Bloodline of Lagos

--- Chapter 2: The Rain Remembers The flood spat me out like I owed it money. I hit concrete hard, coughing water and bile, chest on fire. The drainage channel was quiet now. Too quiet. Ten minutes ago it was a brown monster dragging cars and dreams into the lagoon. Now it was just a shallow, dirty stream picking at plastic and broken glass. Lagos was already pretending it never happened. My skirt stuck to my legs. My twists were a mess. My bag was gone. Phone, notebook, the 2k my mum gave me for transport—all of it swallowed. "Stupid," I hissed. "You're so stupid, Ada." But the word felt too small. Because the water hadn't just tried to kill me. It had moved for me. I looked at my hands. Still wet. That made no sense. The rain stopped while I was face-down in the gutter. I should be drying out. Instead, my skin felt wrapped in thin, cold silk. I lifted my right hand, and a thread of water followed it, stretching from my palm to the ground like it didn't want to let go. My throat went dry. "Okay. You hit your head. You're seeing things." The thread snapped back and splashed my face. Cold enough to wake the dead. Across the road, a broken gutter dripped. Drip. Drip. Drip. Then it stopped. The droplet froze mid-air, hung there for two seconds like it had changed its mind, and crawled back up into the gutter. I didn't breathe. I didn't move. When it stayed put, I let out a shaky exhale. "Don't look at me like that," I whispered to the water. "I didn't do that." The water didn't answer. It never does. But it didn't move again. I needed to get home. Mum would be losing it. Flood alerts had been screaming on every channel since 4 PM, and I hadn't replied to a single message. If I didn't show up in the next hour, she'd drag herself out here with her inhaler and her worry, and that was worse than drowning. I stood too fast. The world tilted. Hunger hit me like a punch. I hadn't eaten since morning. The akara and bread were probably stuck to someone's tire by now. I started walking. Hands in pockets. Wet pockets. Wet everything. The streets were a mess. Cars abandoned mid-road, alarms still beeping weakly. People stood outside their shops, staring at the water like it had personally betrayed them. A group of boys were filming for t****k, shouting "Lagos flood 2026! See how we dey suffer!" Nobody saw me. Good. I didn't want to be seen. Not with water clinging to me like a second skin and my heart beating like it wanted out. I passed Oshodi junction, and that's when I heard him. "Running away again, small girl?" Kazeem. Leaning against a streetlight that refused to fall. His uniform was dry. Not a drop. Impossible unless he'd been hiding the whole time. And he hadn't. I stopped. Running felt like admitting he was right. "What do you want?" My voice was rough, scraped raw by water and fear. "Make sure you didn't drown," he said. "You're welcome." "You didn't save me." "I pulled you out before the current took you under the bridge. If I hadn't, you'd be explaining yourself to God right now." I opened my mouth, closed it. I didn't remember much after the water hit me. Just darkness, pressure, and that weird feeling of being listened to. "Thanks," I said. It tasted like sand. "Now go away." Kazeem didn't move. He studied me like I was a problem he hadn't solved. "You feel it, don't you?" "Feel what?" "The pull. The way the water responds to you. Like it's been waiting." My stomach dropped. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Liar." He stepped closer. "Your hands are wet. The rain stopped twenty minutes ago. And that puddle behind you just moved to avoid your shadow." I whipped around. The puddle had shifted, pulling back from where I stood. Like it was afraid. Cold ran through me. "I don't—" "You're one of us," Kazeem said quietly. "A child of the river. The Bloodline of Lagos." I laughed. It came out wrong, brittle. "That sounds like a bad Nollywood title. Get out of my face, Kazeem. I have real problems. I don't need you adding 'crazy' to the list." He didn't flinch. "Denial won't stop it. It's in you now. It's always been in you. That's why the flood didn't take you. That's why it listened." I remembered. The water parting around me in the channel. The way it softened when I screamed. The way it obeyed. No. That was adrenaline. That was shock. "You're lying," I said. But my voice wasn't sure anymore. Kazeem sighed. "Your grandmother knew. That's why she took you out of Lagos when you were five. She thought if you stayed away from the water, it would sleep." I froze. "How