Chapter 13 Cracks Between Us
The noise outside sounded like war.
Shouts of “Prophet!” mixed with “Witchman!” and “Leave our area!” Manny crouched by his window, peeking through a torn curtain. A crowd had gathered some with phones raised, others holding sticks and machetes. The videos had done their work. Half wanted miracles. The other half wanted blood.
A stone smashed against his door. Then another.
He grabbed nothing but his old shirt and slipped out through the back, heart hammering. The glowing cracks across his arms and neck were impossible to hide now again. Every step sent fresh heat radiating through his body.
He didn’t get far.
“Ahn ahn, this way!” a sharp whisper cut through the chaos.
Adaora.
She stood in the narrow gap between two zinc houses, waving him over urgently. Her wrapper was tied tight around her waist, and her eyes darted toward the growing mob. Without thinking, Manny ducked toward her. She grabbed his wrist ignoring the unnatural heat and pulled him into a tiny abandoned storeroom behind Mama Ijeoma’s compound. The door creaked shut, plunging them into dusty darkness broken only by thin shafts of evening light.
They stood chest to chest in the cramped space, breathing hard. Outside, the crowd surged past, voices fading slowly as they searched the wrong direction.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Adaora finally let go of his wrist, but her fingers lingered a second too long. “You are burning alive, Emmanuel. What is happening to you?
”Manny leaned against the cracked wall, sliding down until he sat on the dirt floor. The heat from his body warmed the small room like a furnace. “I don’t know anymore. Everything is just scattered.
”This was their first real talk. Not the quick greetings at the tap or the shy smiles when she sold roasted corn near the junction. Not the careful distance they had kept since the first video dropped. Just the two of them, hiding from the world he was breaking.
Adaora sat across from him, knees drawn up. As she studied the faint glow leaking through his collar. “My brother used to shine like that,” she said quietly. “Not with light. With anger. With power. Small street power. He joined one cult when we were young. He said it's to protect us. But the thing took him. One night, they called him for a job. He go out, and come back different. Eyes empty. By morning, police carry his body from under the bridge.
”Her voice didn’t break, but Manny heard the cracks in it.
“I watched him turn from my protector to something that scare everybody. Including me. When I saw your videos… the way you scatter those boys that touched Chinedu… am scared it's the same road you are following.
”Manny looked at her. Really looked. The way her shoulders carried too much weight. The quiet strength in her eyes that most people in Ajegunle never noticed.
“I didn’t want any of this,” he whispered. The words tasted dangerous. “The first time, that mad woman… I just touched her. Then the Voice come. It's what's controlling me. I would have help Chinedu without… without almost killing those men. But I stop at the last second. Still, damage was done. People call me monster now.
”He almost told her everything. About the black veins. The rot he saw in Pastor Victor. The way the Godspark hungered for judgment. How every time he resisted, the fire punished him with more cracks, more pain.
The Voice slithered in, cold and mocking.
*Weak boy. Hiding in a woman’s skirt. Pouring your heart like a child. You were forged to burn the rot, not confess your fears in the dark.
*Manny flinched. His chest tightened suddenly, as if invisible hands were squeezing his ribs. A sharp burn spread across his sternum. He gasped and clutched at his shirt, pulling it open without thinking.
Adaora’s eyes widened.
New glowing cracks were spiderwebbing across his chest bright, angry lines of white-gold light pulsing like living lava. They stretched from the old scars near his heart outward, splitting fresh skin. One thin line reached toward his throat, another down toward his stomach. The light illuminated the small room, casting strange shadows on Adaora’s face.
“Jesus…” she breathed, but she didn’t run. Instead, she reached out slowly and touched one of the cracks with a trembling finger. The heat didn’t seem to burn her. “This thing it is growing. Emmanuel, can you stop it?
”Manny closed his eyes, fighting the Voice that laughed louder now.
She will fear you soon. They all will. Run, or let me show her what real power looks like.
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “but if I don't do something, it will finish me. Or finish everybody around me.
”Adaora kept her hand on his chest, right over the new cracks. For the first time in weeks, the burning eased just a little.
“Then maybe you no need to carry it alone,” she said softly.
Outside, distant voices still called his name. But in that small, dusty room, something fragile had cracked open between them different from the fire in his veins.
Manny didn’t know if it would save him.
Or if it would only make the fall worse when the Voice finally won.
