"I hear you have a thing for solving riddles," Amina Khalid said almost angrily as she marched up to Grace, thrusting a printed paper before her.

Tope, who was standing besides Amina tilted her head to the side, a silent gesture urging Grace to accept the paper. Slowly, she did, barely glancing at it. She could hardly believe that Amina was coming to her for help.

"Look, I didn't want to involve you, I still don't but we have forty eight hours to find out the killer's next victim; which you already know seeing as you received that email too."

At the reminder of the email, a shiver snaked down her spine. For the first time in almost two years, Grace felt like she was slowly losing control of the perfect, safe life that she'd crafted. Already in less than two weeks, she found herself back in Orion's business — the very thing that ruined her in the first place.

"Why?" Grace asked, crossing her arms.

Amina glanced around the scanty coffee shop as if the answer to her question was written on bright orange wallpaper.

"Why what? You're going to have to be a little more specific." Without any invitation, she dragged a seat over from the next table and sat down. Tope copied her action and sat besides her. With a jolt, Grace realized how similar they were sitting next to each other; not in looks by any means. Tope was taller and Amina possessed softer curves.

The both of them were deadly assassins, almost unapologetically so. There was a whole part to her best friend that Grace still didn't know and was a little hesitant to find out. 

"Why are you trying to save the life of someone who's awful? The killer targets sex offenders, horrible people who have gotten away with their crimes." Grace said. Her eyes flicked down on the paper, containing the email that she'd received. She was still a little baffled by why she'd been roped in with the likes of Joshua and Amina.

"I don't think that's any of your business." Amina said rather frankly.

"I think it's my business now that your organization is involving me in it," Grace spat, jabbing a finger at the printed riddle. "And I'm not helping you save the life of a despicable person."

Tope was wise enough to be quiet. Ever since Grace found out about her double life, Tope had been careful to keep the details of her inclusion to a minimal. Since Artemis and Orion merged, Tope started to work side by side with the latter and subsequently Amina.

Grace wasn't stupid, she knew that to an extent, Tope got along with Amina. The two of them might even be friends and while she wasn't particularly happy about it, she couldn't tell Tope who to be friends with. And in return, Tope didn't talk about Amina and she was careful not to pick sides.

Amina gave a long-suffering sigh, "Here we go again with the self righteous crap."

"Amina," Tope said in a warning.

"Fine," Amina bit out, there was something a little aggressive about her mannerisms and while she didn't quite look shabby by any means, her outfit was a little unlike her. She wore jeans and a black t-shirt and a scarf was wrapped around her hair. Grace hadn't even known that Amina owned t-shirts, her usual fashion was stylish and colorful.

"Look, they might be a murderer with a cause but a murderer is still a murderer." Amina said, her voice taut with barely concealed impatience. "Ahmad AbdulKarim was the first to be murdered a year ago and he was one of the few names that didn't quite fit into the narrative that the killer is weaving. I know his family and I did a little digging, I tried to find out if he was the kind of boy who —"

"Call it what it is, Amina." Grace cut in. Distantly, she registered that the Grace of two years ago wouldn't have dared to interrupt Amina Khalid mid speech, she would have been too afraid — both of Orion and of this beautiful, dangerous girl facing her.

Amina frowned, seemingly realizing the same thing. "A rapist then. I tried to find out if he was a rapist."

"And was he?" Grace asked.

"No, but he was seeing a girl, some mysterious person he never told his friends much about. He was supposed to be meeting her the night he died." Amina explained. "It was the same with the other boys that have been murdered. They were all involved with a mystery girl and they were all supposed to be meeting her the night that they were murdered."

A chill ran down her spine. Up until now, Grace wasn't sure what to make of the killer. Ever since she'd known their motive for killing, she'd been conflicted about what to think. Now, she glanced at Tope, wondering just how much her best friend knew.

"That's why you're so agitated about this." Grace said carefully.

Amina seemed taken aback. "What?" It would be far too ungraceful for The Amina Khalid to stutter but she came pretty close. Under other circumstances, Grace might be giddy that she'd managed to shake her former nemesis a little bit. But not now, there were more pressing things to worry about.

"Because of the first boy. You know him — or at least you knew him," Grace continued. She waited a beat for Amina to deny it or cover it up with some acerbic comment.

Instead, she seemed to relax a little, leaning back against her seat and crossing one lap over the other. Somehow, she'd managed to tip the scales and look as if she was in control of the situation.

"Yes, I knew Ahmad's family. Ever since he was murdered, we tried to find his murderer. It was only after Victor died that we found out we were dealing with a serial killer. And now we know that each dead boy is allegedly a sex offender," Amina explained. "I... I think we've found evidence that Victor, Jamal and the recent Law lecturer were guilty of sexual assault of some kind. But Ahmad has never made sense so I did a little digging into him." She was careful to keep the timbre of her voice low. Two Computer Science students had just walked inside the cafe, cradling laptops to their chest and arguing loudly about an assignment.

