Tobi called his mother immediately.
She answered on the first ring.
"Tobi?"
"Mum, are you okay?"
"I’m fine. Where are you?"
"Somewhere safe."
"That’s what you said in your message. Where exactly?"
Tobi glanced at Kade.
Kade shook his head.
"With a friend," Tobi answered.
"Which friend?"
"Mum, please. Tell me about the man."
A pause.
"You’re avoiding my question."
"I know. I’m sorry. But this is important."
Rain battered the clinic’s windows.
Kade sat upright on the examination bed, his injured ankle elevated on a pillow.
Mama Efe had gone into the adjoining room.
Bamidele was asleep on a narrow bench near the entrance.
Tobi switched the phone to speaker.
"What did he look like?" Kade asked.
"Tall," Mrs Balogun replied. "Maybe in his forties. He wore glasses and carried a brown leather bag."
"Did he give a name?"
"Mr Akin."
Tobi frowned.
"I don’t remember any Mr Akin."
"He said he taught you mathematics."
"Which school?"
"He mentioned your secondary school."
Kade exchanged a glance with Tobi.
Their old mathematics textbook.
The concealed message.
The envelope.
"Did he say why he wanted to see Tobi?" Kade asked.
"He claimed there was something from your school days that needed to be returned."
"What thing?"
Mrs Balogun hesitated.
"He asked whether Tobi still had an envelope given to him by Mrs Adeyemi."
Kade felt his stomach tighten.
"Did you answer?"
"No."
"Did he threaten you?"
"Not exactly."
"What does that mean?"
"He smiled and said I should tell Tobi that keeping other people’s property could be dangerous."
Tobi’s expression darkened.
His mother continued.
"Then he left."
"Did you see where he went?"
"No."
Kade leaned forward.
"Ma, please don’t open the door if he returns."
"I wasn’t planning to."
"And don’t mention the envelope to anyone."
Mrs Balogun went quiet.
Then she asked, "Where is Adunni?"
Neither boy answered.
"Tobi?"
"We’re trying to find her," he said.
The silence that followed was painful.
"Then you boys had better tell me what’s happening," she replied.
They told her enough to explain the danger.
Not about the System.
Not about cultivators.
But about Adunni’s disappearance, the strange visitors, and the possibility that someone was searching for something she’d left behind.
Mrs Balogun listened.
When Tobi finished, she spoke quietly.
"Your father is working tonight. I’m locking the doors."
"Mum—"
"And tomorrow, you will explain everything properly."
"Yes, ma."
"Both of you."
Kade closed his eyes.
"Yes, ma."
The call ended.
Tobi stared at the phone.
"She’s going to kill me."
"Probably."
"After everything we’ve survived, that’s how I die."
Kade almost smiled.
Then he looked toward the rain-darkened window.
"Someone knows about the envelope."
Tobi nodded.
"Someone who knows Mum gave it to me."
"Or someone who found out afterward."
Kade considered the distinction.
It mattered.
They had no evidence the visitor had been present when Adunni handed over the envelope.
He might have learned about it through observation.
Or from someone else.
"Did your mother describe anything unusual about him?" Kade asked.
"Just the glasses and bag."
"Then we don’t know whether he’s a cultivator."
"Or whether he’s connected to the hunter."
"Exactly."
Tobi rubbed his face.
"You’re becoming annoyingly reasonable."
"Temporary condition."
Bamidele woke when Kade asked whether they should contact the police.
"About the visitor?"
"Yes."
"Your friend’s mother should report the threat if he returns. And she shouldn’t confront him."
Tobi nodded.
"What about the envelope?"
Bamidele thought for a moment.
"Leave it where it is tonight."
Kade frowned.
"Someone might take it."
"Someone might also be waiting for you to come and collect it."
That silenced him.
Bamidele continued.
"Your ankle needs treatment. Your friend is exhausted. His mother is frightened. Going out in this rain because a stranger mentioned an envelope would be reckless."
Kade looked down at his bandaged leg.
He hated how much sense that made.
"So we wait?"
"We plan."
"What’s the difference?"
"Planning means deciding what information you need before moving."
Bamidele stood and stretched.
"Start with the man. Does he exist? Did he teach at your school? Can anyone identify him?"
Tobi looked thoughtful.
"Our old class group."
Kade turned.
"What?"
"Someone might remember a Mr Akin."
"Ask without mentioning the envelope."
Tobi nodded.
He opened the messaging app and searched through years of abandoned conversations.
The class group was still active.
Mostly birthday greetings, football arguments, and advertisements for questionable investment opportunities.
Tobi typed:
Does anyone remember a maths teacher called Mr Akin from our school days?
Within minutes, replies appeared.
Which set?
We had Mr Akin in JSS2, abi?
No, that was Mr Akinwale.
Our maths teachers were Mr Bello and Mrs Oladipo.
Tobi scrolled.
