Zikora

FOUR weeks! Four weeks was all it took.

Four weeks was all I could manage before I got tired of bouncing around from one short lease accommodation to the other.

My latest stop was what did it for me. I liked it in this quiet English countryside.

I was in a small quaint farming village called Gainsworth- a place that had one of everything and everyone knew each other- if a stranger turned up, the whole village would hear of it.

I have been here for two weeks now- the longest I’ve stayed in one place within the last four weeks- and I think I’ve made up my mind to stay.

I found the lodgings in Gainsworth by chance. Before I found it on an old online listing, I’d spent a few nights at a university town not too far away.

The listing had been for a double room in a three-bedroom cottage owned by a sweet elderly lady named Dorothy. My stay should have been for a couple of nights, but Dorothy extended her offer and said I could stay for as long as I wished- I think even though she lived a busy life- playing bridge, darts, and bingo almost every evening with her friends- she wanted some company at home.

I wanted to stay, but I wasn’t too sure if I should. If I stayed, then I’d have to keep up appearances; like finding a job to make it seem like it was where I got my money from. I didn’t need a job though; I had more money on me than I knew how to spend.

But Dorothy must have read my mind because she also offered me a job on the spot; she said Andy at the local pub could do with some help.

I guess I didn’t need much persuading- I was tired of moving from place to place, looking over my shoulder, sleeping with one eye open.

I knew I needed to be as far away from London as I possibly could - Gainsworth was a good four hours away and no one would think to look for me here.

I’ve been extremely careful covering my tracks. I always found accommodation where the host was willing to take cash – I didn’t own a bank account because I did not exist, and I still chose not to exist; I had tons of cash on me- cash which I took- not stole- when I left London.

It was money that wouldn’t be missed because it never existed- there was still an ongoing supply of it- at least for now and I managed to hide some while I carried a ton of it in a duffel bag that went everywhere with me- most people would have thought me a gym rat carrying the bag. All I knew was, if I ever needed to disappear suddenly, I could just leave everything else but the bag behind.

Since I’ve been on the run, every other week, I’ve made a trip into London to an address where I’ve picked up £10,000 in cash and I stashed it away somewhere safe.

Lately, I’ve been filled with dread picking up the money- more so now than I did a year ago, when I did it on behalf of a lady called Patricia. In the last week or so, I’ve considered stopping with the pick- ups, especially now that things have changed.

Most especially since I’ve been on the run.

I ran from London, from a place called The House- a women’s only refuge for human trafficking victims- where I’d been forced to live for the past three and a half years.

Before The House, I lived in a woman’s house in London for six months. Out of cultural respect, though she didn’t deserve one, I called her Aunty despite not bearing any family ties to me, and not having any recollection whatsoever of how I came to be in her home.

The few hours I failed to recollect, prior to that, I’d been three thousand miles away in another continent. I’d been safe and secure or so I thought in my country-The Bight of Bonny (The Bight); and the last person I’d been with before I lost consciousness was my boyfriend.

We were in his apartment where I remembered feeling drowsy and must have passed out, but when I came to, I found myself in London, in Patricia’s house.

Patricia had acquired me because my boyfriend had a road to Damascus experience!

We’d been at the same University four years ago, only, I never knew he was a member of one of the most ruthless and powerful confraternities of our universities. The same confraternity my father, our Vice Chancellor vowed to rid his campus of. They chose to teach my father a lesson, and they chose me as the subject of that lesson.

My boyfriend was sent to date me, and I fell for him hard- I’d been a first-year student, he’d been my first everything because my parents made sure I lived a very sheltered life when it came to the opposite sex. His confraternity had plans for me, but he had a change of heart and felt that I’d be better off as a gift to Patricia.

Patricia, in my opinion, was pure evil and it was only a matter of time before she got her comeuppance- she deserved what happened to her.

