Chapter 2 The Chance Encounter

The clock on my phone mocked me. Twenty minutes until I needed to leave for the office cleaning job.

But the buzzing message in my pocket refused to be ignored:

"Emeka's cough is bad tonight. No Ventolin left."

My heart seized.

The delay in my pay from Mr. Adebayo suddenly felt like a cruel joke, a punch to the gut. I had to get the medicine-now.

My last two hundred naira, tucked into the hidden seam of my worn jeans, felt impossibly small. It wouldn't cover the full prescription, but maybe-just maybe-the pharmacist would let me pay the rest later. Or I could buy just a few doses, enough to get Emeka through the night.

I grabbed my small, threadbare bag and shoved my sketchbook inside, as if carrying it might somehow lend me strength.

This meant a detour.

My usual route to the cleaning job snaked through familiar, dimly lit streets. But the only pharmacy open this late that might even consider giving out medicine on credit was in Ikoyi-a world away. Ikoyi, where the streetlights actually worked. Where air conditioners hummed from every building, chilling the sticky Lagos night like it was nothing.

I flagged down a yellow Keke Napep. The driver wove through the chaotic traffic like he'd been born in it. As we moved deeper into the wealthier district, the air grew cleaner, the buildings taller, the roads smoother. Neon signs flashed across my window, reflecting off the tinted glass of luxury cars. The noise faded into a low hum.

When I finally climbed down, the silence pressed in. No blaring speakers. No hawkers. Just the steady murmur of distant generators and the faint click of security boots behind high gates. I suddenly felt too loud. Too visible.

My sneakers thudded against the smooth pavement, my steps too fast, my jacket too thin. I kept my eyes down, focused on the sidewalk, on the dwindling coins in my palm. On Emeka's breathing.

That's when it happened.

A sharp jolt-one shoulder colliding with another. Not hard, just sudden, like being nudged by fate.

"Oh!" I gasped, stumbling forward, catching myself on a lamppost. I looked up just in time to see him.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in a dark, beautifully tailored suit. His phone was to his ear, his pace unbroken. He didn't even glance back.

And then I saw it.

Lying on the pavement beneath the streetlamp-a glint of metal, out of place in the polished perfection of this world. I crouched quickly, fingers curling around it.

A flash drive.

Not plastic. Not cheap. It was smooth, heavy in my hand. Metallic, with intricate geometric etching across its surface. It felt... expensive. Corporate. Confidential.

Important.

He was already turning the corner.

I stood frozen, pulse thundering in my ears. My first instinct, drilled into me since childhood, was to return it. To run after him. To do the right thing.

But how would that even go?

Would he stop? Would he trust me?

Would he even hear me?

And if he turned-what would he see?

Just a tired girl in ragged clothes. A girl with two hundred naira to her name and a baby brother wheezing in the next room. A girl who wasn't supposed to be here.

I looked down at the flash drive, now burning a hole in my palm.

This wasn't just data. It felt like a question.

Maybe even... a door.

My gaze shifted from the sleek flash drive in my hand to the brightly lit pharmacy across the street, then back to the alley the man had disappeared down. This was my one shot-Emeka's Ventolin, Mama's peace of mind, a small way to breathe again in a world constantly choking us. But now, in my palm, lay something else. Something that didn't belong to me. Something powerful.

The cool Ikoyi night, polished and perfect, pressed in around me. The flash drive felt heavier than its size should allow, and I couldn't stop wondering: What was on it? Why did it feel like more than just lost tech? Something about it screamed importance.

The man hadn't even looked back. One bump, one second, and now this.

My first thought, shameful and immediate, was survival. Could I sell it? Was it worth enough to get Emeka's inhaler, pay off a little rent, maybe buy food for a few days? The idea lit up in my mind like forbidden fruit-bright, tempting, and deeply wrong.

But Mama's voice cut through the noise: "Zara, honesty weighs more than gold. What you find, you return."

