WHISPERS FROM ILORIN

The road to Ilorin felt like memory.

As the bus hummed along the familiar bends and broken tarmac, Zainab stared out the window, her fingers tracing invisible patterns on the dusty glass. She hadn't been back since she fled. Since her mother's funeral. Since the fire that wasn't really a fire, but a cover-up.

Obi rode beside her, eyes hidden behind black shades. Fatiha sat at the back, headphones in, nodding slowly, but Zainab knew she wasn't listening to music—she was listening for trouble.

Ilorin greeted them with silence.

No one waved. No old neighbor called her name. The streets felt smaller, like the place itself had folded in on its shame. Or maybe it was just her eyes—older now, clearer.

They didn't head to a hotel.

They went straight to her mother's old house.

It was abandoned.

Padlocked, yes, but the kind of padlock Lagos boys could open with a whisper. Obi handled it. In minutes, they were inside.

Dust. Still air. A mirror cracked from one corner. Her mother's sewing machine stood in the same place, like it had been waiting.

Zainab didn't cry.

She moved with purpose—into the bedroom, under the bed, lifting floorboards until she found it:

A metal box.

Inside:

An old diary with floral print edges.

A silver locket.

A letter.

Zainab unfolded the letter slowly.

Her mother's handwriting curved across the paper like a prayer barely spoken:

"Zee, if you're reading this… I didn't die from sickness."

Zainab froze.

"They poisoned me. Because I refused to let them use you."

Obi stepped closer. "Who?"

She kept reading.

"Your father… wasn't just a tailor. He was one of them. But when he tried to leave, they killed him. I've hidden the truth long enough."

"Go to Oke-Apomu. Find Baba Adeleke. He owes your father his life."

Zainab folded the paper. Her hands were shaking.

Outside, a storm was rising. Thunder rolled like the sound of history waking.

"We leave now," she said.

Oke-Apomu was a forgotten town on the edge of Ilorin. Hills, silence, dust. They found the man—Baba Adeleke—in a tiny hut lined with books and rusted radios.

He didn't look surprised to see her.

"You look like him," he said.

Zainab sat opposite him on a stool. "My father?"

He nodded. "Ajani the Whisper. That's what they called him in the underground."

Obi frowned. "The what?"

Baba Adeleke leaned back.

"Before the Bureau, there was a council of rebels. Traders. Teachers. Tailors. People who fought corruption with tools, not bullets. Your father was one of the founders."

Zainab's throat tightened.

"Why did he leave?"

"They got greedy. Someone on the inside betrayed them to the new military regime. Ajani wanted to expose it. But… they silenced him."

Zainab opened the diary.

Inside were notes her mother had kept. Meetings. Names. Symbols.

And at the end: a map.

It led to a hidden workshop outside Ilorin. A tailor's shop that doubled as a printing press for rebel pamphlets during the regime.

The next morning, they followed it.

The shop was in ruins, but beneath the floor, they found what they needed:

Original blueprints of the Bureau's early surveillance system.

Names of early collaborators—some of whom now sat in government.

And a single roll of fabric, stitched with code.

It was the final thread.

Proof of everything.

Obi stared at it. "If we leak this…"

"They'll burn," Zainab said.

"No," Fatiha added, stepping forward. "They'll beg."

That night, back in Ilorin, Zainab stood by her mother's grave.

She didn't speak.

She laid the locket down gently on the headstone.

Inside was a picture of her father. Young. Smiling. Beside her mother.

Zainab whispered, "You tried to sew a future. They tore it."

She stood. "I'll stitch it back."

By morning, they were gone.

Back to Lagos.

Back to the battlefield.

But this time, Zainab wasn't just fighting as the hunted.

She was fighting as a daughter of the resistance.

And her next move… would be her boldest yet.