The heat was thick, humid, and smelled of the dry earth after a sudden storm. I was nineteen again, but my skin felt tight, too small for the guilt that was supposed to fill it. We were in the cramped, airless back room of our house. The single kerosene lamp threw long, flickering shadows on the corrugated tin walls.
"You have to be quick, Chimamanda," my mother whispered, her face tense. "The sun is down. The roads are clear now."
"Mama, please," I pleaded, my voice thin and high. "Let me stay. Let me call Mr. Adebayo. We can hide."
She grabbed my hands, her grip surprisingly strong. "No. No calls. No staying. Only moving." She looked toward the small, wooden cot where my brother lay sleeping. "You are taking Kian."
Kian, nine years old, curled up tight with his arm draped over a threadbare stuffed lion. The sight of him, innocent and trusting, was a blade twist in my gut.
My mother pulled a small, battered notebook from inside the lining of her skirt — a plain, black book that felt impossibly heavy in my palm. "This is everything. It is the truth. It goes with you. You take Kian to Auntie Ngozi's house, and you do not let go of this book until she has it. Do you understand?"
I nodded, the fear making the movement jerky. I understood. This notebook was the reason the men were coming.
"Be brave, my warrior," my mother murmured, pulling me into a fierce, suffocating hug. "Protect your brother. Don't you freeze on me."
The pressure of her expectation was a crushing weight. I looked at Kian, sleeping peacefully, and whispered, "I won't. I promise." I slid the notebook into the waistband of my trousers, tucked tight against my skin.
Then, the world ended.
A sound, not of the neighborhood, but of metal shearing metal — the violent, sickening noise of our front gate being ripped from its hinges.
My mother's eyes went wide. "Go!" she shoved me toward the back window, her voice a sudden, raw shriek. "Take him! Go, Chimamanda, now!"
I turned, reaching for Kian's sleeping form, but the shouts started — low, guttural demands from the front room. The scent of kerosene and fear clogged my throat. My feet were cemented to the dirt floor. I couldn't move. I saw my brother's small hand reaching out for his mother in his sleep. I saw her face, contorted in a silent plea.
And then, the sound that defined my life: three sharp, deafening cracks that ripped through the thin walls. Gunshots.
The force of the sound broke the paralysis, replacing it with a blind, panicked urge to flee. I snatched my phone from the table, clutching the notebook tight against my skin. I scrambled through the back window, running into the pitch-black night, leaving the lamp, leaving my promise, and leaving my brother.
As I ran, stumbling over the uneven ground, my thumb fumbled on the screen. I called the number I knew, the one for the local police station, my voice a frantic, useless whisper against the sound of my own ragged breathing. "They're here! They're shooting! Please, please—"
A voice, calm and detached, cut through the line: "Please hold. Your call is important to us."
The hold music started — a tinny, cheerful melody that mocked the horror I had left behind. I kept running, the phone uselessly pressed to my ear, the cheerful music drowning out the last screams of my past. I failed to protect Kian, but I also failed in my frantic, useless attempt to call for help. The weight of that dual failure was the greatest burden I carried.
I shot upright in my bed, gasping, my shirt drenched, the taste of dry earth and raw fear coating my tongue. I was back in the Grant house. There was no Kian, no gunshots. Just the oppressive, safe quiet of an expensive American mansion.
My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would tear through my ribs. The guilt was an active, physical pain, a weight I had carried from one continent to another. I clutched the small, flat pocket where the notebook should have been, confirming it was gone, lost somewhere during the mad dash of my escape. I was Chimamanda again, the girl who ran.
Then, the cold, flat reality of my present intruded.
My phone, lying face-up on the cot beside me, vibrated with a single, sharp ping. I snatched it up, the screen blinding in the darkness.
[3:55 AM] Ethan: Are you up? Meet me. Pool area. Now.
The danger was no longer a ghost from Africa. It was here, immediate, and demanding. The fear of Mrs. Grant and my fugitive past was suddenly secondary to the sheer, terrifying thrill of Ethan's command. I threw off the blanket, grabbing the clothes I had worn for my last crime. The past was done; the present was waiting.