Even thinking about pawning it made my stomach twist. It wasn't mine. I hadn't earned it. But what good was honesty when your brother couldn't breathe?

I shoved the flash drive into my pocket and turned toward the bus stop, heart pounding. The man hadn't looked like someone who lost things. Not by accident. Not without consequences. That tailored suit, that commanding presence-this wasn't a man you wanted to get on the wrong side of.

What if the drive was tracked? What if he came looking for it?

But worse-what if I did nothing, and Emeka's cough got worse? What if I missed my window to do something, anything?

I climbed into a rattling molue, the yellow bus swaying and squealing through traffic. Usually, I'd sink into the motion, let the rhythm of Lagos lull me into a tired daze. But not tonight. All I could feel was the cold weight of that flash drive in my pocket-and the pressure building behind my eyes.

At the office building, everything was still. Silent. Sterile. I cleaned on autopilot, moving from desk to desk like a ghost, the hum of air conditioners the only sound. My hands scrubbed surfaces, but my mind was miles away.

I pulled the flash drive out again, holding it up under the dim glow of the office lights. It didn't look like anything I'd ever seen up close. Sleek. Metallic. A geometric design etched into its body. Expensive, yes-but purposeful too. Maybe even dangerous.

My fingers twitched toward the nearest computer.

Just a quick check. A name. A contact. Something.

But no. I didn't know what was on it. I didn't know what doors it could open-or close. Plugging it in here, in an office that wasn't mine, would be reckless. Stupid. I couldn't afford stupid.

I pocketed it again, the decision solidifying inside me like cement.

I wouldn't sell it. I wouldn't ignore it either.

I had to find him. Whoever he was. Not for a reward. Not even for thanks. Just to do the right thing. To remind myself I still could. That I hadn't lost that part of me, even if life had tried to crush it.

And maybe-just maybe-returning it might open a door.

Not to wealth, not to escape. But to something I couldn't name yet.

Hope.

I couldn't give it to the building security-too many questions, too many ways it could all go wrong. One wrong look, one suspicious word, and I'd be the one accused of theft or worse. The police? Out of the question. I didn't have the kind of voice they listened to.

No. I had to do this myself.

He was important, that man-clearly someone powerful. And people like that didn't exist in shadows. His face had to be somewhere. Online. In a paper. On a billboard, maybe. He had been in Ikoyi, on that well-kept street lined with glass towers and guarded gates. I remembered the exact corner, the way the buildings rose like monuments to money.

By the time my shift ended, the sky had begun to stretch awake-shades of grey giving way to the faintest whisper of purple. The molue was quieter now, filled with early risers, commuters clutching plastic bags and thermos flasks, their eyes glazed with routine.

At home, the air in our tiny room was warm and close, saturated with the scent of family-Mama's shea butter, Emeka's cough syrup, the faint soap from our evening bathwater reused one too many times. The soft rasp of Emeka's breathing filled the silence, rhythmic and fragile.

I knelt by the edge of our single mattress, pulling my sketchbook from my bag. Its edges were worn, pages thick with pencil smudges and faded ink. My favorite drawing, Crown of Thorns, stared up at me-dark, jagged lines spiraling into a crown that held more pain than royalty. I opened the book and gently slid the flash drive between the pages, where dreams used to live.

It felt symbolic somehow. A tiny sliver of metal hidden among impossible dreams.

That flash drive was now a burden I hadn't asked for. A responsibility I didn't want. But also-just maybe-a key.

I looked over at Emeka, curled up beside Mama, his chest rising and falling in small, shallow breaths. He was the reason. The only reason. His health came first. Always.

Finding that man wouldn't be easy. It would be like hunting a ghost in broad daylight-me, a cleaner with scraped-together bus fare, trying to track someone from a different universe. But I had to try. I would try.

I didn't know what was on that drive. But I knew what it meant to me.

It was a spark.

A risk.

A terrifying, fragile chance to cross a line I was never meant to touch.