Startled, Chidiogo stumbled backwards. A misstep sent her crashing down and landing on her butt. She didn't bother about the pain coursing through her lower back as she scrambled away from Mmachi who drew closer to her until her back hit a wall.

It was a dead end. There was nowhere to go. She remained in the same position, her heart running a marathon, as Mmachi bent to her level.

Mmachi gave Chidiogo a once-over as she tried to hide the amusement on her face. "What's up Princess? What a surprise to see you here. I'm pretty sure you weren't by any chance following me. Or were you?"

Chidiogo tried her best to scoot away from Mmachi. Mmachi's lips spread apart, revealing pearly white teeth, as she watched Chidiogo's pathetic attempt to get away from her.

"What a shame," Mmachi started, shaking her head, "After everything you'll call me the stalker. You know, I could hear your footsteps right from the moment you started following me. The least you could have done was to be subtle."

She let out a tsk before continuing.

"Assuming I was the supposed stalker who wanted you dead, I would have led you into a very secluded area and it would have been extremely easy to kill you there. After all, I've been in this school for five years.

"I know every secret path and all the hidden places. I know just the book to pull out of the shelf at the library to open a secret passage and you know, all that shit we see movies. Technically, I would also know that this is just the right place to kill you."

The last words rolled off Mmachi's tongue casually but sent chills running through Chidiogo. She could already feel sweat trickling down her neck as she glanced around.

There was no way she could run. She was cornered and Mmachi was by far stronger than she was. Granted she by chance had any weapon, Chidiogo stood absolutely no chance. As she was still trying to think of a way to escape, Mmachi let out a sigh, springing back to her feet.

"But it's not worth it," she said, walking away.

Chidiogo remained crouched on the floor several minutes after she left. It took Amelia's voice to send both her heart and body flying up.

"Why are you sitting on the floor? And why did you just disappear into thin air? I've been looking for you since you ditched me at the door and left me to enter the hall on my own."

Chidiogo didn't bother uttering a word before stalking past Amelia and heading in the direction she had come from.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" Amelia yelled, running after Chidiogo.

She caught up with her in no time.

"What's wrong with you?" Amelia asked.

No answer.

"Did someone say something to you?"

More silence.

"Were you attacked again?"

The words finally halted Chidiogo and she turned to look at Amelia.

"I have a question."

Chidiogo's response threw Amelia off a bit but she nodded, worrying her lips as she waited for Chidiogo to continue speaking.

"I need the truth and nothing but the absolute truth." Amelia's brows pinched the skin between them but she still nodded. "Do you have any idea where Mmachi goes at night and why she comes back with those scary injuries all the time?"

Amelia worked her lips between her teeth, staring off into the space behind Chidiogo before shaking her head slowly.

"Are you sure? You don't have any single idea at all?"

"I don't know," Amelia replied with a shrug, "I don't know anything."

Chidiogo's deflated shoulders sagged more. "Okay so where do you think she goes and what do you think she does?"

"I would say she's probably in some kind of cult," Amelia said with a shrug.

Chidiogo's eyes rounded as she gaped at her. "Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm not. That's what I think anyway. It probably might not be true. At first I thought it had something to do with Justin, that maybe he was abusing her. But when I got to know both of them well enough, I knew Justin wasn't the kind to hit a lady and Mmachi wouldn't stay in an abusive relationship. That's when I started thinking she might be in a cult."

"And that doesn't bother you!?" Chidiogo all but screamed, failing to understand how Amelia could be so casual about Mmachi possibly belonging to a cult.

Amelia shrugged again. "I tried without success to find out where she always goes to. I followed her severally but no matter how careful I was or how much I made sure not to loose her trail, she always ended up disappearing at a particular point."

Chidiogo's curiosity piqued on hearing the last statement Amelia uttered. "She always disappeared at a particular point?"

"Yeah, roughly around the same area every single time."

"How many times have you noticed this when following her?" Chidiogo asked.

"About three times . . . Can we continue moving while we speak?" Amelia said, glancing around. "We've been standing at this same spot for the past few minutes."

