1993, December,

The hardest thing to keep after a secret is a lie. To keep up with a lie is to completely change a narrative and twist it into one that suits a purpose. To keep a lie is harder than keeping a secret and many times, a lie becomes a secret.

This journal is a lie, is a secret and who ever finds it needs to keep that in mind that many many things I will mention will be half truths, some of them will be cold lies, some of them will be truths but many of them will be secrets - remember to read between the lines and keep a wide eye or else you will fall prey to my lies.

I'll start this journal with three lies and a truth -

1. Remilekun Phillips is a liar.
2. I am secretly married to Tolu Kingston.
3. Project Eden is not dangerous.
4. I enjoy working for the orion project, no, I enjoy the power it brings me.

I will rise from this seat in a few minutes, and in a few minutes Remilekun Phillips will come looking for me, and when he does, he will not find me, but he will find a copy of this entry.

He will not look for the truth and the lie, he will be looking for a password. He won't find it, even though it is looking at him in the face.

***

"Sanmi!"

Grace found her brother seated by the dining table, there was a file and most of its content spilled on the glass table and it surprised her how much she was surprised, she knew her brother would rather shoot himself in the foot than read anything. She covered a snort and attempted to look over his shoulders but he was quick to shove what he was reading into the ugly yellow file.

He turned his neck to glare at her.

"Don't disturb me," he said, but he did not snap at her. In fact, it was the first time in a long while that he looked clear eyed.

"What are you reading?" Grace asked as he began to gather every piece of paper and shoved them into the file, she didn't even bother to sneak another glance at them. Sanmi kept his secrets, she knew that and knew that pushing him to tell them would only push him away.

"Nothing important," he said but it seemed to her that he was trying hard not to look her in the eye.

Grace frowned, noting that he had been unusually quiet since yesterday. They had both arrived home at the same time, her still reeling from the night she had, Amina had made a stop at the HQ where she changed back into her regular clothes, waving a hand away when she was told to keep the clothes, she meant it when she said she wanted nothing from The ORION Project.

Sanmi had looked exhausted and apart from the good morning greeting he had muttered this morning, he hadn't spoken any word to her.

"Looks important, you never read anything." She pointed out, she wondered why she bothered with him. The brother that she used to joke with was long gone and in his place was someone else, someone she didn't understand.

"It's some dumb statistics, a job for ORION." He finally said, the words easing out uncomfortably because it was the first time he had openly acknowledged that they were both members of the most exclusive and most dangerous cult on campus.

"I don't see you with the others," Grace said quietly.

Sanmi was standing up, taking his file with him. He was so tall that she had to crane her neck to look at him even though she was tall herself.

Sanmi barked a gruff laugh, the first sign of his usual self.

"Someone has to give you a proper orientation," He shook his head. "There's levels in cults, Grace, there are the bosses, the middle class - where you are - and there's the dregs."

He added quietly. "Where I am,"

"Everyone needs a henchman, the dirty hands, I hope you never have to find out what it's like."

He wiped off a speck of dust from the file with two fingers and then cleaned them on his jeans.

"I'm going out, in case the parents ask." Sanmi said. Case closed, his voice said firmly.

"Where do I tell them?" Grace asked, she settled on the tattered chair he had been sitting on, watching him halt in his step at the wide open door.

"The cyber cafe down the street, I'm doing homework." He said, they both flinched when they heard the clatter of pots in the kitchen and knew that Rafe was prowling again looking for something to fill his stomach with despite the fact that he had eaten a snack half an hour ago.

Grace contemplated heading to the kitchen to tell him off herself but then she heard Ewa's furious voice and the clap sound of a slap on skin followed by his shrill scream, she half pitied her little brother. Ewatomi was the quiet one out of all of them but when she got angry then she went all the way.

"Did you check my stuff?" Grace asked Sanmi when he made to move out the door. He had the habit of going through her things whenever he was bored, or broke.

But her money wasn't missing, it was that photograph, the one that she had discovered weeks ago.

