Chapter 3: No Way Out
1059 Words
The current yanked Ifeoluwa downstream like it had teeth. She didn’t fight it this time—just leaned into the pole, letting the narrow channel spit her out into wider, faster water. Mangroves blurred past. Her arms shook. Sweat stung her eyes. The golden threads still glowed under her skin, brighter every minute, like they were feeding off her panic.
She could still feel him.
Not just the heartbeat anymore. Flashes. His boots hitting wet earth. His breath steady while hers came in gasps. The faint burn in his chest that matched the one spreading through hers. It was like having someone else’s fever.
She rounded a sharp bend and nearly collided with a half-sunken fishing platform. She swerved hard, canoe scraping wood. That’s when she saw the lights ahead—council patrol boats, lanterns swinging, voices carrying over the water.
“Hold! Identify yourself!”
Shit.
She ducked low, letting the current carry her past the edge of their sweep. One boat turned, spotlight slicing the dark. She held her breath until it swung away.
Too close.
She needed to get off the main river. Hide. Think.
The threads pulsed—sharp, warning. Kayode was gaining again.
She spotted a break in the mangroves: a hidden inlet she’d used before, barely wide enough for a canoe. She jammed the pole, swung hard right, branches whipping her face as she forced her way in. The passage narrowed to nothing. She abandoned the pole, grabbed low-hanging roots, and pulled herself deeper, canoe scraping bottom.
Silence fell. Thick. Wet. Only her ragged breathing and distant patrol shouts.
She pressed her back against a root, knees to chest, trying to make herself small.
The threads didn’t care. They glowed brighter, lighting the dark like betrayal.
Then she heard it—soft footfalls on mud. Not rushing. Patient.
He’d found the inlet.
Ifeoluwa drew her dagger. The blade looked pathetic in her trembling hand.
A shadow filled the narrow gap. Kayode stepped through, slow, deliberate, like the river itself parted for him. Crimson robe dark with water. Ember scars pulsing softly. He stopped ten feet away—close enough she could see the exhaustion carved into his face, close enough the bond hummed between them like a live wire.
“You’re bleeding,” he said. Not a question.
She glanced down. A gash on her forearm from the branches. Blood mixed with river muck.
“Stay back.”
He didn’t move closer. Just watched her. “You’ll pass out before dawn if you keep running like this.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You won’t.” His voice dropped. “Because when you fall, I fall with you. That’s how it works.”
She laughed—short, ugly. “Poor you. Stuck with me.”
Kayode’s jaw flexed. “You think I want this? You think I chose to be tethered to someone who’d rather die than look at me?”
The words hit harder than she expected. She hated that they did.
“Then break it,” she snapped. “Cut the damn threads. Let me go.”
“I can’t.” He lifted his left hand. Golden lines mirrored hers—bright, angry, wrapping his wrist like shackles. “Not without killing us both. And even then, the rivers might not forgive it.”
She stared at the matching marks. Her stomach twisted.
“So what? We just… walk around tied together forever?”
“No.” He took one careful step. “We finish it. The ritual. The Heart-River. We balance the veins—or everything burns out.”
“And if I say no?”
His eyes met hers. Steady. Almost sad.
“Then the bond tightens until one of us snaps. Usually the mortal.”
The words hung between them.
Ifeoluwa’s grip on the dagger tightened until her knuckles ached.
She lunged.
Not at him—at the glowing tether itself.
She slashed down, blade biting into the golden rope of light stretched between their wrists.
Pain exploded.
White-hot. Blinding. Like she’d cut her own soul.
The thread didn’t break. It recoiled—snapped back like a whip, wrapping twice around her arm, searing deeper. She screamed, dropping the dagger, collapsing to her knees in the mud.
Kayode moved then—fast. He caught her before she hit the water, arms strong around her waist, pulling her against his chest.
Heat poured off him. Not just fire. Something rawer. Need. Fear. Regret.
She shoved at him, weak, gasping.
“Don’t—touch—”
“Stop fighting it,” he said against her hair. Voice rough. “You’re only hurting yourself.”
She went still. Not because she wanted to. Because she couldn’t move.
The bond was roaring now—images crashing through her: his hands covered in ash, a woman’s body burning in his arms, screams that sounded like her own voice. His grief. His guilt. His loneliness so deep it felt like drowning.
She hated him for showing her.
She hated herself more for feeling it.
Kayode loosened his hold just enough for her to breathe.
“I won’t force you,” he said quietly. “But I won’t let you kill us both out of spite, either.”
She lifted her head. Their faces were inches apart. She could see the faint glow reflected in his eyes.
“Then what do you want?”
For a second he didn’t answer. Just looked at her like she was the only thing keeping him from burning out completely.
“I want you to choose,” he said. “Not fate. Not the prophecy. You.”
The words landed soft. Dangerous.
Ifeoluwa swallowed. Her voice came out hoarse.
“I don’t trust choices made with a rope around my neck.”
He nodded once. Slow.
“Then I’ll wait until the rope feels like something else.”
He released her completely.
Stepped back.
The threads dimmed—just a little.
He turned and walked out of the inlet without another word.
Ifeoluwa stayed on her knees in the mud, chest heaving, blood dripping from her arm, golden marks still humming against her skin.
She didn’t chase him.
She didn’t run.
She just sat there, listening to the river.
And for the first time since the mark appeared, she wasn’t sure which way she wanted to go.
- Writer
