her.

The only wise thing she'd done was to give Folake's number to the maid who looked after the man with Alzheimer's. She'd taken that leap of faith, hoping that Folake would have a change of heart and would become interested in knowing her son's whereabouts. Celine had instructed the maid to call Folake whether or not she was interested in learning more about her son's ordeals.

If Celine were lucky and loved enough by God, It would be easy for Folake to find her since the maid knew about David's new house.

All of Celine's screaming did not fall on deaf ears later on. They did not only echo into the deep ends of the woods that surrounded the fence. David had heard the noise and descended to put a lull to the ruckus in his vicinity.

Shortly after he'd stepped out of the door, he stood still on the spot when his eyes met Celine's. Celine took a moment to study David without saying a word. She noticed that he'd lost a lot of weight. The muscles in his forearms had deflated to a relative level of the average-sized arm. There were dark circles under his eyes. His skin which used to glisten without a need for the sun's light had paled away, now looking like a worn-out and outmoded version of the epidermis. The hair on his head was chaos in and of itself. She could see the small circles of tangled hair strands swarmed all through his scalp.

Celine thought it served him right, and she could not care less. What was at the forefront of her mind was the sorrow she felt as she locked eyes with a monster whom she had had much hope for. She'd believed redemption to be his final destination, but he'd killed her spy, eloped with the little girls, and enslaved them in a place where he could torture them to the point of gratification. She wanted to strike him in the face and tell him to join his little sister in the grave. After all, he was obsessed with her.

However, she was still in the act of pretending as though what the guard was doing to her was unfair. She still had to behave as though David was a friend she trusted. It would take her a moment to muster the courage because she could not stand the sight of David. She found him repulsive, and she could feel her body harden under the increase of the warm temperature that was spreading through her.

So she closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and held back the tears of repugnance that were about to fall through. Then she spoke.

“Tell him to let me go right now!”

David laughed.

Celine could feel her ears pound with boiling wrath. What was funny? What had possessed his very being and turned him into this villainous ghoul?

“So you'd try to look for my little sisters? No one is going near my girls.”

“Your little sisters?” Celine chuckled. She dropped her pretense and decided to face the issue head-on. “Snap out of your sickening delusion and do what is right. Let go of those girls. They have loved ones who are looking for them. They have parents who cannot sleep a wink at night because their souls are writhing under the agony of losing someone who means so much to them.

Does it delight you to know that you are a wicked man who has changed the trajectory of innocent people's lives for the worst? Does that make you feel like a good person? Does it make you think that you're atoning for your sister's untimely death in the right way? By making the lives of other people miserable?”

The bitter tears gathered around Celine's eyes and began slipping down her cheeks. She could no longer contain her frustration. How could a person be so blind to the evil they were doing? How could someone have such a warped sense of salvation? Was guilt this merciless of a captor? How could this fleeting emotion possess the power to transform an individual into a delusional and restless sicko? To a person who sought atonement to no end?

A muscle jerked in David's cheek, and his fingers twitched. Celine had hit the spot within him, and it was apparent even in the tone of his voice, the anguish and the brokenness that lay beneath.

“You really do not understand my pain, Celine. These girls are the source of my life. They are the only ones who make me want to live another day without self-harming to the point where I bleed to death. If I don't protect and take care of them like I wished I would have taken care of Sindara, I'm going to run mad.”

“You are already running mad, David. If this was truly the way to correct your mistake, you wouldn't have to run from pillar to post to secure something. You have so much to lose, and that's why you're scared. The things you are holding on to aren't yours to start with, and you will run to no end to protect them. This is what is going to make you a madman in the end.”

Celine's voice softened as she watched David clench his shaky fingers into a fist and struggle to hold back tears. For a moment, she felt compassion for him.

“Look, I lost my sister and blamed myself for my carelessness. You know how the story goes. But take a look at me right now. I'm not kidnapping little girls and forcing them to fit into an alternate reality I've invented to feel better about myself and take away some of my guilt. Please release those girls, David. This is the best thing you can do for yourself.”

