What makes a person tick? What makes a man do the things he does? 

Is it love? Hate? Fear even? Tobi didn't know. He didn't know a lot of things these days, like he didn't know how far a person could be pushed before pushing back.

Perhaps it was all three? Yes, that would explain it all. It would explain the noise around him. The cry of pure agony coming from his mother who lay sprawled on the floor, a bruise forming around her eye where she had been hit. It would certainly explain the uniformed men shouting orders to him and themselves. It would explain the large kitchen knife sticking out from the cold, dead body of his father on the floor, and it definitely would explain the curious glances from neighbors and passers-by coming out to see the cause of all the commotion.

Why had he done it? His mother had asked him the same question just moments ago, but that was before all the uniforms flooded the large living room. Tobi didn't have an answer for her then. He was only driven by a sudden rush of emotions - love, hate, fear.

Love for his mother, hate for his father and fear for himself.

Now, he lay face-down on the hard tiles of their expensive house, arms crossed behind him at the wrists, feet apart. He could hear someone trying to calm his mother and other officers searching the house for God-knows-what. 

There was a frenzy of movement around him, but Tobi felt strangely calm as though all was right with the world. Of course a part of him knew that all was not right for him but at least it was better for his mother.

He soon felt the cold, smooth steel of handcuffs slapped painfully on his wrists and a large hand pull him up to his feet and guide him out the front door towards a black vehicle. 

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.” 

He wasn't planning on saying anything anyway.

The officer was unnecessarily rough with him but that was okay. He was the criminal after all, as far as anyone was concerned. 

The sleek, black sedan began to drive away from the house that held more bad memories for him than good ones.

He could still hear his mother crying hysterically as they moved further and further away, but he knew she'd be fine. He told her to stay calm and say nothing and he too will be fine.

Tobi didn't believe a single word of what he said but his mother was all that mattered. 

It was the death row for him. 

That was the penalty for murder in Nigeria. The police already had enough proof. He had told them all they needed to hear to convict him of murder. No investigations were needed, it was an open-shut case. When he dialed the emergency number half an hour ago, he confessed to stabbing his father for repeatedly assaulting his mother. He even made sure to give them his address and a full description.

“Tobi Odunayo. Male. 19. About 176 metres tall.” He had said calmly into the phone. To anyone listening, he probably sounded like a psychopath, and the wailing of his mother in the background made it all the more disturbing. 

The police arrived soon afterwards, which was very unusual in this part of the world, and they saw a young man exactly as described. Blood on his hands, blood on his clothes and no emotions in his eyes. 

The face of a true killer.

“Wetin make you kill your own papa?” The police officer asked from the driver's seat. Tobi didn't answer, he didn't need to. The answer was obvious enough.

“Nawa oh. God go help us in this country.” The man said at last when he realized he wasn't going to get a conversation. 

Tobi was glad his father was dead. For years the man had assaulted his own wife and son, maintaining the facade of a loving, hardworking, successful husband and father outside, but a monster at home.

For years, Tobi had watched in silence as his mother was brutally beaten, but he had never been able to do anything about it.

For years Tobi watched as she became a shell of herself, flinching at the slightest movement, the smallest lift of a hand, never knowing when her husband would explode.

For years Tobi allowed his mother to be pushed further and further until she had had enough. He slowly began to hate himself too for being too weak and cowardly to stand up for who he loved.

…For years Tobi watched.

But this time, he decided he was going to do something. That was why when he came downstairs and saw the knife in his father's chest, the blood on his mother's hands, the tears in her eyes, he knew he could make up for all those years of cowardice. 

Calmly, he wiped his mother clean and told her to go upstairs, change her clothes, and put the stained ones in the washer. By the time she came back, Tobi had already made the phone call. She stood in disbelief as she listened to her only son confess to a crime he didn't commit and her heart split in two. 

“No! No! It wasn't you! It wasn't you!” She cried and protested at the top of her lungs but he had already ended the call. 

Tobi, calm as ever, had taken her tiny body in his arms and given her the hug of someone going far away. 

Her body shook with the violence of her sobs and it took a considerable amount of strength to hold her still. She soon pulled out of his grip and looked up at his youthful face. 

“Why did you do it?” She breathed, tears streaking her already bruised face “Why did you make that call? You're not going to prison for me! God forbid! You're not going!” 

Tobi didn't say anything. He couldn't. How do you put eighteen years of grief, sorrow and regret into words? More importantly, how do you explain the kind of love that gave up itself for another? You couldn't. 

Saying nothing, he let go of his mother, turned to his father, and dropped to one knee. They would need to think it was him.

He gripped the handle of the knife and let enough blood stain his hands and even rubbed some on his clothes. When he was satisfied, he stood again and faced the woman who raised him. Time was running out.

“Don't say anything to them when they come. Please mummy. Let me do this for you. I'll be fine.” 

He couldn't tell if she agreed or not. She never answered, but had only fallen to the floor where she lay crying  till the police arrived 13 minutes later.

Now, sitting at the back of the chariot leading him to his death, Tobi smiled contentedly. All was right with the world and he had finally done something right.