Chapter 4

The Queen

I felt several kicks to my belly which was already hurting earlier and thought it was just a mere dream but the pain instead of decreasing kept intensifying. I sighed out in terrifying pain but yet couldn't open my eyes to know what was happening due to how weak I felt.

"Wake up kid!" an icy harsh toned voice yelled and I jotted open my eyes abruptly shivering.

"Where am I?" I asked in tears not remembering where I was not until everything started flowing in and more tears filled my eyes as sobs upon sobs racked out of my throat.

"Hey, bitch don't cry here!" one of the ladies who was kicking me barked. I glanced up at the two ladies who had scary expressions on their faces and a cold chill ran down my spine. I gulped and clasped my hands together in a pleading manner.

"Please what did I do" I whispered and instead of getting a reply I received a deafening slap to my already aching cheeks.

"You speak only when you're spoken to kid, am I understood!" She growled glaring daggers at me.

"Yes, yes" I shivered.

"What are you doing here kid? Yes our country is bad but I don't expect to see you here," a lady at the far extreme asked in a deep cold voice, one I've never heard a lady speak in before in all my life. It was mere like a man's voice and she held a cigarette in her hand.

I couldn't tell her what happened cause I've learned not to trust anyone so I snapped my mouth shut and kept whimpering in agony.

"Aren't you the one the Queen is talking to?" The same lady who slapped me and also warned me not to cry there asked and pulled my hair dragging it so intensively as if she wanted to pull it out. I groaned out because of how my scalp was burning as if it was on fire.

I had thought all those things about one person being a leader in the Nigerian cells are lies until I just saw and witnessed it myself.

"Please leave my hair" I whispered spitting out blood due to the impact of the earlier slap. I held my hair too drawing it back to calm down the hurt I was feeling but instead of releasing it, she pulled harder.

"Ahh!" I screamed and a lady in the far end who wasn't talking or engaging in the act rushed and pushed the lady holding my hair off.

The lady she pushed off laughed and went to her and she and the other lady started beating her so immensely as if they wanted to kill her.

"Please stop" I begged, standing in between them but they pushed me off making me land on the dirt and my mouth brushed on a liquid spilled on the floor.

It took a second for me to realize that I just brushed my mouth on urine because of the stinking foul scent it oozed out. I sat up abruptly and wiped my mouth thrice.

"Come here kid!" the lady she referred to as the Queen barked at me and I crawled to her because of how weak I was.

"How old are you?" She asked not even glancing at me and puffed her smoke in the air.

I'm..se..ven..sev..en..te..en" I stuttered shivering from how cold the jail was and the numerous pains I was feeling. And also because of how scary she looked.

"What are you doing here?" she asked and puffed the smoke from her cigarette on my face making me cough and sneeze for so many minutes.

"I was accused wrongly by my step mum" I retorted lowly after I got myself and lowered my head.

"Typical Nigerian story" she laughed and puffed the smoke once more on my face.

"What did you do this time kid?" She asked in between my coughs making it hard for me to grab what she said.

"Please what did you say?" I asked still staring down avoiding her gaze.

She was silent for a long while and before I could know her next action she poked her burning cigarette into my face.

"Noo!" I screamed in pain sobbing loudly.

"I said what did you do or what were you accused of!" She shrieked and removed the burning cigarette from my face and I gasped out.

She lighted the cigarette back cause the fire quenched while she poked it in my face.

"I was accused of killing my mum and older brother" I cried. I touched the spot she poked the cigarette and flinched at the pain that coarse through me. I ignored the pain and touched it to see that the cigarette caused a little hole in my face.

"It's red in color" one of my beaters who was still beating the lady that came to my rescue chuckled.

It was at the impact of her words that the pain did like it added more and I started sobbing.

"Shut up!" The Queen screamed and I didn't know when my mouth wrapped shut. "Leave her girls" she ordered my beaters and they left the lady and she scurried away to where she was earlier.

"Next time you won't interfere in our business" the same lady that dragged my hair and warned me not to cry let out and walked towards me. She dragged me by the hair once more and gave me a native hand fan.

"Oya start fanning the Queen, we don't care if you're a kid and if you were accused."

The Queen said nothing, all she did was smoke and puff at me. I kept coughing as I took the hand fan and started fanning her.

"Go faster bitch!" The same lady said once more and within my heart, I already murdered and buried her. I stared at her with a glare and she rushed to hit me.

"Don't lay your hand on her again for now," the deep cold manly voice of the Queen sounded and she scoffed and walked away.