There was decorum for a moment except for the little grunts of pain that escaped Celine's lips at intervals. The guard still held her hands captive, which still hurt like hell. Nevertheless, she studied David's face like a book, searching for a sign of remorse in his eyes.

Although she couldn't read through the hard lines of his face, the seeming perpetuity of silence that dominated the air multiplied the seeds of hope within Celine. It became easy for her to believe that, finally, David would have a change of heart.

But woe betides those who have the fondness of reading meanings to silence, particularly when the quiet didn't exist in a bid to convey a clear message. Silence wasn't always a language in itself. It wasn't always golden. At times, it was clay, susceptible to being crushed by the most unexpected thing.

“It's a pity that you don't understand me, Celine, and it hurts that you're against me,” He shook his head morosely and walked towards her. “You see, I wanted you to stay out of this so bad. I did all I could to scare you away, but you're bent on exposing me to the world. I can't allow that for myself and my girls. I love you so much, Celine, and it sucks that I have to do this, but you leave me with no choice.”

Then David pulled out a syringe from behind him and raised it midair. He whacked the meter with his index finger and thumb until a few drops of the liquid spilled out of its edge.

It was sad that Celine had to come after Zipporah had died and David had established the rule that no one was getting out of the house. So, unfortunately, she was going to join his group of captives. He was going to ensure that all would be in his control.

He took a step closer. Celine turned her head in different directions as a way to prevent the inevitable from happening. She was trying to fight, but the guard pressed his free hand on her head and kept it in place, rendering her unable to move it. Then David pierced the needle into the side of her neck and injected the tranquilizer.

Minutes later, Celine's irises rolled to the back before she drifted off to a state of unconsciousness. Her body was limp in the hands of the guard.

“Take her to the cellar,” David ordered.

***

David was moving back into the house when he paused and remained on the stairway to have a moment of contemplation. He knew he was crazy for drugging Celine and taking her away into the basement. It was heartless of him to have done such a thing to his friend, especially when she had a daughter.

He began to worry about Autumn and quickly resolved to send one of his men to check Celine's apartment to know how Autumn was doing. But before he could act on his internalized decision, he rethought it because the possibility of an event had plopped in his mind.

It was highly likely that Celine had already planned for an occurrence like this before coming. Thus, she kept Autumn in the care of a trusted friend or relative ahead of time. If he acted on his emotions and discovered that her daughter wasn't at her apartment, he'd begin to feel guilty and would feel the urge to release Celine so she could look after her daughter. This would come at the cost of his exposure to the police, and he would have himself to blame for his naivety.

He had to protect himself at all costs.

The girls were now under stricter restrictions. All they did was sit in the living room to watch TV, eat when the meals were done, and hand over the utensils to him once they were finished eating. Gertrude had been disobedient once. She had tried to sneak a fork into her pocket on her way to bed, but her attempt was a loss on her part because David made them empty their pockets every night.

Their luggage was in his room, and he bore the responsibility of setting out clothes that he wanted them to wear for the week and ironing them to perfect smoothness. It had only been a few days since Zipporah's demise. Thus, the girls were living under the new rules.

All of Zipporah's needles and wools had been removed from plain sight. He could not afford to have Gertrude and the other girls (who were now beginning to have a cold attitude) use the needles to harm themselves.

Life was excruciating for the girls, but it was hellish and ten times harder on David. The weight of the distress he could feel in his soul was so overbearing and grave he wished he could wash it all off in a cold bath. If only it were that easy.  Every moment he didn't spend with the girls was used up in acts of self-harm. He slashed his arms with a razor blade and cursed himself for being a terrible brother.

Images of Zipporah knotting and the age-long vision of Sindara dancing in a ballerina gown played interchangeably in his has. The former took quite the dimension. In his hallucinations, he saw her weaving in her regular spot, and halfway into her knitting, the edge of the needle pricked the tip of her thumb, and she yelped in pain.

