No Safe Place
1163 Words
Ify’s POV
I didn't sleep that night.
My apartment in Yaba was a cramped one-bedroom with peeling paint and a ceiling fan that clicked with every rotation. I lay on my mattress, still in my uniform, staring at the water stain on the ceiling that looked vaguely like a map of Africa. And I didn't bother to remove my uniform.
Emeka was asleep on the couch in the living room, his textbooks spread across the floor where he had passed out studying. At seventeen, my brother was the reason I worked three jobs. The reason I smiled when I wanted to cry. The reason I couldn't afford to get mixed up with billionaires and werewolves and murder.
But here I was.
I rolled onto my side and pulled my knees to my chest. The phone on my pillow glowed with the time. Four thirty-seven in the morning. In seven hours, I was supposed to be at the Remi Foundation office on Broad Street. Chuks Remi's words echoed in my skull like a song I couldn't shake.
The people watching your apartment will know exactly where to look.
Was he bluffing? I had spent the ride home twisting that question around in my mind, examining it from every angle. The men who followed me last Tuesday. The break-in that stopped on the third floor. I had dismissed those things as bad luck and coincidence, but now they felt like breadcrumbs leading to a very dark forest.
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the mattress. The floor was cold against my bare feet. Outside the window, Lagos was already waking up. Distant honking. A generator coughing to life somewhere down the street. The bread seller's bell rang as she wheeled her cart past the compound gate.
They are normal and ordinary sounds. But they felt like lies now.
I walked to the small mirror hanging above the sink in the corner of my room. The woman staring back at me looked exhausted. Dark skin, high cheekbones, eyes that had seen too much and were about to see more. I traced the small scar above my left eyebrow, a souvenir from the car accident that had killed our parents five years ago. I was twenty. Emeka was twelve. We had been alone ever since.
"You're not going to that meeting," I said to myself. "You're going to pack a bag, take Emeka, and disappear."
My reflection didn't argue. But it also didn't believe me.
I changed into jeans and a simple blouse, then walked quietly into the living room. Emeka was sprawled across the couch, one arm dangling over the edge, his mouth slightly open. He looked younger when he slept. Softer. The hard edges of almost-adulthood melted away, and I could still see the little boy who used to follow me around with his toy cars.
I knelt beside him and touched his shoulder gently. "Emeka."
He stirred, groaning. "What time is it?"
"Early. I need to tell you something."
Something in my voice must have cut through his sleepiness because he sat up quickly, his eyes sharpening. "What happened? Are you okay?"
I wanted to tell him everything. The warehouse. The wolf. The billionaire who could apparently smell fear. But the words wouldn't come. How do you tell your little brother that monsters are real and one of them has taken an interest in you?
"There's a job opportunity," I lied. "A really good one. But it might mean we have to leave Lagos for a while."
His brow furrowed. "Leave Lagos? What kind of job?"
"Catering for a private client. Very wealthy. They need someone to travel with their household." The lies kept coming, smooth and practiced. I hated myself for them. "Good pay. Really good pay. But I need to know you'd be okay with it."
Emeka studied my face for a long moment. He was too perceptive for his own good. "You're scared," he said quietly.
"What? No, I'm not scared. I'm just—"
"Sis." He took my hand, and the gesture was so gentle, so grown-up, that my throat tightened. "You've got that look. The one you had after the accident. When you didn't want me to know how bad things were."
I blinked hard against the sting in my eyes. "I'm fine. I promise."
"You're lying."
"Emeka..”
"Just tell me if we're in danger." His voice was steady, but his fingers trembled slightly against mine. "Whatever it is, I'd rather know than wonder."
I opened my mouth to deny it again, but the words died on my tongue. He deserved better than lies. He had always deserved better.
"There's a man," I said slowly. "A very powerful man. I saw something I wasn't supposed to see, and now he says people might come after me. After us. He says he can protect us, but I don't know if I can trust him."
Emeka was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Is he the one who's been following you?"
My blood went cold. "What do you mean, following me?"
"I noticed a black SUV parked outside the compound last week. Same one, three nights in a row. I didn't say anything because I thought I was being paranoid." He swallowed hard. "Is that them? The people who want to hurt us?"
I thought of Chuks's words. My people. "No. The people in the SUV work for him. They were... protecting us."
"Protecting us from what?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. That's what I need to find out."
The first rays of dawn were creeping through the window now, painting golden stripes across the floor. Emeka looked at me with an expression that was too old for his seventeen years.
"You're going to meet him today," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I don't know yet."
"Yes you do."
He was right. I did know. Because running might be the smart choice, but it was also the coward's choice. And I had spent five years being brave for Emeka. I couldn't stop now just because the monsters had finally shown their faces.
"If anything happens to me," I said, "there's money in the blue envelope under my mattress. It's not much, but it'll get you to Auntie Ngozi in Benin. Don't wait for anyone. Just go."
"Nothing is going to happen to you."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." He squeezed my hand. "You survived the accident. You survived five years of raising me on your own. You can survive this."
I pulled him into a hug before he could see the tears spilling down my cheeks. He hugged me back fiercely, the way he used to when he was small and scared of thunderstorms.
"I love you," I whispered into his shoulder.
"I love you too, sis. Now go figure out who's trying to kill us so we can get back to normal."
I laughed despite everything. "Normal. Right."
- Writer
