Shadows of Iyano

Rain, rage, and forbidden love: a kidnapped soul fights back in gritty Lagos nights.

Prologue

The room was quiet enough to hear the fan struggle above them.
Jayjay sat still in his chair, wrists cuffed, shirt soaked from dried rain and sweat. Across the table, the officer flipped open a brown folder. Slowly. Deliberately. He was the type of man who liked silence to speak first.
"You know why you're here?"
Jayjay shrugged like he didn’t care. But he did.
"I could guess," he said, eyes on the table, not the man.
The officer said nothing. He pushed the folder across.
Jayjay glanced down. Screenshots. Bank statements. Chat logs. Transfers to burner accounts. And then—photos.
Seven of them.
Bodies are left in gutters, alleys, and canals. Bruised. Bound. Cold.
He barely reacted until the last one. Just a flicker. A pause.
The officer caught it.
"Still want to guess?"
Jayjay leaned back. His cuffs scraped the table’s edge.
"You want the truth?"
The officer nodded once.
Jayjay didn’t look away from the photo. "It started in Iyano."

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He’d met Rex online.
Usual platform. Usual caution. But the vibe was different. Rex wasn’t thirsty. He was careful. Curious. Said he liked that Jayjay was open about who he was.
Jayjay laughed at that. "You think I have a choice?"
But it felt good. Talking. Not just sex talk or fake interest, but real conversation. Books. Music. Dreams. Rex had this calmness about him, like nothing could shake him.
One night, Rex said he wanted to meet.
Nothing fancy. Just the two of them. Somewhere private.
"Uncompleted building near Iyano School," Rex suggested. "Quiet. No one goes there."
Jayjay paused. Everyone in Lagos knew Iyano. It had stories. Robberies. Set-ups. Kito boys. But Rex sounded sure. Safe.
Jayjay was tired of being afraid.
He said yes.
It was raining that night. Thick, unrelenting rain. The kind that turned potholes into lakes and washed the sound out of the streets.
The building looked like a skeleton. Exposed concrete. Rebar-like ribs. Jayjay hesitated at the entrance, water dripping from his hoodie.
He texted: “I dey here.”
The reply came quickly. “Second floor. I’m waiting.”
The staircase was cracked and slippery. He took each step slowly. No voices. No movement. Just the sound of his own breath.
At the second landing, everything went black.
A blow to the back of the head knocked him sideways. Two sets of hands, no, three—dragged him forward. One punched his gut. Another tore at his clothes.
By the time he hit the ground, his shirt was gone, his legs scraped raw.
He came to be tied against a pillar. Cold floor. Bare skin.
Torchlight hit his face.
"Say it," a voice growled.
He blinked against the glare. "What...?"
"Say you be faggot. Say you dey seduce boys."
He didn’t answer.
The slap came fast.
Then the camera flashes.
The second voice was higher-pitched. Mocking.
"We go post am. Let everybody see wetin you be."
Jayjay said nothing.
A kick landed against his ribs. Then another.
They beat him. Filmed him. Posted the videos to WhatsApp groups, Facebook, and Twitter. He saw himself shared on burner accounts, his face bruised, swollen, scared.
The next morning, people he once called friends had already shared the clip.
There were seven of them.
Rex. Tank. The twins, Tolu and Tade. Sadiq, who filmed everything. Spider, who laughed too much. And Wale.
Wale didn’t say much. Didn’t laugh when the others did. Didn’t kick. Didn’t film.
He stood in the corners. Watching. Quiet.
Jayjay noticed the way his hands shook when they passed him the pipe. How he always looked down when they joked about cutting Jayjay’s fingers.
One night, when the others were passed out drunk, Wale crept over and untied Jayjay’s arms, just for a moment to let the blood flow back in.
"You’re gonna lose your hands like this," he said, low, eyes darting.
Jayjay didn’t respond.
The next night, he brought water.
Then a torn piece of agege bread.
Then silence again.

It was three nights later when Wale finally sat beside him and said something real.
“My mom had a stroke,” he began. “Last year. The left side of her body stopped working. Hospitals turned us away when we couldn’t pay.”
Jayjay stayed quiet.
“Rex said I could make enough money here. Just scares some people. Record them. That’s all.”
Jayjay looked at him, half-smiling through a split lip. "That’s not what this is."
Wale swallowed. “I know.”
Jayjay studied his face. “So why are you still here?”
Wale took a long breath. “Because I have nowhere else to go.”
Another pause.
“I like boys,” he said. Quiet. Shame tangled in every syllable. “I’ve known for years. Tried to pray it away. Starved it out. I even tried conversion therapy, my pastor’s idea. I thought if I did this... if I helped Rex... maybe God would forgive me.”
Jayjay stared at him. “You think this makes you clean?”
“No,” Wale said. “I think it makes me a coward.”
He didn’t cry. But he looked like he wanted to.
Jayjay didn’t forgive him. Not then.
But he didn’t look away.
That night, Wale didn’t leave. He sat next to Jayjay until morning.
They didn’t talk again until the plan came.

Rex had demanded ransom. A friend of Jayjay’s had been raising the money. The gang expected it to land the next day.
Jayjay saw his chance.
“You know the account password?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“We take it. We leave. Together.”
Wale hesitated.
“They’ll come after us.”
Jayjay leaned in, eyes locked on his. “They’re killing us already.”
Wale nodded, slowly.
They planned it in a heartbeat. Wait for the others to sleep. Use the storm to cover their footsteps. Wale would unlock the gate. They’d vanish.
“I know a place in Badagry,” Wale whispered. “Quiet. Cheap. Off-grid.”
Jayjay smiled for the first time in days.
“I just want one day where no one’s looking over their shoulder,” he said.
“One day,” Wale agreed.

They didn’t make it ten steps from the building.
"Where una dey go?"
Rex’s voice rang out.
Jayjay froze. Wale grabbed his arm.
Rex stepped into the light, dry under a concrete overhang, pistol in hand.
"You think say I be fool?" he said. "Wale. Of all people."
No one spoke.
"You let a pretty face confuse you?"
Wale stepped forward. “I’m done, Rex.”
"No. You’re dead."
He raised the gun.
The shot echoed louder than thunder.
Wale dropped.
Jayjay screamed.
Rex walked toward them, slowly. Calm. No fear.
“You two thought you found love,” he said. “Love no dey survive for people like us. It’s a lie they sell you so you forget how the world works.”
Jayjay didn’t hear the rest.
He ran.
He didn’t stop running.
He woke up in a stranger’s house in Bariga. A woman had found him by the roadside, soaked and shivering.
He said nothing. Just took the bread she gave him and stared at the wall.
A week later, he read that one of the gang members, Sadiq, was found dead in a club bathroom. Throat cut.
A week after that, Tank went missing. His body was found in a canal.
The others started hiding. But hiding doesn’t work when the person hunting you already knows your fears.
Jayjay didn’t think of it as revenge.
It was math.
One for each scream. One for each slap. One for Wale.
Rex was never found.
But Jayjay wasn’t looking anymore.


The officer sat back in his chair, arms crossed.
"You became what they said you were," he said. "Dangerous. Unstable. Vengeful."
Jayjay met his eyes. Calm. Even.
"I became what I needed to be. A survivor.."
The officer looked down at the folder. At the names. At the photos.
He didn’t say anything for a while.
Then he stood.
Jayjay remained seated, watching the rain slide down the window.
No handcuffs were removed.
No file was closed.
But the room was empty when the door clicked shut.
And outside, the rain kept falling.