AfterMath
1617 Words
_POV: Aria Wanjiru Mwaura_
---
The silence after running is worse than the running.
No sirens. No shouting. Just the hum of the old fridge in the corner and the drip of water somewhere in the pipes.
Knox let go of me first. Not because he wanted to. Because I stepped back.
My legs were still shaky from the ride, from the glass, from kissing him like the world was ending.
“Let me see your face,” he said.
I let him.
His fingers were careful when they brushed the cut on my cheek. The same cut I’d shown him in the godown. The one he’d given me four years ago.
History had a cruel sense of humor.
“It’s shallow,” he said. “But it’ll scar.”
“Good,” I said. “Let it.”
He didn’t ask why. He just nodded, like he understood.
The cut on my cheek was nothing compared to the one I’d been carrying for five years.
---
He moved to the fridge, pulled out a first aid kit, and set it on the workbench.
“Sit,” he said.
I sat.
He knelt in front of me without hesitation, tearing open an antiseptic wipe. His hands were steady, but I saw the tension in his jaw.
“You didn’t have to come back for me,” I said.
“Yes, I did,” he said.
“Why? I’m the one who’s been trying to put you away.”
“Because you’re mine,” he said simply.
The words hit harder than the slap of the night air had.
I didn’t argue. I couldn’t.
He cleaned the cut, his focus absolute. Like if he messed this up, I’d disappear.
When he was done, he sat back on his heels and looked at me. Really looked.
“You’re in deep now, Wanjiru,” he said. “No badge. No office. No clean exit.”
“I know,” I said.
“And you’re okay with that?”
I thought about Kamiti PD. About Mutua’s face when I mentioned the March manifests. About the way my own colleagues might already be looking for me.
“I’m done playing by their rules,” I said. “If their rules let guilty men walk free, then the rules are wrong.”
Knox’s mouth twitched. Almost a smile.
“That’s dangerous talk.”
“So is kissing a prosecutor in a godown,” I said.
That got the smile. Small. Real.
“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
---
He stood, offering me his hand.
I took it.
He led me to the cot in the corner. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the concrete floor.
“Sleep,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re not seriously expecting me to sleep right now.”
“No,” he said. “I’m expecting you to rest. Your body’s running on adrenaline and spite. That only lasts so long.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it.
Because he was right.
My eyes felt gritty. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Knox sat on the edge of the cot beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“About what?”
“About March,” he said. “About your father’s case. About why you came after me in the first place.”
I swallowed.
I hadn’t said his name out loud in years.
“My father was a customs officer at Kamiti Port,” I said. “He found a container that wasn’t on the manifest. He tried to report it.”
Knox didn’t interrupt.
“He died two days later,” I said. “Car accident. They said he ran a red light. But his brakes had been cut.”
The words felt like glass in my throat.
Knox’s jaw clenched.
“And you think it was me.”
“I know it was Vance Enterprises,” I said. “The container was registered to your company. The shipment was flagged as ‘medical supplies.’ It wasn’t.”
He nodded slowly.
“It wasn’t.”
My head snapped up.
“What was it?”
Knox was quiet for a long time.
“Drugs,” he said finally. “Heroin. From Mombasa. Bound for Nairobi, then up north. Your father found it because he wasn’t supposed to.”
I stared at him.
“And you let it happen?”
“I was 23,” he said. “My father ran the company then. I didn’t know the full extent until after. By the time I did, I was already in too deep to pull out without getting myself killed.”
“And me?” I asked. “Where did I fit into that?”
“You were the one thing I couldn’t control,” he said. “You came to me asking questions. Smart questions. Dangerous questions. I had two choices: kill you, or keep you close enough to make sure you didn’t get yourself killed.”
“You chose to break my ribs,” I said.
“I chose to make sure you left,” he said. “Because if you stayed, you would’ve died. And I couldn’t—”
He stopped himself.
“Couldn’t what?” I pressed.
Knox looked away.
“Couldn’t lose you. Not then. Not now.”
The honesty in his voice made my chest ache.
I didn’t know if I believed him.
But I wanted to.
---
We sat in silence for a while.
The kind of silence that wasn’t awkward. It was heavy. Full of things we’d never said.
Finally, I broke it.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Now,” Knox said, “we lay low for 48 hours. Let Kamiti think you’re gone. Let Mutua panic. In 48 hours, I’ll have a name for you. The leak. The person who sold you out.”
“And then?”
“And then we burn it down,” he said.
I looked at him.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m always serious when it comes to you,” he said.
I should’ve been scared.
I wasn’t.
For the first time in five years, I felt like I wasn’t fighting alone.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Anything.”
“Why did you keep the photos?” I asked. “Why keep a room full of a girl you were supposed to forget?”
Knox was quiet for a long time.
“Because forgetting you would’ve been like forgetting how to breathe,” he said. “And I’ve been trying to breathe without you since you walked away.”
My throat tightened.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
So I didn’t say anything.
I just leaned my head against his shoulder.
He didn’t move away.
He let me stay there.
---
I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, it was dawn.
Gray light filtered through the cracks in the warehouse walls.
Knox was still sitting beside me. Awake. Watching me.
“You’re alive,” he said quietly when I stirred.
“So are you,” I said.
He smiled. Tired. Real.
“Barely.”
I sat up, pulling his cut tighter around my shoulders. It smelled like him. Leather, smoke, and something uniquely Knox.
“What now?” I asked.
“Now,” he said, standing, “we eat. Then we plan.”
“Plan for what?”
“For the truth about March,” he said.
My heart jumped.
“You found something?”
“I found a name,” he said. “A name that wasn’t supposed to be on that manifest. A name that connects Vance Enterprises to Kamiti PD. To Mutua.”
I stood up too fast, the room spinning for a second.
“Who?”
Knox looked at me. His expression was grim.
“Your father’s partner,” he said. “Officer Joseph Mutua.”
The world tilted.
“Impossible,” I said. “Joseph Mutua died in the same accident as my father.”
“That’s what the report says,” Knox said. “But the body was never identified. Just burned beyond recognition.”
I shook my head.
“No. He wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t what, Aria?” Knox said gently. “Betray you? Betray your father? People do it every day for money.”
I didn’t want to believe it.
But I knew better than anyone how easy it was to sell out for the right price.
Knox stepped closer, putting his hands on my shoulders.
“If it’s true,” he said, “then your father didn’t die because of me. He died because of the man you trusted most.”
The words hit like a punch.
I felt sick.
“Get me proof,” I said. My voice was steady, even if my hands weren’t. “If Mutua’s alive, and if he’s the one who killed my father, I’ll bring him down myself.”
Knox nodded.
“I’ll get you proof. But you have to promise me something.”
“What?”
“You let me watch your back this time,” he said. “No more running alone.”
I looked at him. Really looked.
At the man who’d ruined me.
At the man who’d saved me.
At the man I couldn’t stop wanting.
“Deal,” I said.
His thumb brushed my cheek, careful of the cut.
“Year Five,” he said.
“Learn to stay,” I finished.
Outside, the sun was rising over Nairobi.
And for the first time in five years, I wasn’t running from it.
- Writer