"Through his family, I was able to meet his coursemates and speak to a few of them. They don't know or even remember who Ahmad was supposed to meet and I didn't expect them to..." Amina paused, whether for effect or not, Grace was unsure but she leaned in nonetheless, gripped by the story.

"Instead, I asked if there was anything like a sexual assault scandal in their class that semester and if Ahmad was involved."

"And was he?" Grace asked.

Amina and Tope shared a glance, it was quick but Grace noticed it. She tried to ignore the jealousy she felt, watching her best friend be in tune with a girl that she didn't like.

"He wasn't. Not exactly. Mohammad is the most common names in the world and there were three Mohammads in Ahmad AbdulKarim's class. He was one of the three but he went by Ahmad." It was Tope that answered.

"There was a scandal, revealed through one of those anonymous confession websites.. According to Ahmad's coursemate, it was a week before the first semester examinations and through the class' WhatsApp group, everyone decided to unwind some tension by sharing a link inviting to comment on each other, their lecturers and all that nonsense." Amina made a vague gesture.

Grace was familiar with the said anonymous links. There was a website that allowed people to send in anonymous confessions. It was easy to create a profile and then send the website link to others to ask them to share opinions. Heck, her coursemates liked to share those kind of links. Usually the confessions ranged from harmless to lewd at most. Nothing so horrible like sexual assault.

"Let me guess; a confession accused Ahmad of rape," Grace sighed. It felt a little grim to discuss a topic so horrible in a place where the walls were painted a bright color. The cafe was new on campus and the coffee was overpriced but Grace liked it because of the decor. Her mind was often tumultuous with mundane stress and ghosts from her past. This was one of the few places that she could sit and work on assignments without a worry. Now the sacredness of it was ruined.

"A confession accused Mohammad of sexual assault," Amina corrected. "There were three students named Mohammad in that class."

Realization dawned on Grace. She swore under her breath.

Amina nodded, "Shit is right. Somehow the killer must have gotten their hands on that confession."

"But how?" Grace asked. "Unless the killer was in Ahmad's class."

"I highly doubt that," Tope cut in. "I think the killer has a source, someone working with them and providing them with information on who to kill."

"Their source can't be very accurate when an innocent boy was murdered." Grace pointed out. She glanced down at the paper in front of her. Despite the story, she still wasn't sure that she wanted to be involved in any of this messy business. She'd sworn to Joshua that she would stay out of his way.

"How do you even know that Ahmad is innocent? Sure, there were three Mohammads in his class — him included  but that statistic doesn't exclude him from the picture." Grace had to ask. If she was going to do this — help Amina and subsequently The Orion Project; the organization responsible for the deaths of her parents — then she had to be a hundred percent certain that she was doing the right thing.

"Because the next year, the real Mohammad faced the University's tribunal after sexually assaulting his coursemate; the daughter of a Judge." Amina deadpanned. "He was expelled and is still rotting in prison."

It was both satisfying and sad that it took the daughter of an influential man to get such vile scum behind bars.

Grace didn't say anything to that. She reached for the riddle and glanced at it, even though the words were burned into the back of her mind after reading that email a thousand and one times.

Amina smiled suddenly, and brilliantly. Grace almost smiled back. "You already know the answer to it, don't you?"

She settled for rolling her eyes. "It's not my fault that everyone in this school writes mediocre riddles." She was lying this time, this riddle had actually given her a bit of a tough time. This morning, she'd wandered the entire Faculty of Education before she figured it out.

"Grace is smart." Tope flashed Amina a smug smirk.

"Well, I'll agree when she tells us the answer." Amina said. She turned to Grace with an expectant look.

"And?" Amina asked, cocking her head to the side when Grace said nothing.

"I want to see my mother's file."

"Absolutely not." The force of Amina's denial caused her to flinch.

"Why not?" Grace snapped. She didn't understand why it was such a difficult request to grant. Perhaps the suddenness of it was a little suspicious but it couldn't cause Orion much trouble.

And Grace wasn't looking for any trouble, no. She was merely curious about something.

"Grace, the only person who can authorize that is Joshua and he won't." Tope said, she leaned forward and tried to reach for Grace's hand but she yanked it away.

"You're the Vice President of Orion, talk to him." Grace said, jabbing a finger in Amina's direction.

Amina blew out a breath of frustration. "I'm not."

"What are you talking about? Last time I checked—"

"Last time you checked was two years ago! I quit recently." The steely look seemed to melt from her face and she smiled, although there was nothing soft in it either. Determination glinted in her eyes. "I'm going to run for president."

