THE tiny and muffled voices of the people around filtered into Carrie’s ears as she laid helplessly on the hospital bed, a drip bag attached to her left hand.
The owners of these voices were actually close to her, but she could hear them like they were in whispers, as she struggled leaving the afterlife and coming into the real world.
Her eyes were tightly shut, and her palms tightly fisted, she laid face up.
Just then, the door to the VIP ward flew open and Jeremy barged in, followed by Nathan, his personal guard, and another guard.
“What the hell happened?”, Jeremy asked the people standing close to the bed as he entered, they were two nurses, a doctor and two elderly women.
“Good afternoon Sir”, they all greeted in unison.
Jeremy didn’t reply, he just stood looking at Carrie on the bed, and waiting for a reply to his question.
“Um Sir…”, one of the elderly women spoke up, turning to him, “we just saw her lieing helplessly on the road at Essems street, we know she works in your company, and that was why we put a call across immediately we rushed her down here”, she explained.
Jeremy sighed, then turned to the doctor.
“What is the problem doctor?”, he asked.
The doctor heaved a sigh and walked up to him.
“Mr Petersons, it is nothing serious. She passed out and we have tried to resuscitate her, she is only on rest now, and she needs more of it”, he said.
Jeremy nodded.
“Well, thank you. Text the bills to my company for the payment, I will be sending someone to come stay with her”, he said and the doctor nodded.
“Alright Mr Petersons, it is noted”, he said.
Then Jeremy turned to the women.
“Thank you ma’am, thanks to the both of you…”.
They smiled.
“You are welcome Sir”, they replied.
“Write out your account details and hand it over to my personal guard…”, he said and turned to Nathan, “Nathan?…”, he called.
“Yes Boss”, he replied.
“Take their account details immediately and come down to the car, I can’t wait to leave here”, he said and then turned to leave.
“Oh my! Sir, I do not think that is necessary”, the other elderly woman spoke out, smiling, with the other nodding her head in concurrence to what her colleague just said.
Jeremy scoffed.
“Well, it is only a show of appreciation, and besides, if I do nothing, it is still you guys who is going to go about whining your mouths and say I did nothing”.
“Oops”, they mouthed and looked away, feeling somewhat guilty, Nathan stiffened a laugh.
“Hey…”, he signalled to the other guard, and they left the ward.
***
The room was quite dark, rotating blue and red lights was what lit up the room, soft music played on a low tune in the stereo, two nude girls positioned at the middle of the room danced to it, moving and twisting their bodies like a snake.
From one strategic corner of the room were two seats and a center table. Lord Lucas and Boogie, his right hand man, were sitted on the seats and facing each other.
On the table were two hookahs, and from these, the two men smoked heavily.
“So what were you saying is the way forward?”, Lord Lucas’ deep voice growled.
Boogie puffed out smoke in the air.
“My Lord, I don’t think the strategy the last team pulled is okay”, he said, “it’s never going to bring down our target”.
Lord Lucas nodded knowingly.
“I thought as much, so how do you think we should bring up a new one?”, he asked.
Just then, the door flew open and a young looking boy barged in, looking back intermittently as he hurriedly walked up to the men.
Boogie dropped the hookah in his hands and got up immediately.
“Are you out of your mind? Why barge in without a knock?”, he asked and grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt.
“Uh… I’m… I’m… I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, the boy said raising his two hands up in surrender, “I just have a message to deliver to My Lord”, he said in panic.
Lord Lucas who had been watching sniffed.
“Emmaus, what the hell is it? Speak”, he ordered.
Boogie released him and walked back to sit, and Emmaus moved closer to the duo.
“My Lord, I was asked to report, the people who went out for mission are back”, he said.
“They are?”, Boogie asked, his eyes widened.
Emmaus nodded.
“Yes. The mission was accomplished, no lives were lost, but two guys got hit in the left arm and leg respectively, they were badly injured”, he reported.
“Where are they?”, Lord Lucas asked.
“In the sick bay My Lord, the others has just retired to their rooms”, he bowed slightly.
Lord Lucas snickered.
“As long as the mission was accomplished, I don’t care if any life was lost, you may leave”, he said as he smoked from the hookah.
Emmaus bowed again, then turned and walked out of the room.
“That is a good news My Lord, this just revealed that our men are becoming independent”, Boogie said simpering and revealing his ugly set of brown teeth.
“Back to our discussion, what is the way forward? Bring up a plan, we need to bring our target down ASAP”, Lord Lucas said.
“My Lord, we should bring in Zach, after all, he offered to join forces with us, so we should bring him in, and let’s work together. The target in question is not an easy task, he has a stronger force than we do, reason like I did My Lord”, he said.
“Mmmmm”, he mouthed, nodding knowingly, “exactly my thoughts, I have been thinking towards that direction too, I really need that babe, I need to get her under me, and it’s obvious he wants her too, I mean, who wouldn’t want such an intelligent beautiful brave girl huh?”, he puffed out smoke heavily.
Boogie nodded, yes, he could see he was making sense to his lord.
“Alright, so should I get on with it?”, he asked.
Lord Lucas nodded.
“Sure, get on, reach out to him as soon as possible, we really need to get down to work before it becomes too late”, he said.
“As your Lordship wishes”, he said, got up and bowed, then he left the room.
Few minutes after he had left, Lord Lucas turned to the dancing girls and scrutinized them under the large bulging eyes of his.
“Hey bitches”, he called out to them, “is this what you gonna show you have got? You can’t even shake what your momma gave ya vigorously”, he said, “mind you, it is too night, I do not want to loose this money, put more efforts into that dancing of yours, shit!”, he cussed, banging his right fist on the table.