Thus, because David could not separate his illusions from reality, he rushed for a bandage on his bedside table to treat Zipporah's wound, but the vision vanished before he could do anything.

Then after he stopped hallucinating, the demons in his head didn't give him breathing space. Instead, they hurled insults into his ears, whispering barbarically and telling him in different ways how much of a failure he was.

The cycle repeated itself.

For the first time since David had been trapped in this web of guilt, he wished for a way out. He had a sliver of desire for this misery to end because he was tired. It seemed like he would never be forgiven despite how much he tried to redeem himself by devoting his life to looking after the little girls.

However, he feared the unknown. He was frightened of what would become of him if he let go of the girls. Wouldn't he feel even worse? Wouldn't he believe he had forfeited his chance to atone for his mistakes? Would he be at peace with moving on and living after the evil he'd done?

Would he be okay with washing his hands off a bunch of girls who reminded him of Sindara? Would the guilt not devour the little that was left of him?

He did not know what to do anymore. His soul was drained of will and hope. Still, he wasn't ready to let go. Hence, he decided he was going to give this last try his all — the little that was left of him. Perhaps, his decision to be stricter on the girls would make him feel better as this would grant him the assurance that his girls would never die under his watch.

***

When Celine opened her eyes fully after some minutes of getting rid of grogginess, she found herself surrounded by a dark, vast space. She searched through the darkness for a light source or anything bright enough for her orifices to capture. Then she saw a small window from which a tiny ray of sunshine peeped through and illuminated only the walls around it.

She felt a sharp pain in her left wrist and then tried to touch it with her right hand but realized she couldn't move her hands. Then she felt ropes tied to her limbs - her wrists and her ankles. The intricate texture of the cords pricked her skin. When she recalled what had happened before she woke up and found herself in this void, it wasn't difficult to guess what was going on right now, even though she couldn't see correctly.

She'd been tied to a chair.

After a little while, the little ray of light that shone through the window increased in brightness because the dark clouds had moved away from the afternoon sun. Thus, the room was a little lighter. It was then she noticed that she wasn't alone.

There was someone else sitting on a chair close to the window. Celine squinted her eyes and tried to identify who it was, but she could only tell from the low cut and angular facial structure that the person was male. She could not see the outline of his eyes, nose, and lips.  The lighting wasn't enough.

She could also see that the person was in bondage like she was. The rope bounding his ankle to one spot looked painful because its strings were thin and deep in his skin. Out of curiosity, she wondered how many more people were there with her. The dark was such a shield.

She turned towards the other end of the room and saw another figure seated on a chair. The person was also a male and was slightly bigger. His head was bent, facing his knees in a sleeping position.

Celine sniffed in mucus and closed her eyes as she allowed the sorrowful tears of realization to flow down her cheeks. She could not stop thinking about her darling Autumn.

She knew her decision to come to this place was going to be a difficult one. She was aware that it would take her a little while to get the girls back to their families and then focus on David's issue. However, she'd been too ignorant to think her journey would be a one-way affair. It was unrealistic to have concluded that she would win this battle and align her thoughts toward that singular possibility.

She hadn't imagined being held in custody unlawfully like the girls. She could only hope that she would make it out of her in one piece so her little Autumn would not be left alone in the world with no parent to dote on her and guide her through this cruel world. Celine thought of the sapphire cross necklace she'd worn around Autumn's neck on her fourth birthday. She'd told her daughter to clutch onto it desperately and pray whenever she felt scared and alone.

It was painful to know that her daughter would hold on to that necklace tight, hoping that her mother would come to swaddle her in her tender loving arms, but she wouldn't be there to do so. So she wept. Then she stopped when someone called her name.

She looked toward the direction where she'd heard the call and realized it was from the first guy she'd seen earlier. She was still unsure of the man's identity, but his voice seemed familiar.

