They moved through the city like shadows now.
Every café was a threat. Every public terminal a potential snare. The Silence Council didn't need to send men with guns — they could end you with a headline, an edited clip, or a missing passport.
Still, Elara kept moving. Because Kayra had planned for this.
"You're lucky Kayra was obsessive," NUMA muttered as she sifted through six terabytes of encrypted files. "She uploaded mirror backups across dark cloud threads. Redundancy saved your life."
Khalid hovered. "And we can access them?"
"Yes… if we decode her 'failsafe' key."
NUMA tossed a notepad at Elara.
On it were strings of disconnected phrases:
We do not speak the name of fire.
Banana Island bleeds into the sea.
There's no such thing as a quiet death.
She remembered the sound of honey breaking.
"Elara," NUMA said. "This is poetry. What the hell was she thinking?"
Elara stared at the page. "It's not poetry. It's Kayra."
She remembered the day Amara died — Kayra had said something similar. The files weren't just encrypted — they were protected by memory.
NUMA grinned. "So decrypt it with memory."
It took hours. Each phrase was linked to metadata: specific filenames, keywords, even photo locations. The system had built-in audio triggers — clips of Amara's voice, old recordings from Elara's school days, static that suddenly turned into confessions.
And then…
BELLONA-ARCHIVE.VOID
Access: Authorized
Contents: 3,142 files / 214 hours / 11 GB redacted
Subject Tag: Bello Family — Confidential
NUMA whistled. "This is the jackpot."
They didn't sleep.
Elara stared at screen after screen, watching Kayra's obsession unfold:
Hidden interviews with ex-employees of the Bello estate
Audio logs from Amara's phone
Surveillance photos from Senator Diri's visits
Documents showing hush money payments to multiple families
Internal memos from PR firms hired to spin Elara's scandal
One photo made her freeze.
A man in a grey kaftan, stepping out of a nondescript office.
Dr. Folarin Adeyemi — the doctor who vanished after Amara died.
And behind him, in the blurred corner of the photo?
Kayra.
NUMA closed her laptop.
"You can't drop this all at once."
"Why not?" Elara snapped. "This is everything we need!"
"You release too much truth too fast, it turns into noise. Worse — it becomes conspiracy. You need a plan."
Elara folded her arms. "So help me build one."
NUMA paused, then said, "There's a price."
Khalid raised an eyebrow. "Of course there is."
"I want my own protection package. Full digital anonymity. Passport. Financial erasure. If this burns, I disappear with it."
Elara didn't hesitate. "Done."
NUMA narrowed her eyes. "You're serious?"
"I'm done losing people."
Near the bottom of the archive was a file marked "WRATH."
Encrypted. No preview. No tags.
Khalid frowned. "Weird. She didn't label anything else like this."
NUMA tried three decryption tools. Nothing worked.
Elara stepped forward. "Try her name. Full name."
NUMA typed: Kayra Okonjo
Still nothing.
Elara whispered, "Try… AmaraBello."
NUMA entered it.
Decrypting...
Loading file: 1/1
Video file: WRATH.mp4
The screen blinked.
Then: Kayra's face.
Pre-recorded. Eyes wide. Voice steady.
"If you're watching this, I'm probably gone."
"What we're dealing with is bigger than Ibrahim Bello. It's not just about Amara. It's a system. A council. Built to silence girls like us, rewrite our history, and clean up their mess with polished shoes and PR speeches."
"I found out something. Something even Elara didn't know. A name. One of the council's founders. And they're preparing for a handover. Ibrahim's stepping back… and someone new is taking over."
"They're calling it: The Legacy Project."
The video froze.
Khalid leaned forward. "Who's the name?"
But the feed cut.
File corrupted.
NUMA cursed.
"Looks like they got to this part."
Elara stood quietly.
Her voice was calm. Focused.
"Then we find the name. We find the heir. We leak the project before it's complete."
Khalid nodded. "And if we don't?"
Elara turned to him, voice cold:
"Then we kill it anyway. And burn everything around it."
That night, Elara began writing.
Her first post under a new alias: Black Echo
A whisper of truth wrapped in fiction. Anonymous. Sharp.
She clicked publish.
"They thought they buried us. They didn't know we were seeds."