Ardian Culaj of the Hoxha family killed her because she used the women’s refuge his family had set up as a front for her own criminal activities. She partnered with the same confraternity my boyfriend belonged to-they sent her girls who dreamt of chasing a dream- the dream which assumed that living abroad changed destinies.

These girls were predominately trafficked from The Bight, and she accommodated them at The House- only they were indebted to her for the role she played in bringing them through the Continent, across the Mediterranean into Europe and she put them to work to pay off what they owed- the unfortunate thing was, they owed more than they realized and never really got to pay it all off.

Occasionally, people suffer from nightmares- I never had one when I was growing up in The Bight- I had lived a privileged life growing up. I began to live my nightmare when I was taken and brought to London, and I guess it finally made sense to me why I put so much distance between me and that city.

There was also the other matter of me somewhat taking what didn’t belong to me and rescuing someone that needed my help from the clutches of another who was cut from the same cloth as Patricia.

Gainsworth was my refuge and the safest place for me to be right now.

±±±±±

I did an early close with Andy at the pub- on weekdays we closed at around 8pm because our patrons who were farmers rose quite early. Tonight though, I insisted we remained behind to do some stock taking and rearrange the stock room – it felt like a death trap every time I walked in there for more drinks- so we finished just past midnight.

As I walked the quiet narrow cobbled lane back to Dorothy’s, I couldn’t help but appreciate the quiet- it was always quiet in the village in any case, and it was always safe.

The solar panelled streetlights had powered down to give the natural habitat a chance at sleep, so I walked home in the dark- it was only a short distance from the pub, and I always enjoyed the walk because I admired how fresh the air felt. The temperature had dropped slightly, but it was still relatively warm for autumn.

This was my fourth autumn in England and believe me when I say, not one of them has been the same. English weather was unpredictable, but I loved it- each day was different, sometimes we experienced all four seasons within that one day, you never knew what you’d get as the day went by.

It was almost like when you dipped your hand in a packet of skittles without looking- you never knew what flavour or colour of sweet you’d come up with! The weather was full of surprises, and it was different compared to The Bight where it was sunny and hot all year round even during the rainy season.

I suddenly felt sad. Every time I thought of The Bight, I grew sad because I missed my parents and brothers and I thought about them every day. I’d been told they thought me dead and I remembered battling with myself four weeks ago when I finally became free whether to contact them- but I didn’t.

It was better I remained dead to them, I didn’t want to think of the rumours surrounding my disappearance, the things whispered behind my parents back and to their face- people liked to draw their own conclusion to things they knew nothing of! The mystery surrounding my disappearance, would mean my reappearance would probably make them pariahs amongst their peers.

Besides, my sudden reappearance would threaten their lives- Patricia’s connection in The Bight was far more powerful than I imagined, it also had a far reach from what I’d heard. It was best things remained as they were.

I quietly let myself into Dorothy’s house, she would be asleep at this time of night- she went to bed early and rose quite early- it was normal sleep pattern in the village on weekdays.

I would have gone directly to my room, but my first stop was always the kitchen where I knew she left me some dinner- she always did- but I never ate it because of how late it got at night when I returned. I saved it instead for lunch the next day.

The air around me suddenly shifted. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I felt goose bumps on my skin. It felt like the chill from outside followed me inside the house when I walked into the kitchen and hit the light switch on the side, flooding the room with light.

My brain registered a presence in the room at the same time as my eyes caught a still, looming figure seated at the kitchen table. I couldn’t help the muffled shriek that departed my lips as I stood staring into the cold, soulless, cobalt blue eyes of Luga Veseli.

He sat regal in the chair at the head of the table and the already small kitchen shrunk further with his presence. Being confined to the small space with him in it wasn’t even what got my heart thumping and almost made it look like I was about to suffer a coronary- Luga, had this animalistic, cruel, sinister but satisfied look about him –the look a predator gave its prey. A prey he’d caught, a prey he’d been longing for and the two words he uttered confirmed he was here in the flesh.

“Hello Kora.”