The white Wolf of Yaba

I woke up with soil under my nails again. Not the normal dust you get from riding dispatch in Lagos traffic. This was deep. Black. Wet. It was packed under all ten nails like I had been digging a grave with my bare hands. My palms were scratched. Fresh scratches, thin and red, crisscrossing my skin. And my mouth tasted like blood. I sat up too fast in my small room in Yaba. My bedsheet was half off the bed. My Jumia delivery box was on the floor, open, empty. My cargo trousers were torn at the left knee. There was blood on it, but when I pulled the fabric up, the wound was already closing. I watched it. I swear I watched a cut that should need stitches just... seal itself. From bleeding to pink skin in twenty seconds. 12:04 am. The moon was full. Stupidly full. White light was coming through my burglary-proof window, even though I always close my curtains before full moon. Mama's rule. One of her many stupid rules that have controlled my life for 24 years. Rule 1: Don't go out on full moon. Rule 2: Drink the bitter tea even if it makes you vomit. Rule 3: Never ask about your father. I obeyed Rule 1 last night. I remember locking my door with both the key and the padlock. I remember drinking that evil tea that tastes like boiled roots and regret. I remember putting my phone to charge at 9pm and telling myself, "Zara, sleep, you have early delivery to Ikoyi tomorrow." So why did my phone say I had walked 8,742 steps between 10pm and 11:30pm? Why were my boots by the door, covered in mud, when I took them off before sleeping? Why was there a flyer in my pocket for an uncompleted building two streets behind ours — a place I have never been to in daylight? I dragged myself to the bathroom. My small mirror was foggy. I cleaned it with my hand. My eyes were wrong. They are brown. Normal brown. But now there was a ring of gold around my pupil. Like honey. Like a contact lens. It was glowing in the dark bathroom. I blinked hard. Once. Twice. The gold faded. But I saw it. I didn't imagine it. "God," I whispered to my reflection. "What is happening to me?" This has been happening for two years. Since I turned 22. At first, it was once every three months. I would wake up tired, my body aching like I ran a marathon. Then it became every full moon. Now it is every full moon plus the night before. Mama says it's stress. She says dispatch work is too hard for a woman. She says I should learn hairdressing like my cousin. But stress does not make your wounds close in front of your eyes. Stress does not make you howl. Yes. I have been howling. My neighbor, Mama Nkechi, told me last month she heard a dog crying from my room on full moon night which was strange. I told her it was a movie. My phone buzzed on the sink. It made me jump. Mama: "You went out abi, you dis girl? I told you not to go out. I TOLD YOU ZARA. Come to my room now." Then, below her message, an unknown number. A message sent at 10:47pm. At the time I was supposed to be in deep sleep. Unknown: "You shifted for 11 minutes. You ran. You didn't hurt anyone. You are safe. Don't panic. Breathe. - K" K. My stomach dropped. K. Balogun. The Ikoyi client. Yesterday. Yesterday was supposed to be normal. One delivery to Ikoyi. A small black box, sealed, with a handwritten note: "DO NOT LEAVE WITH GATE MAN. HAND TO HAND ONLY." The house was not a house. It was all glass, white walls, and money that doesn't make noise. The gate man looked at my faded cargo pants and my Jumia box and told me to wait outside like a beggar. Then he came out. Kayode Balogun. I had seen his picture on the company website. Tech CEO. Logistics app. Youngest millionaire on Forbes 30 under 30. In picture he looked serious. In real life, he looked like someone who doesn't sleep. Tall, maybe 6'2, wearing a simple white kaftan with sleeves rolled up. I saw tattoos on his forearms, dark lines, like tribal marks but not Yoruba. His eyes were the saddest eyes I had ever seen on a rich man. And he sniffed me. He actually leaned in slightly and inhaled when I handed him the box. I thought maybe I was smelling because of the bike and Lagos sun. I was ready to insult him. Then he said, "You are bleeding." I wasn't. Or I didn't know I was. My knuckle had busted from kicking my useless bike on Third Mainland Bridge. He saw it before I felt it. When his fingers brushed mine to take the box, it was not normal. It was like someone plugged me to NEPA light. My spine straightened. My heart started beating too fast. Too loud. I could hear his heart too. Slow. Steady. Not fast like mine. He stared at our hands touching. His eyes flashed. I swear they flashed yellow. Just for half a second. Like a dog's eyes when you shine torch at night. "What are you?" he whispered, but it wasn't rude. It was scared. "Dispatch rider," I said and pulled my hand away. "Oga, sign here so I can go." He signed, but he didn't look at the paper. He looked at my neck. At my face. Like he was memorizing me. "You live in Yaba," he said. "You dey stalk me?" "You smell like Yaba. Wet earth. And..." He stopped. "You should not be outside tonight. Go home. Lock your door. If you hear howling, Zara, don't answer it." He knew my name. My shirt says ZARA, yes, but the way he said it... like he had said it before. I left. I told myself he was just a rich man who does drugs. Now this same man is texting me that I "shifted." What does that even mean? Shifted from what to what? I washed the mud from my hands. The water went brown, then black. I scrubbed until my skin was red. Three loud knocks on my main door. Gbam. Gbam. Gbam. It was 12:11 am. In Yaba, nobody knocks like that by this time. If it's not police, it's armed robbers. Or worse, area boys. "Zara?" Mama's voice from her room, shaking. "Zara, you open door?" "No!" "Don't open!" The knocking came again. Slower this time. More patient. Like whoever it was knew I was awake. Knew I was standing in the bathroom with gold fading from my eyes. My phone buzzed again. Same unknown number. Unknown: "Don't open it. It's not me. - K" I froze. How does he know someone is knocking? Is he outside my house? Mama ran into my room, wearing her wrapper, holding her Bible and a small bottle of black oil. "He has found you," she whispered, looking at my hands, at the muddy water in my sink. "After 24 years of hiding you with herbs, he has found you." "Who, Mama? Who has found me?" She looked at the door that was still being knocked on, and said the name I had not heard since I was a child. "Your father. Or the one who killed him. Your Alpha." The knocking stopped. And then, from outside my window, right under the full moon, came a long, deep, terrible howl that made every dog in Yaba start barking at once. And before I could stop myself, my throat opened, and I howled back.