The man's laugh, a short, ugly bark of a sound, cut through the damp night air and seemed to pierce Adekunle's very soul. He pulled back from the window, his heart a cold, frantic drum against his ribs. It was a laugh of casual dominance, the sound of a predator completely at ease in its new den. And that den was the ground floor of his home.
He didn't run. He retreated, melting back into the shadows with a practiced silence he hadn't possessed a week ago. Every sense was screaming. He moved across the wet, empty street, a ghost returning to a ghost. He found his aunt exactly where he had left her, a small, shivering bundle of pain huddled against the cold wall. She looked up as he approached, her eyes wide and questioning in the gloom.
"Are they there?" she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Adekunle couldn't bring himself to tell her the full truth, to describe the new king with the machete. Her hope was a fragile, flickering flame, and he could not be the one to extinguish it. "The way is blocked," he said, the understatement a bitter taste in his mouth. "We cannot go in the front."
She didn't ask for details. She saw the grim set of his jaw, the hard, haunted look in his eyes. She understood. Her gaze dropped to her own broken, useless leg, then back up to him. The silent question was deafening: What now?
"The back wall," he said, his voice a low, determined whisper. "It's the only way. The way we came before."
A fresh wave of despair washed over her face. He saw her mind calculating the sheer impossibility of it. Getting two healthy men over that wall had been difficult enough. Getting a woman with a shattered leg over it seemed like a cruel joke.
"Kunle, we cannot…"
"I can," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. He looked down at his own hands, no longer with terror, but with a grim, cold acceptance. The time for questioning the miracle, for fearing the monster inside him, was over. It was a tool. And he would use it. He had to. For her. For the memory of the man who had died to give them this chance.
He helped her to her feet, the process a slow, agonizing ordeal that left her biting back cries of pain. He situated her on his back again, using the blanket as a sling, her feverish heat a stark contrast to the cold, damp night. He grabbed the tyre iron and the red toolbox, the combined weight immense. But as he stood, he felt that now-familiar, unnatural strength surge to meet the demand, flooding his limbs, turning his exhaustion into a steady, thrumming power. He was a human engine, and his aunt's survival was the only fuel he needed.
The journey to the back alley was a short eternity. The toolbox banged against his leg, a constant, dull percussion marking their funereal pace. He moved with a new kind of awareness, his hearing tuned to the slightest sound from the building they were circling. He listened for shouts, for footsteps, for any sign that the new crew was moving. But there was only the steady drip of water from the rooftops and the sound of his own heavy breathing.
They reached the alley. It was a sliver of profound darkness, a forgotten space between worlds. The high wall of their compound loomed over them, a sheer, impossible cliff.
"Okay, Auntie," he whispered, his lips close to her ear. "This will be the hardest part. I need you to be strong. Do not make a sound, no matter how much it hurts. Can you do that for me?"
He felt her nod against his cheek, a small, brave gesture that broke his heart.
He gently eased her down, propping her against the wall. Then he went to work. He opened the toolbox. The beautiful, orderly array of his uncle's tools seemed to mock him. Ben would have known exactly what to do, how to rig a pulley, how to use physics to his advantage. Adekunle had only raw, terrifying strength. But he also had his uncle's mind, the lessons of a lifetime spent solving impossible problems.
He found what he was looking for: a long, thick coil of heavy-gauge electrical cable. It wasn't a rope, but it was strong. He tied one end around the handle of the red toolbox. Then, using the same familiar footholds his uncle had shown him, he climbed the wall, the tyre iron tucked into his belt. The climb was easier this time, his newfound strength turning the difficult ascent into a simple, fluid motion.
He lay flat on top of the wet, cold concrete, peering down into their yard. It was empty. The back door of the building was closed. A faint, flickering candlelight was visible through the grimy window of the ground-floor flat. They were still in there.
He pulled up the heavy toolbox, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching, but not straining. He set it down on the wall beside him. Now for the impossible part. He uncoiled the rest of the wire and dropped it down to his aunt.
"Tie it around your waist," he hissed down into the alley. "As tight as you can."
He heard her fumbling in the darkness below, her movements slow and pained. After a long minute, she gave a soft tug on the wire. She was ready.
Adekunle braced himself, planting his feet wide on top of the wall. He took the wire in his raw, scraped hands and began to pull. The wire bit into his flesh. His aunt's entire weight was on him now. He leaned back, his muscles screaming, not with strain, but with the sheer, alien force he was channeling.
Funke's body lifted from the ground. A small, strangled gasp escaped her lips as her broken leg dangled uselessly, but she held back the scream. She was a dead weight, scraping against the rough cinderblocks. Adekunle pulled, hand over hand, the wire groaning with the tension. His vision began to narrow, his entire universe shrinking to this single, agonizing task.
He got her halfway up when he heard it. A laugh. It came from the open window of the ground-floor flat, sharp and clear in the night. It was the new man, the one with the machete. Adekunle froze, his muscles locked, his aunt dangling ten feet above the alley floor. He held his breath, his heart hammering against his ribs. Any sound now, a single cry of pain from Funke, a single scrape of his boot on the concrete, and they would be discovered.
The silence stretched for an eternity. The only sound was the faint drip of water and the frantic pounding in Adekunle's ears. Then another voice joined the first, Ikenna's whining tone. They were arguing about something, their voices muffled by the wall. The moment of danger passed.
Adekunle didn't wait for another. He renewed his effort, pulling with a desperate, silent fury. He got his aunt to the top of the wall, helping her over the last few inches, her body collapsing onto the wet concrete beside him. She was shaking violently, her face ashen, but she was alive. And she was quiet.
Getting down was just as perilous. He lowered the toolbox first, then helped her, guiding her descent, taking her full weight again until her good foot touched the damp earth of the yard. He slid down after her, landing silently beside her. They were inside. Past the first line of defense.
But they were not safe. They were in the open, a hundred feet from the back door, and the enemy was just on the other side of the wall.
He half-carried, half-dragged her across the yard, keeping to the deepest shadows, his eyes fixed on the flickering candle in the window. They reached the back door of their stairwell. It was closed but unlocked. He eased it open, the hinges making a faint, rusty squeal that sounded like a shout in the stillness.
They slipped inside, into the familiar, pitch-black stairwell. He closed the door behind them, plunging them into a darkness that felt, for the first time, like a friend.
He crouched beside his aunt at the bottom of the stairs. She was trembling, on the verge of collapse. "We're almost there, Auntie," he whispered, his own voice shaky with relief and exhaustion. "Just three floors."
He looked up into the suffocating darkness of the stairwell. Three floors. Each step a potential landmine of sound. Each landing a place where they could be discovered. Their journey was not over. They had just entered the most dangerous part: the slow, silent crawl through the heart of the monster's den.
With the red toolbox in one hand and the tyre iron in the other, he prepared himself for the ascent. He would take it one step at a time. The survival of his family, the legacy of his uncle, the weight of this strange, terrible miracle—it all rested on not making a single sound.