One Wrong Turn

Episode 48

The first hospital was just a few meters away
from the hotel. Hannah and i strolled along.
She walked rather sluggishly behind me,
almost as if she was scared of finding Ruth.

No doubt, she already knew how much i hated
her at this point.

As we walked by, a lot of thoughts gathered in
my head. I was preoccupied with the thought
of what could have happened to Ruth, but on
the other hand i couldn’t keep my mind off my
broken relationship with Ehis.

I wondered if he would ever forgive me. The
identity of the girl in the room also troubled
me. For someone who claimed to love me,
Ehis moved on really fast.

Images from the past few hours continuously
flooded my mind. I wondered if Ehis actually
knew i was in that hotel, at the same time i
cursed myself for not leaving sooner, and not
seeing the similarity between Mesode and
odion. I would have saved myself a lot of
heartache.

At that point, i realised that i knew very little
about those boys at the hotel. I slowed down
a little, to allow Hannah catch up with me. I
wanted to satisfy my curiosity.
“did you know that Mesode was Ehis’s cousin?
” i asked, facing Hannah.
” no” she replied, shrugging her shoulder
unconvincingly.

she was obviously lying i could tell. But i did
no border to press further, because it would
make no difference at this point.
“how did you know Aj?, and what
arrangements did you have with him? “i
queried further.
” we were friends before he travelled to
Malaysia. This morning, he called to inform
me that he was around. He wanted some girls
to spend time with him and his friends. So i
collected fifty thousand naira from him to
‘arrange’ two girls. I didn’t know it would be
like this i swear”

I looked at her with disgust written all-over
my face. She faced down, probably
embarrassed over her actions. I turned away
and headed into the hospital complex.

We walked straight to the reception, to meet
an angry looking girl in her early twenties.
“good afternoon” we greeted simultaneously.
“how may i help you? ” she asked, without
replying our greeting
‘we are looking for a patient who might have
been brought here today, her name is Ruth
Nosakare”

She made several clicks on her mouse before
informing us that they had no patient with
that name. I felt a little more disappointed
and worried.

We left for the next hospital, which was just a
few minutes away. We searched helplessly for
Ruth, until there was just one hospital left. I
took out the list of hospitals the hotel
receptionist gave us, and glanced through it’s
content.

Cold shivers ran down my spine when i
realised that the last hospital is a psychiatric
hospital. Could Ruth have gone mad? I
wondered. I turned toward Hannah and
announced to her that we would be checking a
psychiatric hospital next.