“Let’s go, habibti. We’ll wash up and get you out of these clothes upstairs.” Souraya let her guide her out of the car, and Ola put an arm around her. Some other guy was in the driver’s seat, exchanging looks with Ahmed, but Ola didn’t give a fuck about either of them.
“I have to go,” Ahmed said. “Sou. I’ll call you later, darling.”
Ola glared at him. “You’ve done enough. Leave her alone.”
He looked taken aback. “I—”
Ola bared her teeth, hissing at him, and Ahmed stepped back in the face of her anger. The man in the car leaned out of the window. “She’s going to be fine, Ahmed. Come on.”
“Listen to your friend,” Ola snapped, throwing the words over her shoulder as she led Souraya away. “Don’t you people have a date with the pastor to keep?”
She didn’t look back to see how Ahmed reacted, but she heard the car drive away as she and Souraya walked into the hotel lobby. Ola took them straight to the elevators, then into Souraya’s room. Once the door closed behind them, everything felt a little better. Souraya seemed to come alive a little, if only to rip the dress off her body and run the shower. Ola followed her into the bathroom and sat on the toilet lid as her friend finished undressing and started to wash whatever had happened off her. She didn’t seem hurt—the blood must not have been hers. Ola looked down at the items strewn on the floor—the silk of the dress, gold armbands, lace underwear, the thigh harness. No. Wait. She did a double take. The empty thigh harness.
“Sou…where’s your knife?”
Souraya laughed, but it was hollow. “Hopefully in some motherfucker’s kidney,” she said. It was as if the water was making her harder, scabbing up the soft pile of hurt she’d been in the car.
“Who was it?”
Her friend paused in the shower, soapy water running off her flanks. “Did you know I lived in New Lagos when I was a kid?”
“Yeah, you told me. After you left the East, before you left the country.”
“Right. I was eleven, twelve. It was a man who…who knew me then. He did things to me for a long, long time before I got away.”
“Ah.”
Ola sighed and nodded. She knew that story intimately, that anger. Once, Okinosho had helped hunt one of those men as a gift for her. They’d found him and taken him to a riverbank near Calabar where he’d retired. Okinosho had given Ola a gun, and she’d wept as she pressed the barrel to the man’s forehead, his little panicked animal grunts coming through the gag, but she hadn’t been able to do it, squeeze the trigger. It was one of Okinosho’s bodyguards who had taken it from her and blown a hole through the back of the man’s skull just when his eyes were filling with hope that he might live. Ola had found that this part she could handle. That part she could watch, the warm spray against her clothes and skin, Okinosho’s maniacal laughter. Their sex that night had been incredible.
“I’m sorry, Sou,” she said. “We’ll be going home soon. It’s just one more day.”
Souraya shook her head, looking hunted. “I’m flying back in the morning as soon as I can get a flight.”
“Babe, I don’t know if you should be traveling alone like this.”
“I can’t be here anymore.”
Ola pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. “I’m going to kill that Ahmed guy.”
“It’s not his fault.” Souraya turned off the water and reached for a towel. Her face was still now, smooth, detached. “I should never have listened to you.”
Ola was confused. “To me?”
“You’re the one who convinced me to come home.” Souraya dried herself off quickly and pulled on a robe. Her voice sounded wooden. “I said I didn’t want to. I said this place is rotten and I had no business entering my leg into it again.”
“Oh, Sou.”
Ola wasn’t even angry at her. Poor thing. She’d had to stab a nightmare from her childhood, perhaps even kill him. If someone dragged Ola back to memories she’d worked a lifetime to forget, she would be unspooling too, probably even worse than her friend.
“This isn’t my fault, and it isn’t yours either,” she said. “You were never supposed to get caught up in all this shit with Ahmed and Okinosho.”
Souraya didn’t seem to be listening to her.
“I should never have come back here,” she was saying. “I need to pack.”
She walked out of the bathroom and Ola stared after her, unsure of how to help. She could feel that Souraya was a beat away from turning on her and blaming her for everything. It was an expected reaction—sometimes it was hard to sit with the consequences of your choices.
Her purse vibrated, and Ola reached in for her phone. Okinosho was texting her, furious. Ahmed was late and the pastor was pissed that Ola wasn’t there either.
“Fuck,” she said softly. He was a terror when he was angry, and he might change his mind at any point about the agreement they’d made, the one Ola had set up because Souraya asked her to, for Ahmed and his stupid friend. Ola had no problem with that agreement collapsing. Ahmed’s friend could die for all she cared, but Thomas was a client best kept happy. His pleasure was worth a lot of money.
She stepped into the bedroom where Souraya was pulling on sweats, airplane clothes.
“What are you doing?”
Souraya shrugged. “Might just go to the airport early and see if I can find a flight.”
Ola nodded and glanced down at her phone. He was still texting angrily. “Okinosho wants me to come over. That thing to help your friend. But I can stay here, I don’t mind.”
Souraya flapped a hand, not looking up. “No, go. Save him. Your guy will still kill him if you don’t help.”
Ola didn’t want to leave her, but it wouldn’t take long. She could come right back. “Okay, but I’ll make it quick, I promise.” Souraya said nothing, just pulled out her suitcase and unzipped it. Ola walked over and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing Souraya to look at her.
“You can be as mad at me or at everyone as you want. But I love you. Do not fucking leave for the airport before I come back or I will literally kill you. Got it?”
Souraya nodded sheepishly, her stance softening. Ola hugged her tightly.
“That motherfucker deserved it,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be home soon. I’ll help you find a flight back.”