She had a number of theories about it, maybe ORION had planted it in her bag as a useless prank because it was definitely Photoshopped, it was impossible for someone to look that similar to her.

Sanmi's shoulders stiffened and relaxed in one quick motion that had her thinking she had imagined it.

"Maybe," he said, he sounded partly amused.

"Don't touch my stuff, Sanmi," Grace was surprised by how defensive she sounded.

"I took that weird photograph, and tossed it in the trash," he told her, facing her. "Where did you get it from?"

Grace had no idea why she lied, she could have told him the truth, that it had been planted in her bag like how ORION had planted a copy of her ID card in Dr. Ireti's office and made it appear like she had broken in. She could have told him, nothing was stopping her from telling him that she felt like her whole life was a lie, that everyone was keeping secrets from her and that nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

"It was a prank from a course mate, they took it too far but I liked the picture, I looked pretty." Her joke sounded hollow in her ears.

Sanmi snorted, subconsciously patting down his unruly hair with his free hand. It was another sign that something was wrong with him, Sanmi took painstaking effort with looking good, but now he looked like a ghost, dressed in a soup stained jersey and his old jeans. He looked like the male version of her, not in looks but in dressing.

"Sure you did, sandwiched between two strange girls you've never met." He told her with a seemingly careless shrug.

"It's long gone now, you'll have to satisfy yourself with taking selfies on your phone, oh Vain One." He threw the words over his shoulders and went out the door, slamming it shut after him.

Grace sat in the chair after he was gone, wondering why she couldn't tell him the truth, instead she complained about how everyone kept secrets. It wasn't even about The ORION Project now, it was about them, about what she had overheard this morning.

Their parents were getting a divorce.

She couldn't tell him, couldn't because he would blame himself, he would break and she couldn't put the pieces together because she would cut herself on his broken pieces. Sanmi was the only one who still cared about keeping the whole family together even though togetherness was a sham. For Rafael, he used to say.

It was to protect him, she told herself. Grace scoffed a tired laugh, thinking that she was no better than a liar, because she was one.

***

Saturdays were hollow days, Kendrick usually spent the whole day doing virtually nothing - except for chores. Back when he had been in Abuja, it hadn't been much different but he usually had the company of his mother, he was a mama's boy.

As he sat, scrolling through his phone, he tried not to feel guilty. Partly out of boredom and curiosity, he had spent almost a whole hour stalking the social media profiles of ORION's main members. Kendrick was ashamed that he was doing so but tried to convince himself that there had to be something he could use against them, even though the rational part of his brain told him that Joshua Phillips wouldn't hide something damning in plain sight.

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head at a meme that Fire had posted on Instagram - he was the only member that Kendrick followed on the app, and it was easier to find the others through the football captain.

Some minutes ago he had taken to jotting down anything he deemed useful as he scrolled and so far, the page was blank.

Firepemi was the funny guy, the guy who used social media to post things he found funny, he posted cat memes and other times, he posted pictures of famous soccer players.

His profile picture was a snap of him and Salah, a Liverpool football player, the both of them had their fists together in a bump.

There was also a picture Fire had posted many months ago of a girl that looked familiar to Kendrick. It took him several head scratches for him to recognize her. It was Joshua's girlfriend, the girl he had arrived with at The Love Club.

Her name was Nina, if he remembered correctly. In the picture she was seated on a kitchen stool with a single rose in her hair, her smile was wide and close lipped, she was staring right at the camera. Kendrick's first thought was that she was probably the most photogenic girl he had ever seen.

She had thick black hair that fell in short ringlets framing her chubby face and dimpled cheeks, her smile was something out of a fashion magazine and she rested her hands on her voluptuous thighs. The caption underneath the photo was a single heart emoji.

Kendrick wondered why Fire had posted a picture of her. From what he could tell, Fire didn't seem to get along well with his so called friends. He didn't have any other photos of the other ORION members on his Instagram - he barely had photos of himself save aside from the occasional shirtless picture showcasing his toned abdomen.

