by Yasmin Angoe
“Paul killed our father, Ofori.”
She’d struck a chord, its vibration strumming through him until it finally snapped. Her brother looked at her with utter disdain. “That name is dead to me. Same as you are.”
74
AFTER
Ofori shoved Nena hard, causing her to stumble. She caught herself and turned to face him.
“Paul killed our brothers. Razed our village to the ground. He beheaded Papa.”
She searched his eyes for recognition. She thought for a moment she had broken through when he stopped, becoming serene and unreadable.
Ofori was looking down at the portion of the floor covered in oriental carpeting. He looked back at the space Paul had just vacated at the top of the stairs.
After a moment, he looked away. “I don’t give a fuck what he did to Papa or the lot of you.” When he fixed his eyes back on Nena, she saw nothing but a black hate-filled void.
Same old selfish Ofori. Anger loosened her tongue. “Paul betrayed Papa, who he called brother. Imagine what he’ll do to you when he betrays you,” she said. “Because it’s me he’s always wanted. You were merely his consolation prize.”
His face twisted into a rage, and he roared for her to shut up. He kept repeating those words—“Shut up”—spittle flying from his mouth. It was as if all the pain of his years fighting for acceptance, his feelings of inadequacy, real or imagined, culminated in this one moment. The trapped sound he made was like that of a wounded animal. Reflexively, Nena increased the space between them.
He squeezed his eyes shut, lips forming a rigid line. He stilled, a stillness that was almost preternatural. She hadn’t meant to anger him. She had only wanted to shock him into sensibility, but when he opened his eyes, Nena knew his decision.
“There can only be one of us, little sister.” The chill in his voice sent all her danger sensors into hyperdrive.
“Only one,” he repeated, his head bent as his eyes bored into her.
Nena let her shoulders slump, resigned to what was about to happen. She stared at Ofori, who was so much a blend of their parents. She refused to believe he could be anything but her brother.
“You are the only brother I have left,” she said, trying to lull him enough to get close. She decided she’d only incapacitate him until she took out Paul. Then Mum and Dad would know how to help Ofori. Despite all he’d done, shooting Cort and kidnapping Georgia, he was as much a victim as she.
Her brother was a leopard, muscles coiled, eyes black as night, pupils dilated.
She took a step toward him. Closer. Maybe some doctor could help him.
Softly, she said, “You are Ofori.”
She ducked when he hurled a nearby vase at her head. It sailed a hair above her before smashing against the wall.
“My. Name. Is. Fucking. Oliver!”
She put her hands up in appeasement.
“You were supposed to be dead, Aninyeh. All these years . . .” He choked back a sob, trailing off. “Why aren’t you dead?”
He looked at her with such malice and hatred. What had she ever really done to him but survive?
Could either of them ever be well after what they had suffered at the hands of Paul?
“Ofori—”
He leaped and was on her, taking her by such surprise her reaction was delayed. She took the full brunt of the jab he launched at her side. She stumbled backward as pain flared through her. She touched the area, her hand coming away red with her blood. She stared at her brother, his legs now splayed in a fighting stance. In his left hand was the knife he’d used to cut her.
We’re more alike than we realize. It was funny because she and her brother had both developed an affinity for knives. And shattering because just when the Asym children had reunited, one of them might have to die at the hands of the other.
75
AFTER
He charged her again, his blade pointed at her. She pushed the pain away, wiping her blood on her jeans. She crouched, deflecting the one-two, jab-swipe combination he came at her with. She parried a thrust with an upper push to his chin, driving his head and the rest of him away from her.
She used her arm to shove the hand with the knife out so she could grab it with her other and twist his hand back. He grunted, and the knife dropped, skittering across the floor well beyond either of their reach. They continued to face off, him launching attacks at various parts of her body and her matching with defensive blocks and kicks. She didn’t want him dead. She wanted him saved.
She landed a couple of punches to his abdomen. Her leg spun out, swiping his from beneath him. He fell hard, grabbing her ankle and bringing her down with him. Her knee took the impact, and she felt the crack of bone as pain ripped through her body.
He flipped around and was on her before she could recover. He punched her where he’d stabbed her, digging into the wound with his knuckles. She cried out. He grabbed her shoulders, bringing her forward, and slammed the back of her head against the floor.
The blinking motes swam in her vision, the pain threatening to split her head in two if it wasn’t already so from the impact. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
As the stars cleared, her reality was becoming frighteningly clear. There was no working through anything with Ofori, was there? Her survival was a constant reminder to him of his choice to become Paul’s son and give up his family. Nena was a reminder of his betrayal, of his weakness, of his failings. With her around, he couldn’t shut away the memories of what he’d done in a drawer and lock it. He couldn’t go through life pretending the first fifteen years of it had never existed. Finding Nena alive brought all that back. Keeping Nena alive would be a constant reminder. That could not happen.
“Ofori, wa—wait,” she croaked, his hands wrapping around her throat, bashing her head against the floor as he choked her.
“My name is not Ofori!” he screamed, spittle flying in her face.
He was deranged, and she was running out of air.
