The Silence Between Us
1513 Words
I woke before dawn, heart pounding, the taste of fear still bitter on my tongue.
Thomas was gone.
The house was quiet too quiet.
Only the hum of the refrigerator and the faint drip from the kitchen tap.
I sat there for a long time, still in the same clothes, the flash drive pressed into my palm like a secret heartbeat. I had dreamt of running of taking the kids and disappearing into the city’s noise. But where do you hide from a man who knows every corner of your life?
By the time the children woke, Thomas was back smiling, cheerful, as if the night before had been erased.
“Good morning, my loves,” he said, kissing their foreheads. “Who wants pancakes?”
He caught my eye across the table. The same eyes that once promised safety now carried something I couldn’t name not hatred, not love, but possession.
I smiled, because that’s what survival looked like now.
After breakfast, he drove Chika and Muna to school. I stood by the window, watching the taillights disappear down the road, then grabbed my phone and called Sade.
“He knows,” I whispered.
“Knows what?”
“That I talked to you. That I copied his files.”
There was silence on the other end. Then Sade’s voice, low and steady.
“Okay. Listen carefully. Don’t confront him again. Act normal. I’ll get someone from tech to trace the data on that drive. Can you meet me?”
“No. He’s watching me now.”
“Then hide it somewhere safe. Somewhere only you know.”
I looked around our sitting room the framed wedding photo, the half-read books, the children’s toys scattered like tiny landmines of innocence.
“I’ll figure something out,” I said.
That afternoon, I went through the motions washed dishes, answered work emails, wrote half a story I couldn’t finish. Every sound made me flinch: the door creak, the kettle whistle, even my own breath.
When Thomas returned, he brought dinner. Chinese takeout. He’d even bought flowers.
“A peace offering,” he said.
“For what?” I asked softly.
“For scaring you last night. I shouldn’t have said those things.”
I studied him, trying to read sincerity in his eyes. It was there or something like it.
“Thomas…” I began.
“Let’s not talk about it,” he interrupted gently. “Let’s just be us tonight. No work. No darkness. Just us.”
He reached across the table, took my hand. His touch was steady, warm — the same hand that had once held our newborn daughter, trembling with joy.
And because fear has a strange way of needing comfort, I let him hold me.
That night, we lay in bed, bodies close but hearts miles apart.
His hand rested lightly on my waist.
My mind raced over the flash drive, over the evidence, over the question that haunted me: How far will he go to keep me quiet?
I thought about the women he called “subjects.”
About their faces, their stories.
And I thought about the man beside me the one who once cried when our son had a fever.
How could both truths live in the same skin?
Sleep came in pieces.
And in one of those pieces, I dreamt of red cords hundreds of them hanging from the ceiling, each tied with a name.
When I woke, Thomas was gone again.
I hid the flash drive that morning beneath the loose tile in the bathroom.
If he searched, he wouldn’t find it there.
I prayed he wouldn’t.
Then I went to work, pretending everything was fine.
My editor called me in, waving a copy of The Daily Light.
“Excellent work on the series, Ada. The readership’s up by thirty percent.”
I forced a smile. The irony burned. The story everyone was reading about the faceless killer was lying beside me every night.
When I left the office, my phone buzzed.
It was a message from Sade.
Got something. Not safe to talk. Meet me at CMS bus park, 7PM. Don’t tell anyone.
Lagos evenings are chaos hawkers shouting, buses honking, the city breathing heat and noise.
I stood by the yellow bus stop, pretending to scroll through my phone. Sade’s car pulled up, tinted windows, engine low.
I slipped inside.
“You found something?”
She nodded, eyes on the road. “The files you copied, they were encrypted, but my guy cracked part of it. Project Cleanse isn’t random. It’s an algorithm pattern recognition software. He’s tracking behavior through public data. Social media, CCTV, facial scans.”
“Tracking who?”
“Women. Specifically, women he classifies as ‘corrupted.’ Club girls, escorts, even students with online accounts that fit certain tags.”
My throat went dry. “He’s choosing victims by code?”
“Not just choosing. Hunting.”
The word hung in the air, heavy and final.
“We can’t move yet,” Sade said. “We need proof he’s the one doing it, not just building the system. Get me something physical a recording, a confession, anything.”
I nodded, though my stomach turned.
“And Ada,” she added quietly, “be careful. He’s not the man you married anymore.”
When I got home, the house was quiet.
Too quiet again.
Thomas sat in the living room, staring at the television but it wasn’t on.
“Where were you?” he asked without looking at me.
“Work ran late.”
“You’re lying.”
His voice was calm, but it sliced through the air.
I swallowed. “Thomas”
He stood, walked toward me slowly. “You’ve been meeting Sade. You think I don’t know? I know everything, Ada.”
My heart thudded.
“She’s worried about me,” I said softly. “About us.”
“She should be worried about herself.”
Something flickered in his expression not rage, not quite. Something colder.
Then, just as quickly, he sighed, rubbed his face, and smiled.
“Look at us,” he said, almost laughing. “Fighting over shadows. I don’t want to lose you, Ada.”
He pulled me into his arms, and though every muscle in me screamed to pull away, I didn’t.
His heartbeat was steady against my cheek. Too steady.
“Then don’t give me a reason to go,” I whispered.
He kissed the top of my head. “Never.”
For the next few days, life returned to its eerie rhythm.
We ate breakfast together. We took the kids to church. He fixed the leaky sink.
If anyone looked in from the outside, we were a perfect family.
But beneath that surface, I was living minute to minute waiting for my chance to end it.
Sade called once, from an unknown number.
“You’re running out of time,” she said. “He’s changed his pattern. There’ll be another body soon.”
“How do you know?”
“His data pinged a new target yesterday a young woman in Lekki. Ada, you have to stop him.”
Stop him.
The words echoed through me long after the call ended.
That night, Thomas sat at his desk again, typing.
The faint blue light from his laptop cast long shadows on the wall.
I stood by the door, heart pounding, and hit record on my phone.
“Thomas,” I said softly. “Do you still believe you’re saving them?”
He looked up, eyes dark but calm.
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Try me.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I build systems, Ada. Systems that filter out waste, refine what’s broken. That’s all I’m doing refining.”
“They were people.”
“They were suffering,” he said simply. “You write about the rot in this city. I clean it. We’re both doing God’s work.”
I held the phone tight in my hand, the recording running.
“And if the police found out?”
He smiled. “They won’t. You won’t let them.”
“What makes you so sure?”
He stood, walked over, and touched my face gently. “Because you still love me. And love forgives everything.”
My throat tightened. I forced a small, trembling smile.
“Maybe it does.”
When he finally turned away, I slipped the phone into my pocket. The recording was still running. My proof. My weapon.
I planned to leave before dawn take the kids, meet Sade, hand over the evidence.
But fate, cruel as ever, had its own script.
At 3:17 AM, a crash echoed through the house.
Glass shattering.
I ran to the living room and froze.
The bathroom tile lay broken.
The hiding place open.
The flash drive gone.
And on the table, beside the scattered pieces of tile, was a single red cord tied neatly into a knot.
Thomas’s voice came from behind me, soft and calm.
“You should’ve trusted me, Ada.”
- Writer