"Of course."

Amelia started walking and Chidiogo's steps fell in sync with hers.

"About the area where she goes missing," Chidiogo resumed talking after a few seconds of silence, "can you remember exactly where it is?"

Amelia clucked her tongue, shaking her head. "Bad idea. You're asking because you want to try following her right?" Chidiogo's mouth opened but no words came out. Amelia took it as the confirmation she needed and continued. "It's a dead end. It's pointless trying to find out anything."

It took Chidiogo a minute to digest what Amelia just said. By the time she tried to say something else, they were already in front of the dinning hall.

Amelia entered the hall before her but Chidiogo noticed a deliberate lag in her footsteps, as though she was waiting for her to catch up.

They both easily mixed in with the crowd of students there. Thankfully, most of them were standing. Miss Esua's voice boomed from a sound system behind them.

" . . . and this is one thing that won't be tolerated."

Chidiogo stretched her neck, trying to get a glimpse of her. She eventually caught sight of Chikaima, who stood with her white weave on cascading down her face and shoulder, right next to Miss Esua.

Chidiogo didn't understand a single thing before the meeting ended, less than five minutes after they arrived. They signed an attendance list before leaving the hall with Voile who briefed them about what the meeting was about.

Apparently, the school had had it with their over-the-board hairstyles and decided to enact new rules. Miss Esua had made an example of a boy who had dyed his whole hair red and Chikaima who had on all white hair.

Chidiogo parted ways with Voile and Amelia-who insisted on escorting Voile to her room-halfway to her own room. She continued her journey to her room, her legs moving on their own, more out of routine.

She was a bit surprised when she got to her room door, unable to give an account of how she got there or where her mind had been. She was about to step into the room but pulled up short when she heard Mmachi's voice.

She dodged behind the door before Mmachi could see her. She peeked into the room and saw Mmachi pacing around the room while yelling at someone over the phone.

"How did she get away!? You just had to keep her locked until she breaks but you couldn't even do that!"

Mmachi roamed from one corner of the room to the other, raking her hands through her hair. After a few seconds of repeating the action, she stopped in front of the white L-shaped desk in a corner of their room and slammed her hand against it.

"Even though! You should never underestimate anyone let alone her! That she takes drugs and made a few flimsy mistakes doesn't make her brainless. She'll piece everything together in a matter of seconds and God forbid she actually decides to do something . . . "

Mmachi trailed off and remained silent for an extended amount of time. Chidiogo remained peeking through the door, trying to understand what was going on. One question dominated the rest, looming around her head: Who was she talking about?

Mmachi let out a loud chuckle, interrupting her thoughts. Before Chidiogo could wonder what brought about the laughter, Mmachi's voice boomed around the room.

"Don't forget that my father is a billonaire. Her family is influential, I know, but my family has twice as much money as they do. If any thing like that ever happens, they'll get me out in a matter of seconds and even fly me out of the country if need be.

"I advise you worry about yourself because you'll be the one to bear the brunt of everything so you better think of a way to get out of this."

The confidence with which Mmachi spoke surprised Chidiogo. Surely she knew that their parents were fed up with her behavior and wouldn't think twice about letting her bear the consequences of her actions.

Even if it was for a little while, they'd let her suffer in order to teach her a lesson. Perhaps she was right about them eventually getting her out with their money or maybe she just wanted to sound that way in order to pressure whoever was on the other end of the line into doing something.

"Which file?" Mmachi asked, her voice interrupting the silence that built overtime.

She pursed her lips, staring into the mirror for a while before suddenly heading towards her bed. "Oh. I remember it now. But there's a problem. I deleted it from my phon-"

The scream that interrupted her words was so loud, it was audible to even Chidiogo who still stood at the door. Mmachi removed the phone from her ear for a few seconds before placing it back.

"Calm your horses," she said, tilting her head and wedging the phone between her ear and shoulder. "I had to delete if I didn't want someone stumbling across it . . . Justin has my password. He could have found it at any point . . . Okay, relax. I think I have a copy of it on my laptop."

