Creak!

She froze. Someone was opening the gate behind her. It was several yards away; she could throw the door open and lock it behind her. Or she could just risk it and pass through the keyhole. Ekwensu, she thought. What if it’s Ekwensu? But why would the physical world’s greatest adversary have to push open a gate? Armed robbers, then? But the gate was locked. Did they have a key? Was juju used to get in? Was the lock picked?

She whirled around, dropping her backpack and bringing out her juju knife. What am I doing? she thought, horrified.

The gate opened. Adrenaline flooded her system, causing a ringing in her ears and cold sweat to break from her skin. She crept closer. A shadow peeked around the gate. He looked right at her.

“Sunny?” he gasped.

“Chukwu?” She quickly put her knife into her pocket.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why aren’t you at school?” Sunny blurted.

They stared at each other. Her brother was dark-skinned and standing in the shadows, so she couldn’t quite see the expression on his face.

“I . . . I just got home,” she said, stepping closer.

“From wherever it is you go?” he asked. He moved away from her, holding on to the gate.

“Where’s your Jeep?” she asked.

“Parked it on the street,” he said. “Don’t . . .” He stepped away from her some more and, in doing so, moved into the dim moonlight.

Sunny clapped her hands over her mouth and gasped. “What happened?!”

Her brother had gotten quite muscular in the last year. He’d not only discovered weight-lifting, he’d discovered that he really, truly, madly loved it. Sunny knew that aside from kicking a soccer ball around, there was nothing he loved more than to be in the gym lifting until his muscles vibrated. Now Sunny could see that he’d gotten even bigger since leaving for school weeks ago. Still, at this moment, he looked like a pummeled, scared teenager. His left eye was swollen shut, and his mouth looked like it carried two golf balls. He held on to the gate with a big hand.

Sunny stepped up to him and touched his face. He looked away. “Chukwu, what . . .”

“Mummy and Daddy can’t know that I’m here,” he said.

“Why?”

“I need to get the money I have in my room. Then I’ll leave.” He looked into her eyes. “I don’t want to put anyone here in danger.” His face twitched and he frowned, one tear falling down his cheek.

Sunny felt her eyes sting, too. This was her brother Chukwu, whose name meant “Supreme Being,” because he was “God’s gift to women,” or so he liked to brag. This was her oldest brother, who had tormented her since she was a baby, and protected her, too, in his own rough way.

“C-Come on,” she said, her voice shaking. She wrapped her arm around his. “Lean on me. I’ll get you inside.”

They moved fast, heading straight to Sunny’s room. Sunny banked on the fact that her parents would assume it was just her entering the house and not their oldest son who’d run away from the university they were paying so much for him to attend. She locked the door as he sat on her bed. In the light, she saw that he looked far worse than she’d thought. She took a deep breath and steadied herself; this was not a time to cry.