Chapter 6 The Dark Between

Zara couldn't breathe.

Not because anything had changed outwardly-Khalid still watched her like she was the most fragile and dangerous thing in the room, Amina still lingered like a second shadow, and the staff still bowed and smiled like robots-but something in the air had shifted.

A pressure. A pulse beneath the surface of everything.

Her instincts were screaming: Something is coming.

And whatever it was, it was close.

She played her part well-smiled during breakfast, let Khalid brush his fingers along her wrist, nodded when he mentioned taking her out of the mansion soon, "just for fresh air."

But inside, she was unraveling.

Her every step felt monitored. Her every word rehearsed. Even Amina, who'd warned her in whispers, now avoided her eyes. That scared her more than anything.

Zara had been alone before. But this-this was something else.

This was being buried alive in silk and shadows.

---

The USB still pulsed like a secret beneath her mattress.

She stared at the laptop screen again that afternoon, the prompt mocking her.

Enter password.

She'd tried dozens already. Nothing worked. But as she sat on the edge of the bed, something cold brushed against her collarbone.

Her necklace.

It had been returned to her days ago-Khalid said she'd never taken it off before the crash.

Zara pulled it off and studied it closely. It was simple. Silver. Faintly tarnished.

But on the back of the pendant, etched faintly into the metal, was one word-almost worn away.

Kweku.

She had no idea what it meant. But her hands moved before her mind could catch up.

She typed it into the prompt.

The screen flickered.

Access granted.

Her breath stopped.

Inside were video files. Dozens. Some labeled with numbers. Some with dates.

She clicked the first one.

It was footage of her. Zara.

In a dim room. Arguing with a woman in a fitted suit-tall, sharp-boned, Nigerian accent clipped and hard.

"You think Khalid will protect you when he finds out what you did?" the woman said.

Zara's on-screen self stepped forward, voice shaking. "He already knows."

"You wish he did. But if he finds out the truth, he'll put a bullet in your heart and call it mercy."

Zara flinched in real time, heart thundering.

She skipped to the next video.

It showed her slipping out of a hospital through a side entrance. Head wrapped in a scarf. Clothes too big. She moved like she was wounded. Desperate.

Then another clip: Zara huddled in what looked like a hotel bathroom, red-eyed and shaking. She spoke directly to the camera, voice barely a whisper.

"Tell Khalid... I had no choice."

Her eyes. That pain. That guilt.

She didn't remember feeling any of it.

The last file was labeled only with a date. No thumbnail.

She clicked.

Static.

Then brief flashes.

A hand gripping a gun. Footsteps running. A scream-her scream. Then darkness.

A gunshot.

Zara recoiled from the screen.

What the hell happened to me?

She barely had time to breathe before-

The power cut.

The laptop died.

Lights vanished. The air-conditioning stopped. The hum of the mansion choked into silence.

Zara was plunged into total, suffocating blackness.

She stood slowly, chest heaving.

The mansion had never gone dark. Not once. There were generators. Backups. Security systems that ran 24/7.

This wasn't a power outage.

This was a message.

She backed away from the desk.

Then she heard it.

A voice, right behind her.

Low. Too close.

"You weren't supposed to find that."

Zara turned.

But the dark swallowed everything.