She summoned her ebbing strength, gathering all of it as her hand scrabbled at the floor for something she could use to get him off her. She bucked up from beneath him, aiming for his face with a shard of broken vase she’d found. She sliced right below his eye, opening a wide wound, loosening his grip around her neck. His hands flew to his face. She rose to a sitting position, rearing her elbow back and connecting it hard with his ear.
He tumbled off her, howling, his equilibrium thrown off balance. She scampered away from him to distance herself.
“Do you know what I have suffered?” he asked, shaking his head to clear it, to balance himself.
If Nena weren’t so exhausted and hurting, she would have laughed. “Shall we compare notes on who suffered worse? You could have had our village if it was power and prestige you wanted. No one would have fought you for it.”
“Our village of jungles, dust, toil, and timber? Merchants and farmers? Who wants a lifetime of that?”
He sounded so, so much like Paul it made her sick.
She said, “I would give anything to have back the life we lived, the family we had.”
“Then you’re an idiot.”
“Our father would have let you go if you wanted it so bad. He went off to university abroad. You could have done the same.”
“He came back to be a chieftain of a dying tribe. He would have wanted the same for all of his sons.” Ofori flexed his neck, looking coolly at her. “Paul didn’t ask me to be his son.”
She licked her bloody lips, fearful of what his response would be, although she believed she knew. “What did you do?”
“I asked Paul. I begged him to make me into his mold,” Ofori answered so simply, so proudly, that it was worse than any punch he could deliver. “And he made it so.”
76
AFTER
They rolled onto their hands and knees, each trying to gather their bearings. Nena grabbed the edge of a cherrybark oak side table to help her get shakily to her feet, her side drippin
g blood. On the opposite end of the foyer, Ofori did the same, using a bench. He grunted through his pain. In her mind ran a mantra: Yes, Ofori had betrayed their legacy, but Ofori was not the cause. Ofori was merely the puppet.
“It’s okay,” she wheezed, a reassurance more to herself than to him. “Tell me where Georgia is, and you can live your life as you want.”
He growled, “I’m going to send the little bitch off as I did you.”
He started laughing at her, and it was a trigger, reminding her of when Paul laughed, when Attah laughed, when Robach laughed.
She didn’t recognize the bloodcurdling scream coming from her. She forgot all her close-combat training. She no longer fought him for self-preservation. His disassociation from his actions, his hatred for their father, his threats against Georgia—there would be no salvation for Ofori because he did not want it. Ofori was gone, and in his place was this monster, Oliver.
He met her in a clash, grabbed her around her middle in a tackle. She used her elbow again, bringing it down hard and repeatedly at the back of his neck as he drove her into a table. She fought through the pain. He pushed her off, throwing a side kick to her hip. She stumbled, falling to her side, her wind gone and her strength right after it.
“Aninyeh, we are the last of our family. Is this what you want just when we’ve finally found one another?”
A trick. It was a trick, and he was taunting her. He didn’t want to be a family any more than she wanted them to be enemies.
She wanted her brother. But he was the past.
She had a new life. Had the Knights, who’d taken her in and put her back together again. And she had Georgia and Cort, new and unexplored. They were her future.
“You know what, little sister? Do you want to know what I purchased with some of Father’s profits from your sale to Robach? Sweets and a movie. It was glorious. You fetched quite a good price.” Oliver stood, wiping the blood from his eyes.
He grabbed her hair, yanking it back to expose her throat, readying to punch her. She parried his hit, then kneed him in the groin. Bitch move for bitch move, his going after her hair.
“When you drove away from the village, I played football with Papa’s head.”
She swallowed a scream, trying not to fall for his bait. Instead, she delivered a roundhouse kick and jab of her own. He grunted, staggering back, shaking his head as if dizzied. She ran at him, using the fact he was dizzy, catching him in the midsection. They landed with a hard smack on the wood floors, rolling one over the other, crashing against a cabinet. It wobbled precariously but stayed upright.
He was on top of her again, wrapping his massive hands around her throat. She beat at his head with one hand while the other searched for anything to get him off. In his eyes, she only saw death and contempt, nothing but a bottomless pit.
“Say my name,” he commanded, his hands once again wrapping around her throat.
She gagged.
“Say it.”
“O—O—” she sputtered, her windpipe closing.
“Say my name!” he bellowed, blood dripping down his face. His lips curled into an ugly snarl, his thumb finding her Adam’s apple. Her fingers stopped their searching.
If he pushed, he would end her right there, and that was his plan.
“Say it.” He lifted his thumb, allowing her the briefest respite. “Say it.”
77
AFTER
He was still yelling at Nena to say his name as she searched the floor, weakened and desperate, for any weapon that would make him stop. She couldn’t think about anything except the fact that her brother was going to kill her.
He was growling above her. “Say it.” Venom dripped from his voice.
Her fingers found purchase, clawed at it—the handle of Ofori’s knife.
“What. Is. My. Name?”
“OFORI KWAKU ASYM OF N’NKAKUWE!” She swung her arm upward, sinking his knife deeply into his neck. His hands loosened from around her, and she used that slack to release her own dagger from its sheath in her belt and then ram it into his side below the rib cage.
