Too close
1583 Words
Monday arrived and Kamsi was ready for it.
She opened the pharmacy at eight with the particular energy of a person who had slept well two nights in a row and had something warm sitting in their chest and was not going to examine it too closely because examining things too closely was how you talked yourself out of good things.
She made her tea.
She opened her shelves.
She smiled at nothing three times before nine AM.
Tolu noticed immediately.
"You're different," Tolu said, appearing at her shoulder with the instincts of someone who had worked in close proximity to Kamsi for two years and had learned to read the variations.
"I'm the same," Kamsi said.
"You smiled at the paracetamol."
"I didn't."
"Ada. You smiled at the paracetamol."
Kamsi reorganised the paracetamol with dignity.
Tolu watched her for a long moment.
"The dangerous man," she said finally.
"Go and stock the vitamins Tolu."
"It's him isn't it."
"Tolu."
"I'm just—"
"Vitamins."
Tolu went to stock the vitamins. But she was smiling too and Kamsi saw it and said nothing because there was nothing to say that wouldn't confirm everything.
---
Zion texted at nine-fifteen.
Zion: Good morning.
She looked at the message.
She thought about yesterday. The garden. The held hands. I'm in it.
Kamsi: Good morning.
Zion: How's the pharmacy?
Kamsi: Open. Functional. How's the compound?
Zion: Quiet. Emmanuel made breakfast. He looked smug about it.
Kamsi: He knows you can't cook.
Zion: He knows too many things.
She laughed at her counter. Quietly. To herself.
Tolu looked over from the vitamins.
Kamsi straightened her face.
Zion: I have meetings until six. I'll call tonight.
Kamsi: Okay.
Zion: Kamsi.
Kamsi: Yes.
Zion: Yesterday was good.
She looked at the message for a long moment.
Kamsi: Yes. It was.
Zion: 🌙
She put her phone in her pocket.
She was smiling at the antibiotics now.
She didn't care.
---
The trouble arrived at eleven.
Not men with badges this time. Not someone browsing shelves too long. Something different — a phone call to the pharmacy landline, which almost nobody used, from a number she didn't recognise.
She answered because she always answered.
"Kamsi Obi?" The voice was male. Smooth. The kind of smooth that had been practised.
"Speaking."
"I understand you've been spending time with the Adaora boy." A pause. "I'd like to have a conversation about that."
She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.
She kept her voice completely level.
"I think you have the wrong number," she said.
"I don't think I do." The voice was pleasant. That was the most unsettling thing about it — how pleasant it was. "I'm not calling to threaten you Miss Obi. I'm calling to offer you an opportunity. To make a sensible choice before things become — complicated."
"Things are already complicated," she said. "And I don't respond well to unsolicited advice."
A pause. The pleasantness flickered.
"Senator Okafor is a patient man," the voice said. "But patience has limits. The people around Zion Adaora have a tendency to become — collateral. I'm sure you understand."
"I understand," she said evenly, "that you've called a licensed pharmacy to deliver a veiled threat on behalf of a sitting senator, which is the kind of thing that tends to leave very clear evidence trails." A pause. "I hope you understand that."
Silence.
"Good day Miss Obi," the voice said.
The line went dead.
She put the phone down.
She picked up her mobile.
She called Zion.
He answered on the first ring.
"Kamsi—"
"Okafor called the pharmacy landline," she said. Steady. Even. "A man representing him. Pleasant voice. Veiled threat about collateral damage."
A silence that lasted exactly two seconds.
"Are you alright?" he said.
"I'm fine. I handled it. I mentioned evidence trails and he hung up." She paused. "But I thought you should know immediately."
"You were right to call." His voice was controlled but she could hear something underneath it — something tight and cold that was different from his usual cold. "I'm coming."
"You don't need to—"
"I'm coming Kamsi."
She looked at Tolu who was watching her from across the pharmacy with wide eyes.
"Okay," she said.
"Lock the back door. Don't let anyone in you don't know. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Zion."
"Yes."