As she spoke, she pulled out her laptop bag from under her bedstand. Curious to find out what file they were talking about, Chidiogo tiptoed into the room.

She was halfway through the room when Mmachi suddenly stopped what she was doing midway. She started turning around when Chidiogo dived behind the L-shaped desk.

Grateful for the shape of the desk which afforded her the coverage she needed, she remained crouched behind the desk. Her breathing grew louder the more she tried to control it.

When she was certain Mmachi had returned to what she was doing, she peeked out of the desk just in time to see Mmachi opening her laptop. Chidiogo couldn't see the screen properly so she took the chance, kneeling straight and leaning forward on the desk.

The desk wasn't too far from Mmachi's bed so Chidiogo could at make out some things. After the laptop was done booting, Mmachi's fingers moved furiously over the keyboard as she keyed in her password.

Chidiogo was only able to make out the letters e and a before the screen changed to 'Welcome'. She remained staring while Mmachi opened her files and typed something in the search bar that she couldn't see.

The results came out blank and Mmachi groaned before slamming her laptop shut. Chidiogo ducked behind the table before she turned around.

"I couldn't find it," Mmachi said, adjusting and holding the phone with her hand again. "We could . . . Oh, you think you might still have it?" Mmachi worked her bottom lip between her teeth as she stared at the door. "Okay, send it to my WhatsApp for backup. Send it right now . . . I'm on my way."

Mmachi walked out of the door the moment she hung up the call. Chidiogo remained in the position she was in until she was sure Mmachi was gone.

Once she stood up, she headed straight for Mmachi's laptop. She threw a single glance over her shoulder, before opening it.

She swore under her breath when the screen of the laptop lit up and it was locked. She keyed in 'dog' as the password and waited for it to show the hint.

The hint was simple: Five letters for trouble.

She racked her brain to come up with something that started with an e and ended with an a and meant trouble for Mmachi. After several minutes of coming up with nothing, she decided to try random things that Mmachi had a problem with.

Firstly she keyed in twins. Mmachi had always had a problem with the fact that they looked alike. When it came out wrong, she typed Diogo.

She tried juvie and a few other things she could think of before slumping on the floor, in front of Mmachi's bed.

"Siri," she said, too lazy to stand up and find her phone.

Her phone screen lit up in a corner of the room.

"Tell me five letter words that start with an 'e' and end with an 'a'."

She sat up and typed in the words Siri suggested. After a few more attempts, she gave up. She rested her head on Mmachi's bed, her thoughts stuck in a loop.

'Mmachi has a problem with me. Mmachi has a problem with everything I do. Mmachi has a problem with the fact that she has a twin. She would much rather not have a look alike. She has a problem with cats. Cats don't start with 'e'. She . . . '

Her thoughts trailed off and her brain rebooted. She jolted back to an upright position, going over the thought again.

Mmachi would rather not have a look alike. Her biggest problem was that they looked alike!

Alike. Alike. Alike.

"Alike," she said aloud, a smile forming on her face.

Mmachi always had a silly obsession with anagrams since they were little. And most times all she used was the basic one: spelling the word backwards.

Alike was five letters and if she spelt it backwards, it started with an 'e' and ended with an 'a'.

She keyed in the letters: Ekila. She let out an involuntary squeal when the system opened.

Her head went blank for a few minutes as she stared at the laptop screen before she remembered why she had opened the laptop in the first place.

Mmachi had asked whoever she was on the call with to send a file and if she wasn't wrong, Mmachi had the WhatsApp on her laptop linked to her main account.

Her smile broadened when she saw the app. She did a brief scroll through the chats there only to find out that Mmachi's disappearing messages had been set to 24 hours.

There were almost no chats to give her any lead on anything. She tried not to loose hope. The person would send Mmachi the file soon and she would have a hint about what she was up to.

An incoming message from an unknown number sent her heart pulsing. With slightly shaky fingers, she tapped on the chat.

This is your last warning, the message read, causing her perfect brows to furrow.

The next message entered before she could decipher the first.

Kill her or I will.