His eyes went wide, his mouth opening as blood spilled out. His hands felt along his neck to the knife protruding from it and then slid down his side to where her dagger was embedded in him. He looked down at her in astonishment.
His eyebrows puckered. He wheezed a phlegmy sound and began to list to the side, sliding off her. He fell on the floor, choking from his blood, wondering what had happened.
Nena sat up, painfully sucking in air. She turned to him. All the anger and rage seeped from her as her brother’s blood seeped from him, leaving nothing but a void and regret.
He writhed on the floor, his hands flittering over his knife, trying to remove it. She held up a hand to stop him, knowing when he removed it, his life would run out much faster than it was. His eyes searched, not seeing. His mouth opened. Closed.
She whispered, “Ofori,” hoping for a moment of clarity.
And finally, the cloud in his eyes cleared, and he looked at her.
Her remaining brother was the youngest son and looked the most like their mother but had so much of their father in him. His strong forehead with the same three deep wrinkles, deeper now than she remembered. Gazing at Ofori was like opening a time capsule.
Nena’s throat constricted, allowing her emotions to take over as she watched her brother dying. She grieved for Ofori as she never had for the others.
“Me nua barima,” she whispered. My brother.
His movement was beginning to slow. He was going to die, and acceptance was dawning on him. They looked at each other, tears streaming down their faces. He gave her a nod, his eyes telling her his death was okay. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, pulled her hands away from his, allowing him to do what he must.
Slowly, he wrenched the first knife out, a sickening sucking sound accompanying it. The blood flowed. There were seconds remaining. His mouth moved, with only whispers coming from it. She leaned in closer.
“Say—it again,” he whispered.
“Ofori Kwaku Asym. Your name is Ofori. Our papa loved you,” she said. “I love you, nua barima.” She chanted the lines over and over, determined he would understand, remember, and believe he was her brother. She was determined he know he was loved, even when she had had to kill him.
His eyes filled with tears and sorrow, as well as a deep remorse that death brought. He looked so young, as if he were aging backward.
“And I forgive you,” she whispered, feeling his body release the guilt and self-loathing it had lived with for so long.
He nodded at that. They didn’t have to speak of its meaning.
“Elin . . . I did . . . did love her.”
The rock in her throat was so large. “I’ll tell her.”
His eyes swam. “Y-you smell. Like. Mama.” He shivered. His strength siphoning out of him as the guilt and self-loathing had.
He struggled to take a breath. “I want. To see. Them.”
She tightened her hold on him, fighting against the despair threatening to take over her. She would not turn from him, would stay with him to the end.
She nodded, saying, “You will.” She’d say whatever he needed her to say.
“Elin.” His voice wavered. And then, “Efie . . .” Home.
Ofori released Nena’s hand, then grasped the handle of the other knife. She didn’t stop him when he pulled it out of his neck, releasing the deluge of blood from the shorn artery.
She did not help him as his breath hitched and hitched, until there was no more breath in him.
Nena did not stop Ofori when he left her, the last of the Asyms.
78
AFTER
Georgia’s shout pierced the haze of Nena’s grief. She gave a final, longing look at Ofori. How she wished they had had more time to pick their way through Paul’s minefield of lies to be brother and sister again. It was all too late now. She summoned enough power to leave him and climb the stairs. Georgia was scream
ing, railing against Paul, who demanded she shut the hell up, fucking brat.
Nena followed their sound to the last room at the end of a dark hall, where a light shone beneath the door. She opened it.
Paul greeted her from the chair in which he sat. He was working through the realization that his Oliver was gone. Even with his gun trained on her, Nena thought she saw sadness, grief, even, in his expression. Propped up against his chair was a machete, one not dissimilar from her nightmares. Nena’s eyes could not move from it.
Georgia sat in a chair between them. When she saw Nena, she called out, attempting to get up.
“Stay where you are,” Paul commanded, moving his gun in Georgia’s direction.
“Let her go.” Nena started toward them, then stopped when Paul cocked the gun.
“You don’t make demands here.” He glared at her, eyes narrowed. “Is he dead?” When she didn’t answer, he said, unaffected, “Doesn’t matter. Oliver was weak and simpering.”
She looked at him with contemptuous silence, disgusted at his lack of loyalty toward a man he called his son.
“Not like you.” He cracked a wry smile, then cocked his head to the side. “You mourn him? He would have killed you.”
“Because of you.”
Annoyance sizzled through him. She could see the way it slid across his face. “He would have fucked you had I allowed it. Consider that as you mewl over him. Your brother would have raped you.”
“Also,” she said flatly, “because of you.”
He paused, looking thoughtful. “I wonder what you would do to save the skin of your new father and your—what is this girl to you anyway? Your wannabe daughter.”
He stood, using his free hand to straighten his suit, making his way around his desk to Georgia’s seat. She sat ramrod straight, hands in her lap, her eyes never leaving Nena’s face.
“Get up,” he said.
Georgia listened, standing in the spot where Paul wanted her, as his shield.
Nena assessed the threat, scanning the room to see what she could use. She was too far away to disarm him without Georgia getting hurt in the process. It was why he kept her close to him, because he knew Georgia was his lifeline.