do you know about my grandmother?" "I know a lot of things, Ada. Things your mum doesn't want you to know. Things your grandmother died trying to keep hidden." "My grandmother died of malaria." "That's what your mum was told." The streetlight above us flickered. Water from a nearby drain rose an inch, then fell back down. I took a step back. "Stop it." "Stop what? The truth?" Kazeem's voice hardened. "You can't hide from this, Ada. The Bloodline is waking up. All of us. And you're the strongest I've seen in years. If you don't learn to control it, it'll control you. And when it does, people will die." "People are already dying," I snapped. "In floods. In hospitals without generators. In traffic that never moves. Don't come here with your mystical nonsense and tell me I'm special." "You are special," Kazeem said. "And that's why they'll come for you." "Who?" He didn't answer. He looked past me, down the street. His jaw tightened. I felt it before I heard it. A low vibration in the ground. Pressure in the air. The feeling right before lightning strikes. The water around us reacted. Every puddle, every drip, every wet patch lifted slightly, like it was holding its breath. "Run," Kazeem said. "For once, I agree with you," I said, and I ran. I didn't run home. Home was too far, and I had no idea what was chasing us. I ran toward the canal behind the market, the one that led to the lagoon. If I could get to open water, maybe I could think. Maybe the water would tell me what was happening. Kazeem kept pace with me, silent, fast. He wasn't even breathing hard. "Where are we going?" I shouted over my footsteps. "Somewhere they can't find us easily," he said. "And somewhere you can't drown the whole market by accident." "Shut up!" The canal was ahead. Dark, wide, choked with plastic. It stank, but it was water. Real water. I skidded to a stop at the edge. My chest heaved. The water in the canal was still. Dead still. No current, no movement. Then it rippled. A shape rose from the surface. Humanoid, but wrong. Too tall. Too thin. Skin the color of dirty water. Eyes like empty holes. Water dripped from it constantly, pooling at its feet and running back into the canal. A drifter. Kazeem cursed under his breath. "I thought we had more time." "What is that?" I whispered. "A failed one. Someone who tried to use the Bloodline and lost control. Now it hunts. It hunts anything with the mark." I looked down at my hands. No mark. Just scrapes and dirt. "It can feel you," Kazeem said. "It knows." The drifter turned its head. It didn't have a face, but it looked directly at me. And it smiled. The canal surged. I acted without thinking. I threw my hands forward, and the water answered. It rose up between me and the drifter, a wall of liquid and debris, blocking its path. The drifter hit the wall and passed through it like it wasn't there. "Not good!" Kazeem grabbed my arm. "You have to fight it with more than instinct!" "How?" I yelled. The drifter was three feet away now. I could smell rot and stagnant water. "Focus! Think of the water as part of you. Command it!" I closed my eyes. Stupid advice. How do you command water? You don't. Water goes where it wants. But then I remembered the flood. The way it moved around me, not through me. The feeling of being heard. I opened my eyes and whispered, "Stay back." The water obeyed. A spear of water shot from the canal, fast and precise, and drove straight through the drifter's chest. The creature screamed. It wasn't human. It was the sound of a drain unclogging, of pipes bursting, of a city drowning. It fell apart, dissolving into the canal it came from. Silence. My knees gave out. Kazeem caught me before I hit the ground. "You did it," he said. "I killed it," I said. My voice shook. "I killed something." "You saved us," Kazeem corrected. "There's a difference." I looked at my hands. Dry now. Finally dry. But I could still feel the water, somewhere under my skin, waiting. "What happens now?" I asked. "Now," Kazeem said, "we train. Before they send more." "Who's they?" Kazeem helped me to my feet. "The ones who think the Bloodline should stay buried. The ones who think people like us are a mistake." I stared at the canal. The water was calm again. Innocent. "Fine," I said. "But I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it so nobody else dies because of me." Kazeem nodded. "That's a good reason." We left the canal behind. The city was still wet, still broken, but the rain had stopped. For now. And somewhere under Lagos, the lagoon shifted. It remembered my name. ---