Faded (Where are you now) - Alan Walker
KACELY
"I'm such an idiot" I mouth to myself as I head towards the stairs.
I should have known better. I hit her at her most sensitive spot. I don't even know what I was thinking, it just happened. Right now, she's weak and angry with just reason while I have no excuse whatsoever. To be honest I didn't know I had those words inside me, I never thought I could mouth them out and worse at a time like this.
I take out my phone and consider calling her one last time. To try apologizing but I know she won't pick up. Maybe this is what she needs, to be alone so she can heal.
"How is she doing?" Sui asks me when I get downstairs and I shrug before going out the building all together.
Henry won't talk to me and my girlfriend won't talk to me either. Great.
Mock starts on Monday, so she'll probably show up. I'll talk to her then, maybe then she'll listen to me. She has to.
We're eight minutes away from starting the first paper for the day: Chemistry, yet Az isn't here. Her seat is empty and I wonder if she'll show up at all.
The invigilator walks in and starts distributing the answer sheets while I keep starring at the door. Maybe she just arrived and she's in the hallway or something.
"Kace! Kacely!" A voice calls and I look left to see Fusi. "I never jarr eh, abeg help a G out" ( jarr- read) he pleads and I nod but then madam Ndim walks in the hall and everyone starts mumbling while Fusi carries his hands on his head.
"Of all invigilators" Rykiel whines and rolls her eyes.
"🎶Ekuweme, Ekuweme,
Ekuweme, Ekuweme...
You are the living God oh
Eze no one like you.
Ekuwe...🎶"
"Fusi be quiet!" Madam Ndim interrupts his singing and everyone starts laughing, except me.
"So local man cannot pray again?" he sighs.
"Now is not the time to pray." Madam Ndim says "If you know, you know... If you don't know, you don't know. You want to cheat so that you'll disgrace us during the GCE proper. Rubbish."
I ignore them and fill in the box for personal information and then look towards the door with the hope that Azinwi will walk in but she still doesn't.
"Who sits here?" Madam Ndim asks when she arrives Az's locker while distributing the questions papers.
"Azinwi" the next guy says
"Ollenu!"
"Madam..." I answer
"Where's Ntonifor ?" She questions with her hand on her waist and a few students look at me.
"I... I don't know ma'am"
"But is she alright?"
"I really don't know" I reply
"If you don't know then who will know?" She asks and Bryana glances at me. "Anyways, I'll call her grandfather after this, maybe she's ill. She might be stubborn but she's not the type to miss exams."
We write in silence under Madam Ndim's close supervision and during the course of the exams, I keep glancing at the door with the hope that she'll walk in.
Paper one, nothing
Paper two, nothing
Break time, nothing
Paper three, nothing!
Immediately I drop my pen, I hurry out of class and straight for the safehouse.
I keep trying her phone eventhough I know she won't pick up my calls. I've been having an eerie feeling within me for some time now and I really hope she's ok.
"Where's she?" I ask Sui immediately I arrive the safehouse but she's on a call so she doesn't answer me, she just slides the key over.
If she has the key, then Az isn't there.
"Sui where'd she go?" I ask, but a client walks up to her inquiring about the vacant apartments and I grow impatient so I head for the elevator. On arriving upstairs, I hurry towards the safehouse and open the door to find the room empty.
I head back downstairs, more afraid than I was when I took the elevator.
"Sui, where is she?" I ask her "Where'd she go?"
"I don't know" she tells me. "Yesterday she just dropped her keys and walked out. She didn't even reply me when I spoke to her. She seemed pretty upset Kacely."
"In what direction did she go?"
"Downwards, same direction she always takes."
"Well then maybe she went home"
"Maybe" Sui nods
"Maybe, maybe not. Either ways there's only one way to find out."
I hurry out and hire a bike that takes me to her house and the closer we get, the more tensed I become. I probably shouldn't have left her alone the last time we saw eachother. Hell, I shouldn't have made her angry! But I did, I added to her load of problems and now she's gone.
On arriving her place, my instincts tell me she isn't here. But what else can I do? This is the only place I can think of. I knock on the gate and I'm led in by Kebufe who tries to say something funny as always. But unlike the other times, the joke doesn't have the same effect.
I knock and get inside to see Shura sitting on the couch while her husband is on the phone talking rather aggressively.
"Kacely!" Shura exclaims and gets on her feet. "Any news?"
"I had hoped she'll be here. I went to... and she... She's gone"
"Gone where?"
"What do you mean she's gone?!" Her grandfather asks, getting off the phone.
"She's not where she used to be... where she was on Saturday"
"You mean to tell me you knew where she was the whole time?! And you didn't tell me?!"
"She made me promise I wouldn't" I reply in defence
"I don't care what she made you do! You were supposed to come to me!"
"That's not important now Donald, what's important is that we look for her." Shura says in an attempt to deviate his attention but he keeps looking at me like he can bite my head off.
"Let's go look for her." Shura says and calls on the driver. "Kacely get in the car."
"No way is he coming with us!"