"I'm not scared," she said. Clearly. "I want you to know that. I'm not scared and I'm not fragile and I don't need—"
"I know," he said quietly. "I'm not coming because you're scared. I'm coming because someone threatened you and I need to see for myself that you're alright." A pause. The controlled voice, but something raw underneath. "That's for me. Not for you."
She held the phone.
She thought about that.
"Twenty minutes," she said.
"Nineteen now," he said.
---
He arrived in eighteen.
She saw the car pull up from her window and she was at the door before he reached it and when she opened it he looked at her — just looked at her, head to toe, the assessing gaze running over her quickly — and something in his expression settled.
"You're fine," he said quietly.
"I told you I was fine."
"I needed to see it."
She stepped back to let him in. He came in — past Tolu who made herself extremely busy with something on the other side of the pharmacy — and came to her counter and stood close.
Closer than professional distance.
She didn't step back.
"Tell me exactly what he said," Zion said quietly.
She told him. Word for word — she had a good memory and she had been running it on repeat since the call. He listened without interrupting, his expression controlled and still, the thing underneath it not still at all.
When she finished he was quiet for a moment.
"You mentioned evidence trails," he said.
"Yes."
"He'll know you're not rattled."
"Good," she said. "I'm not."
He looked at her. "You should be. A little."
"Should I?"
"Most people would be."
"I told you," she said. "I'm not most people."
Something moved in his expression. Warm and worried and something else she couldn't fully name.
"Kamsi." He looked at her directly. "This is escalating. Okafor moving documents was one thing. Calling you directly is—" he stopped. "He's getting desperate. Desperate people are more dangerous than calculating ones."
"I know," she said. "I've been thinking about that."
"And?"
She looked at him.
"And I told you on Sunday that I was in it," she said quietly. "That hasn't changed because someone made an unpleasant phone call."
He stared at her.
"You're serious," he said.
"I'm always serious."
"Kamsi—"
"Zion." She held his gaze. "I understand the risk. I've assessed the risk. I'm choosing to stay in it." She paused. "What I need from you is not protection. What I need is information. Keep me informed and I can handle anything."
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he did something she hadn't expected.
He reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. Brief. Gentle. The most careful touch — like she was something he was still getting permission to be near.
"Okay," he said softly.
"Okay?" she said.
"I'll keep you informed." He looked at her steadily. "Everything. I'll tell you everything."
She held his gaze.
"Good," she said.
He dropped his hand.
He looked at Tolu.
"Tolu," he said.
Tolu looked up with the expression of someone who had been pretending not to listen and knew she had been caught.
"If anyone comes in asking about Miss Kamsi," he said, "or asking questions about anything beyond what's on the shelf — you call this number before you answer them." He set a card on the counter.
Tolu looked at the card.
Looked at Kamsi.
Looked at Zion with the expression of a twenty-three year old making several assessments at once.
"Okay," Tolu said. She picked up the card. "And if it's a bird? Because there's sometimes a pigeon that—"
"Tolu," Kamsi said.
Zion looked at Kamsi.
Kamsi looked at the ceiling.
Tolu pressed her lips together very firmly.
Zion made a sound that was not quite a laugh but was the closest thing to it he had managed in a pharmacy setting.
"Call the number," he said to Tolu. "For anything that feels wrong. Not the bird."
"Understood," Tolu said solemnly.
He looked at Kamsi.
She looked at him.
Something passed between them — warm and solid and real. The specific comfort of two people who were in something together and both knew it.
"I'll call tonight," he said.
"I know," she said.
He left.
Tolu waited exactly four seconds.
"Ada," she said.
"Don't."
"He touched your cheek."
"Tolu—"
"And he talked to me like I was part of the team." Her voice was slightly awed. "Like I mattered to the plan."
Kamsi picked up her clipboard.
"You do matter to the plan," she said.
Tolu looked at the card in her hand. Then at the door where Zion had gone.
"Okay," she said quietly. More seriously now. "Okay. I'm in."
Kamsi looked at her.
"Good," she said.
She went back to work.
But the place on her cheek where his hand had been was warm for the rest of the day.
She noticed that.
She filed it away.
She kept it.
- Writer
