CHAPTER XXXIII
They sent a message.
This time, not with death.
But with power.
All five major telecom providers went dark in the city's southern districts.
Private news sites blinked out.
Even the tribunal archive — wiped.
The Council wasn't hiding anymore.
It was declaring itself.
NUMA stormed into the basement, laptop in hand. "We're off-grid. Everything—everything—is dead."
"No," Elara said calmly. "It's not dead."
She stood slowly. "It's cornered."
Khalid was still missing.
Alive — based on the lack of body.
But missing.
Somewhere her father was holding him, taunting her through every blackout, every silent ping, every fake report.
And still, Elara didn't break.
She burned.
They uploaded the next strike from a van hidden beneath a highway bridge.
It wasn't a file.
It was a manifesto.
Elara's voice. Unedited. Unfiltered.
Broadcast via old pirate radio frequencies and smuggled into closed circuits.
"You think you're gods.
Because you erase names and still sleep."
"But gods don't hide behind men in suits."
"Gods don't bleed the daughters of a nation to build kingdoms of silence."
"You're not gods."
"You're criminals with better PR."
The broadcast went viral before the Council could shut it down.
Clips of her voice ran on anonymous TikTok accounts.
Old-school campus radio stations replayed it on loop.
The streets buzzed with a new chant:
"GODS DON'T NEGOTIATE — WE DON'T KNEEL."
Her father's camp struck back, as expected.
A full-page newspaper ad:
"We forgive her. May she rest."
A TV interview with a weeping "former teacher":
"She was troubled. Always angry. Always unstable."
And then, the final blow:
A fabricated audio clip.
Elara's voice — chopped, spliced, made to say:
"This was all a lie. We just wanted attention."
Elara listened once. Then shut it off.
"They're not trying to defeat me," she said. "They're trying to erase the reason I started."
NUMA clenched her fists.
"They're coming. You know that, right?"
"I'm counting on it."
Elara rolled out a blueprint. An old building in Surulere. Government owned. Abandoned.
But wired with power.
"We go live from here."
"You'll never get a signal out," NUMA warned.
"We won't need to."
Elara pointed to a room.
"We invite them."
The plan was madness.
Elara would leak her location publicly.
Make the Council think she was setting up one last desperate video drop.
They would come.
With soldiers.
With guns.
With blind certainty.
And Elara?
She would be waiting.
NUMA stared at her. "This is suicide."
"No," Elara said, slipping her father's signature file into a new drive. "This is resurrection."
The invite was posted on a dead website.
A countdown. One hour. No title.
Just: "Final Confession."
And below it:
"The girl you tried to erase is speaking.
You get one shot.
So do I."
They arrived before the hour ended.
Black SUVs. Unmarked. Fast.
NUMA hid in the stairwell, trigger finger on the EMP charge.
Elara stood in the center of the room.
Alone.
No screen.
No mic.
Just her.
And a chair across from her.
Empty.
Until he walked in.
Her father.
Dressed in grey. Calm as ever.
"You invited me," he said.
"I did."
"You're not afraid anymore."
"No," she replied.
"Then what do you want?"
She pulled out the drive and held it up.
"Not this."
She dropped it.
Stepped on it.
Watched it crack.
His brows furrowed. "Then what?"
Elara smiled.
"I want you to know that even gods bleed."
Then she turned on the projector.
Behind her: Every survivor.
Faces. Voices. Stories.
Halima.
NUMA.
A mother holding her daughter's empty graduation gown.
Live-streamed via a hijacked Council satellite.
To every screen still running.
To every room in the country.
To every name they tried to bury.
Her father turned to leave.
The door was locked.
NUMA's voice came over the speaker.
"Smile for the people, sir."
"You've got nowhere left to run."