CHAPTER 20: The Critique
The sun was a dull, hot orb over Lagos by 6:00 AM.
Izuora stood by the concrete pillar, watching a technician try to figure out how to untie the woman without killing her.
"Checkpoints were active on all five sectors, Ma'am," Femi said, his voice cracking with frustration. "We had the whole grid paralyzed since midnight. There's no way he moved a body through that."
Izuora didn't look at him. She was staring at the girl's throat. The rifts were clean, pulsating rhythmically with her shallow breaths.
*Hiss. Click.*
"He didn't move her through the checkpoints, Femi," Izuora said, her voice a dry rasp, as she flicked her cigarette over the railing. "He was already on this side."
Femi looked at the girl, then back at the ambulance waiting to rush the victim to LUTH. "We need to get her to surgery immediately. If she survives, we have a witness."
Izuora watched them load the gurney. Her gut twisted—a sharp, cold knot of dread that had nothing to do with the heat. She turned to the commanding officer on the scene.
"I want a detail at the hospital," she snapped. "Two men at the door, two at the elevator, 24/7. No one goes into that ICU except authorized staff. I don't fucking care if it's the Governor's mother."
"Ma'am?" the officer blinked. "The killer is long gone. He wouldn't come back to a secured hospital."
"Just do it," Izuora growled, her eyes fixed on the retreating ambulance. "I have a feeling this isn't an ending. But an invitation."
***
The heat was already rising off the asphalt as George and Chris made their way toward the Faculty of Arts. Chris was glued to his phone, his thumb a blur.
"The police are a joke, George," Chris said, leaning into the wheelchair to navigate a crack in the pavement. "They shut down the whole bridge and this guy still pulls this off. They're calling her 'The Whistler' on Twitter. It's already viral."
George looked at the blurry, pixelated image on Chris's screen. He felt a slight annoyance at the quality of the photo, but his face remained a mask of mild, student-like shock.
"The news says she's stable, but barely," Chris continued, his voice a mix of morbid adrenaline. "They've got her over at LUTH. Can you imagine the balls on this guy? Doing that while the whole force was looking for him." He let out a little chuckle.
"It's a lot of attention," George said quietly.
"No kidding. The whole campus is talking about it. I bet the hospital is like a fortress right now." Chris shook his head. "Anyway, we're late. Let's move." He said, as he put his phone away.
Nora was leaning against the heavy wooden doors of the lecture hall, phone in hand. Her attention decided between her phone and her surroundings; she was watching the students' faces.
When she saw George rolling toward the entrance with Chris trailing behind him, she straightened up. Chris was still talking—something about the body count—but Nora tuned him out.
As they reached the doors, the crowd thinned for a second. Nora didn't move. She let George pass close enough that his footrest nearly brushed her shoes.
The smell hit her first.
It wasn't deodorant, nor foul odour.
It was the sharp, eye-watering sting of high-concentration bleach. It hung around him like a shroud.
She looked down at his hands. They were resting on the wheels of his chair.
The skin was ravaged. The cuticles were white and peeling, and the flesh between his fingers was a raw, angry pink—the kind of chemical burn you get when you try to erase your own skin.
George looked up. His eyes met hers for a fraction of a second—cold, dark, and entirely empty of his "struggling student" act. He gave a small, polite nod.
Nora didn't return it. She just stood there, her nose twitching from the bleach, watching them disappear into the darkness of the hall.
The lecture on Victorian poets was white noise. George didn't open a notebook.
He looked at the raw patches on his hands. He knew exactly what the "Whistler" represented. She wasn't an ending; she was a variable.
He thought about the Copycat—the nuisance, the fan. An amateur wouldn't be able to resist a masterpiece that was left "unfinished." They would see it as a chance to help. To contribute.
George took out a scrap of paper. He didn't draw a circle. He wrote a single word: **LUTH.**
He knew how hospitals worked. He knew the shift changes and the way a "concerned friend" could slip past a tired guard at 3:00 AM.
The Copycat thought they were having a conversation. George was going to be the one to provide the punctuation.
At an unknown location, in a room that smelled like damp earth, the Copycat was staring at the news.
They were shaking, tears carving tracks through the grime on their face.
"He left her for me," they whispered, touching the screen where the girl's hospital location was being broadcast. "He wants to see if I can do it."
They picked up a bag and began to pack. They didn't see a trap. They only saw a beckoning hand.
They didn't know the Master was already holding the door open for them.
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