Then another message arrived.
Why? Somebody looking for school fees? ??
Kade shook his head.
"Very helpful."
Tobi continued searching.
Nothing confirmed the visitor’s identity.
But nothing ruled it out either.
They had attended school for years.
Not every teacher would be remembered.
Tobi set the phone aside.
"Dead end."
"For now," Kade said.
An hour later, Mama Efe brought Kade a cup of warm tea.
"You should sleep."
"I’m trying."
"No, you’re thinking loudly."
Kade accepted the cup.
She glanced at Tobi, who was dozing again.
"Your friend needs rest too."
"I know."
"You two have a habit of treating exhaustion like an inconvenience."
Kade looked into the tea.
"My mother used to say that."
Mama Efe sat beside him.
"Then she sounds sensible."
"She was."
He corrected himself.
"She is."
Mama Efe didn’t challenge him.
Kade took a sip.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Depends."
"Did Bamidele tell you why we’re here?"
"Only that you needed help."
"Does that happen often?"
"People needing help?"
"People running from things they won’t explain."
Mama Efe considered him.
"Occasionally."
"Do you ask questions?"
"Medical ones."
Kade smiled faintly.
"That’s all?"
"Young man, people come here frightened, injured, ashamed, or desperate. Sometimes all four. My job is to decide what care they need, not to demand every secret they possess."
Kade looked toward his ankle.
"Doesn’t that put you at risk?"
"Sometimes."
"Then why do it?"
She stood.
"Because a person shouldn’t have to earn the right to be treated."
Kade watched her return to her desk.
For the first time since his mother disappeared, he felt something other than fear or hunger.
Gratitude.
He wasn’t sure what to do with it.
The rain eased shortly before dawn.
Tobi slept through the change.
Kade didn’t.
He had spent hours thinking about the messages on Adunni’s phone. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
The sender knew about the waterworks.
The sender knew Tobi had received something.
But the wording bothered him.
ASK YOUR FRIEND WHAT SHE GAVE HIM.
Why tell Kade that?
If the sender wanted the envelope, why not demand it directly?
If the sender wanted to help, why remain anonymous?
He looked at his mother’s phone.
Then at Tobi.
A thought occurred to him.
"Tobi."
His friend groaned.
"Please tell me Lagos has been cancelled."
"Wake up."
"Why?"
"Something about the envelope."
Tobi opened one eye.
"What now?"
"When my mother gave it to you, did she say it was for me?"
Tobi frowned.
"Not exactly."
Kade sat straighter.
"What did she say?"
Tobi rubbed his eyes.
"She told me to keep it safe."
"And?"
"That if things became confusing, I should remember why she’d trusted me with it."
Kade waited.
"Anything else?"
Tobi thought carefully.
"She said I wasn’t supposed to solve anything by myself."
Kade felt a small shift in his understanding.
The envelope might contain information.
But Adunni had deliberately placed it with Tobi.
Not Kade.
And she had given Tobi instructions about when to reveal it.
Perhaps she wanted someone Kade trusted to slow him down.
Perhaps that was all.
He couldn’t know yet.
"Then we don’t open it just because somebody wants us to," Kade said.
Tobi nodded.
"Agreed."
At seven in the morning, Mrs Balogun sent another message.
I’M FINE. DOORS LOCKED ALL NIGHT.
Tobi exhaled.
A second message followed.
THE MAN DIDN’T COME BACK.
Then a photograph appeared.
It showed a small white card lying on their doorstep.
Mrs Balogun had photographed it without picking it up.
There was no name.
No telephone number.
Only a drawing.
An eye.
Split vertically.
Kade’s breath caught.
He reached for the folded paper in his pocket.
The symbol matched.
But there was something different.
A short line had been drawn beneath the eye.
Like a tear.
Tobi stared at the photograph.
"Was that on our paper?"
"No."
"Does it mean something?"
Kade activated NIGHT SIGHT instinctively.
Nothing changed.
Of course it didn’t.
He was looking at a photograph on a phone screen, not the physical card.
He couldn’t examine spiritual residue through an ordinary image.
"I don’t know," he admitted.
Tobi looked toward the clinic door.
"So what do we do?"
Kade considered his injured ankle.
The stranger.
The envelope.
His frightened friend’s mother.
Then he answered.
"First, we get my leg checked."
Tobi blinked.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"And then?"
Kade looked at the photograph again.
"Then we find out whether that man was really a teacher."
He paused.
"And we make sure your mother isn’t left alone with whatever this is."
Tobi nodded.
Outside, Lagos was waking.
Generators started.
Buses filled.
Traders lifted their shutters.
Somewhere in the city, a stranger had left a symbol at Tobi’s doorstep.
Kade didn’t know what it meant.
But he knew one thing.
Whoever was searching for the envelope had stopped waiting for them to come looking.
Now they were knocking on the doors of people Kade loved.