"Do you have any idea on where it is we're going? Huh?! He's the one who knows so he gets to come with us and he gets to sit in the front seat. Let's go" she says and gets inside the car. But Mr Ntonifor keeps staring at me with knitted brows.
"Donald!" Shura yells causing him to get in the car and so do I.
We arrive the safehouse under my directions and I look over my shoulder to peep at them.
"What are we doing here?" He asks me
"She... Az owns an apartment here."
"She owns an apartment? You mean she bought an apartment?"
"Yes" I squeak and clear my throat.
"For how long?"
"I really don't know but we've come here many times. The first time I was here was on the eleventh of February."
"She was still seventeen!" His jaws drop and he stares at me with an open mouth for some time before getting out of the car and heading straight for the building.
Shura and I follow him inside and I keep getting more and more scared.
"I want to see the manager!" He yells and I watch Sui stare in confusion, as well as the other staff members present.
"How may I help you Sir?" A small man in a suit and tie asks.
"My underage granddaughter bought an apartment in this place and now we can't find her!"
Sui looks up at me with fear in her eyes as she connects the dots.
"Sir I am sure there has been some sort of misunderstanding because we do not sell apartments to underaged girls without the consent of their parents or guardians"
"No, there hasn't been a misunderstanding. He attested to it!" He yells and points me, making me the centre of attention. "I demand to see the apartment"
"We'll fetch the keys. What's the room number?" The manager asks me
"Fifty six"
"What's the name of the person in question?"
"Azinwi Ntonifor" her grandfather says.
"We'll have to verify the name of the client and their personal information first to be sure that you are right."
"You better hope we find clues to where she could be in there" he warns me. "And if anyone else was involved in this you better let me know or else..."
"Donald stop threatening the boy!" Shura speaks up on my behalf and steps infront of me. "That will not help us in any way right now."
"We checked and the room was registered under the name Zoe Jinwi who is supposed to be twenty three years old next Tuesday." The manager explains with a tablet in his hand.
Zoe Jinwi? Wow, a combination of her former best friend and her childhood nanny's names. Classic Az.
"Is this her?" He asks and holds the tablet up so we can see the picture.
"That's her alright" Shura breathes and sits down.
"What do you have to say about this? Huh Kacely?"
"Nothing!"
"You mean you didn't know?"
"I didn't, I swear. Maybe that's her fake ID or something"
"When did she leave?" The manager asks me but I think it through knowing that my answer might incriminate Sui.
"I don't know when exactly, but when I got there this afternoon she wasn't there."
"How did you get access to the room?" The manager asks me
"I um... I have a spare key" I reply, looking at Sui over the manager's shoulders. Her eyes are begging me to keep her out of this.
"And when last did you see her?"
"Saturday, just before Shura called me to ask if I had seen her. She made me promise not to tell anyone"
"And now she's gone" the manager says and I nod.
"This is a big mess" Mr. Ntonifor breaths.
"I suggest we take a look at the surveillance cameras" I say
"No! You are not in the position to suggest anything!"
"Stop yelling at him! He's just trying to help us" Shura defends again
"Well there would have been no need to help if he told us the truth from the start!"
"What did you want him to do? Tell on his girlfriend? At that point no one thought it was going to escalate to this level! But it has, so let's just find a way to solve this" they stare at eachother for a while and he looks at me with anger still clear in his eyes.
"The IT room is this way." The manager tells us and leads us towards the said room. I glance at Sui who mouths 'thank you', but then she can't be so sure because the cameras may rat her out.
They start checking from Saturday's records and after checking the camera records for about half an hour, we spot Az leave the room and head for the elevator. In the video, she's putting on the same clothes she was wearing on Saturday when I saw her and she does stop by Sui at the counter to hand the keys.
"That woman might know where she is" Mr. Ntonifor says
"They barely said any words to eachother" the manager says "Still we should ask her"
"Definitely"
We watch as she heads outside and manage to get the number plate of the taxi she used.
"We have to talk to the police about this, they might help us track her" Shura suggests. "My dad knows a guy there"
"I am the recently retired Colonel of the Cameroonian army. I don't need the god-damned police, I have people I can talk to. I'll call them immediately after this but I want to see the apartment first" Mr. Ntonifor demands and the manager leads us to the room. When we get to the safehouse and I open the door, the mess that AZ made is still the way it was. I watch as her grandfather observes the room and walks in with the saddest look on his face. He stoops and picks up the pieces of her broken phone before dropping it and walking out without altering a word.
"I am sorry for the inconveniences. I hope you do find your granddaughter" the manager says. "Alert me if you need anything"
"We will" Shura replies and leads her husband towards the stairs. "Come on Kace"
Mr. Ntonifor looks at me with displeasure one more time before they head down the stairs, but his look is more of a sad one than an angry one. I know somehow he has convinced himself that this is my fault and maybe he is right. If I did tell them about where she was on Saturday, she wouldn't have left yesterday. And eventhough I'm trying to push the thought to the back of my mind, I know that somehow, the argument we had made her angrier.
God please, help us find her.
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