Grace blinked. What ought she to say to that?

Amina tapped on the paper. "Tell me the answer and I'll let you see the file when I win in a month's time."

Despite herself, Grace couldn't stop the laughter that escaped her lips. "I don't have to be a soothsayer to know that Joshua isn't exactly supporting you now."

Amina shrugged, examining her nails coolly. "I don't need Joshua Phillips."

Grace believed her. She was sure it was the other way around.

"Good. I hope you beat him." She meant every word too. It was high time that the Phillips faded into obscurity, it was the least they could suffer for everything Remilkun Phillips did.

Amina smiled a little then shook her head as if she needed a reminder that she wasn't friends with Grace. "Are you going to help me?"

"I think I'd rather show you."

*****

"What are you doing here?" Joshua asked, blinking at Ninah as if she was an hallucination that he'd conjured.

She returned his look with a smile that was stretched too wide to be real. "Hello, Joshua."

Joshua wasn't fooled by the friendly greeting. "What are you doing here?"

Before Ninah could answer, a surly student bumped into her, shooting her a scowl.

"Don't just stand at the entrance." The girl snapped.

Ninah mumbled an apology but the stranger's look had turned curious, bouncing from Joshua back to Ninah. It was then Joshua remembered that to the student populace, he was supposed to be dating Ninah.

Joshua took Ninah by the arm, leading her away from the double door entrance of the lecture hall to the other end of the building. She immediately yanked her hand away from his grip, lips twisted down in displeasure.

"It's a free country." Ninah said, in response to his earlier words.

Crossing his arms, Joshua's eyes swept over her form. She was wearing a v-neck cardigan over white jeans. Her usual dark makeup was missing and Joshua was struck by how pretty she looked, even as she frowned at him.

She'd always been pretty but it was a fact that he'd glazed over. He was the last person to deny his own vanity but somehow, he'd never been concerned by the looks of others, nor had he ever cared to notice. Until now.

He shook his head to clear the train of thoughts. "Last I checked, you're a political science student, what are you doing here in the faculty of education?"

Joshua couldn't help but find her suspicious now. The last time he'd seen her, she'd provided an alibi for him. Despite fact that there was no piece of evidence tying him to the murder of Dr. Oladipupo at The Love Club, it would have been awfully convenient of him to be absent at his own party. It had been a good thing that Ninah had been with him.

But that wasn't exactly the last time he'd seen Ninah. Not if he counted her hood coming off at the last Council meeting and exposing her as a member of the Council.

Ninah didn't know that he was on to her though and Joshua thought it was best to keep that fact to himself. Still, he couldn't help but be suspicious of her now. It couldn't be a coincidence that the killer had mentioned the faculty of education in the email and Ninah who had no business being at the faculty was suddenly here.

Was she the killer?

Joshua tilted his head to the side. He doubted it. The killer had been operating for over a year now, with the first murder being Ahmad's. Ninah Adam was new.

Oblivious to his thoughts, she answered, "I could ask you the same thing, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that." He said instinctively.

Ninah fluttered her lashes at him. She was being unusually playful and it fueled his belief that she was hiding something. "I thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend."

Joshua didn't smile. "Did you get an email from the killer too?"

Ninah's smile wiped off clean. There was no use carrying on with the charade now. "Not directly."

Joshua arched a brow.

"I have access to your email account, Joshua." She said in a rush. It was his turn to be surprised.

"What?"

She grimaced. "This is probably not a good time to tell you that I'm decent as hacking."

The truth was that many Orion members were.  It still didn't stop Joshua from feeling oddly violated. His eyes hardened as he stared her down. "Giwa asked you to do that, didn't he?"

She looked away. "Yes."

Joshua bit back a curse.

"It was supposed to be a one time thing," she hurriedly added as if that was supposed to make him feel better. "He wanted to know what kinds of secrets you were keeping. It was a futile attempt at espionage because I didn't find anything juicy." She explained. There was a pleading glint in her eyes that Joshua ignored.

He wasn't stupid enough to keep sensitive information on his email or even on his phone.  There was also the fact that he simply didn't have anything to hide. At least nothing that could help ruin his life.

Despite that, he clenched his fist in anger. So far, he'd played fair with Ahmed Giwa but the man clearly had no desire to fight honorably.

Ninah continued, her face turned serious with the gravity of the situation. "I didn't find anything that was useful to Artemis but I did find the emails that the killer was sending you. I was curious and since then, I've been trying to track them down."

*****

Happy New Year, friends. If you're still here, thank you for sticking around. I promise we're finishing this book this year and there's plenty more to come.

One of my current WIPs is about a Kpop idol and a disgruntled PhD student with writers block. The other one is a psychological thriller about an afropop superstar who attempts to get away with murder. I can't wait to share them with you.