“It's me, madam. Your spy,” His hoarse voice echoed through the dark.

Celine could not believe her ears and her eyes. She strained her eyes hard since it was impossible for her to move toward him. While she did so, she was finally able to see better. His facial features became fairly visible, enough for accurate recognition from an onlooker. As it dawned on her that he was the one, she gasped.

“I thought you were dead!” More tears streamed down her cheeks. She felt an instant ache on the right side of her forehead. There were only so much rude shocks that her spirit could absorb in a day. “Y-your shirt was delivered to my doorstep. It had blood stains on it.”

“David only did that to scare you away. He has had the event planner and me in this dark space for many days now,” He pointed toward the sleeping man at the far end of the room. “When he moved to this place, I knew it was because he was running away from you, and I hoped you'd come to save me. Now he has you here. He has everyone locked up. He's turning into a crazier person now.”

“That's the event planner?” Celine's voice broke as she turned towards the man in disbelief. “Jeez. I've been dialing his number for so long. No wonder his line didn't go through. God, this is worse than I thought.”

Celine didn't know what to feel, seeing that David hadn't even killed the people she thought he'd slain. It was somewhat of a relief to learn that he could not bring himself to murder someone. Still, the fact that he had everyone in bondage didn't do much to heighten her consolation. Abducting people was equally an exhibition of monstrosity.

“Yes, it's him. Since Zipporah died a few days ago, he's been doing insane things. He came to tell the event planner and me that we were not getting out of here and were not dying either. He'd gone out of his way to stand by his word. He came by in the evening of that day and swept the floors of this basement till they were sparkling and spotless. He did that to get rid of little pieces of broken glass and other sharp objects that could be on the ground.

He even laid and plastered bricks on the window to shrink its size, so we don't have any chance to climb through it. There's no escaping this place for us. I don't understand what's going on,” The spy shook his head morosely.

“Zipporah died?” Celine's words had come out in a low, broken tone. She was surprised that the spy had heard her.

“Yes. She killed herself. She hung stockings to the ceiling fan in her room and choked on it. Her depression worsened when she found herself in a new environment that promised her zero chances of elopement. This is my guess, though. I also think she did it with the awareness of the effect it would have on David because now, he's truly gone mad.”

Celine uttered no words and spared a moment to mourn for what could have happened if she'd had the chance to save the girls early enough. Grief clasped her throat so firmly she couldn't sob. The hot tears merely fell with no chance of vocalizing her sorrows. It was a form of torture because crying silently was an unbearable way to weep.

She imagined how long the girls must have waited for her and cried in exhaustion when they woke up to spend another miserable day in the abode of their captor. She visualized the weight of hope they must have placed on the paper she'd seen by the window side. How much time must they have spent on it as they waited for her to come?

When David brought them to this place, they must have lost every bit of optimism they'd held onto. Zipporah's death must have been her last act of hope, and Celine wished so badly that it didn't have to get to that stage.

“I think Zipporah committed suicide to save the girls,” She spoke. “Perhaps, she believed that her death would make David feel like an incompetent brother. This feeling might have spurred him to release the girls for fear that they too, would die in his hands and he would not want to feel worse about himself as a big brother. It was a well-thought-out attempt.”

“Zipporah knew the kind of person David was, and she believed that guilt was the only potent weapon to crush him.”

“It's a pity that that didn't work, though. Instead, he's gotten worse. It makes her demise look like a waste and a counterproductive action,” The spy said.

“I'll make sure that Zipporah's death isn't a vain one,” Celine stopped crying and chewed her lip in determination. She was speaking to herself and not the spy.

“If it's to cuss David out and claw at his deepest wound, I'll do that. I'll blame him for his mistakes and tell him how much of a loser he is. If he's going to kill me, then he should go ahead to do so. I doubt he has the balls, though. I'll say all I can to hurt him. Maybe then he'd feel like the biggest piece of trash who is unworthy of having a group of children in his care. Then he'll let them go.”