Kendrick leaned forward, tossing the throw pillow to the floor. He picked the pen and scrawled down a single sentence.

Nina and Fire.

What baffled him even more was the fact that all of them had verified Instagram accounts, the shiny check marks were a taunt, telling everyone else; their followers and devoted worshippers that they were far beneath them.

Kendrick clicked on the followers icon, Fire only followed them among celebrities and family members; Joshua Phillips, Amina Khalid and Nina St. Clair.

He scrolled through the other unimportant names and was in the motion of clicking on Joshua's own profile when he froze and caught his name on Fire's follower list.

"Shocking," he muttered sarcastically under his breath.

He wasn't even aware Fire followed him on Instagram, when they reconnected about a year ago, it was Kendrick who had searched for and found him, he was the one who did the reaching out.

He shrugged, nothing his low battery percentage as he clicked on Amina's page, if Fire had been the funny guy then she was the serious one, she barely had any of her pictures up and most of her posts were about rallies concerning human rights, women rights and raising awareness on abuse. He was half impressed and half irritated because it gave him no clue on what her personal life was like. Who was the real Amina when she was not with ORION?

Nina was next and he was quick to leave her profile, she was a party girl it seemed and from the repeated appearance of the same white girls it was clear that she schooled abroad and was probably in the country for something else, for a short while. Kendrick wondered if her sudden reappearances was something to mull on and he jotted it down.

Why is Nina in Nigeria?

He saved Joshua for last and if Kendrick was being honest with himself, Joshua Phillips' social media profile was the most confusing, out of all his other friends, he posted the most. In fact there was a picture of him at the gym only posted a few minutes ago.

It was like he was a different person from the person he really was in real life. He took lots of pictures from conventions, university events and elections, there were also several pictures of family members, his sisters - so it seemed. There was also a picture of a little girl who he assumed was Joshua's niece.

It was sickening scrolling through everything, anyone who knew this version of Joshua would love him, they'd praise him and call him a devoted student, a loving brother and uncle. They had no idea how the real Joshua acted like, a wolf in sheep clothing.

A murderer, a liar.

He shook his head and was about to exit from the app when he noticed something, an old post from June. Joshua had shared a link of the news announcing the murderer of a senator, a particularly controversial one.

Kendrick remembered watching the news that night and thinking that the man had probably messed with the wrong people, till date, his murderer had still not been found.

Attached to the link was a minute long video of the Vice President - Joshua's father - expressing his disappointment and condolences to the dead man's family. He spoke on how he would make sure justice would be served. Underneath the post, thousands expressed their sadness, none of them dared to express their hate for the now dead, corrupt senator.

But that wasn't what caught Kendrick's attention, the Vice President was seated in a brightly lit room with floor to ceiling windows and it was raining outside in the night and once, lightening flashed, startling the Vice President.

A chill ran down Kendrick's spine and his hands began to tremble. The video had seemingly been posted a few hours after the announcement of the Senator's death but there was something wrong with it.

The night the senator died, it hadn't rained, but the ground had been wet and muddy from the previous day's rain.

Kendrick remembered that night very well, he had been pissed off about something his mother had done and he had taken to watching the news to ignore her even though he hated everything about how the news only seemed to cover useless political squabbles, he had been sitting and grumbling under his breath, wishing it would rain like it had the day before.

The video had been filmed a day before the death of the senator, because the Vice President knew, he knew the man was going to die. Because he ordered for his death, Kendrick realized. And Joshua had shared this video, it made Kendrick wonder if Joshua knew, if The ORION Project had a hand in it.

Hastily, Kendrick scrolled through the comments, searching for comments that pointed it out, but there were none. It was so goddamn easy to miss.

There was proof, right in his face, Kendrick finally had something against The ORION Project and he was going to use it.

***
I have mixed feelings about this short-ish chapter, I think it's absolute trash, what do you think? Our homeboy, Ken finally has something he can use against The ORION Project. Exciting and dramatic things are coming up next (I live for drama) and I can't wait.

If you liked this chapter, make that star at the bottom shine :-)