by J. Elle
“Aww, it’s so cute.” Tasha takes off down the hall, trying to call it back. She always did love cats. They lick their own asses. That shit’s nasty.
With Tasha out of sight, I try again to summon my magic, muttering a spell under my breath.
Nothing.
Then another.
Still nothing.
Don’t panic. Think.
Tasha’s voice rings down the hall, trying to coax the cat.
I can’t go back to Ghizon. I can’t go to Tasha’s family. At the moment I have an abandoned house and no magic. Back against the cracked yellow walls, I dig circles into my temples. This shit’s gonna get us killed. This is too much. It’s all just too much.
“You aight?” Her voice rings from the hall.
“Y-yeah!” I scramble up. “I’m good. J-just thinking.” I turn away from her approaching footsteps.
Across the room is the kitchen and Aunt Melba’s round table sits undisturbed at the center, coated in a layer of dust. A splintered crack runs through its middle, along with an overturned box of Fruity O’s and a dirty butter knife.
Think, Rue. Can’t go back to Ghizon. But I need answers about magic that can only come from Ghizon. Bri has an invention for literally everything, maybe she’ll have some ideas. I run my fingers across the table and it rocks on uneven legs.
I pace, raking my hands through my scalp, and feel a piece of metal in the back of my neck. The tracker Luke put in! I grab the butter knife. Too dull. I flip through the drawers and cabinets, loosing clouds of dust. Mail, napkins, soy sauce packets. I close that one and open another. Nestled between more to-go spork packages than a person could use in a lifetime is a burgundy pocket knife.
I flick it open and clamp my lip between my teeth.
Do it.
I suck in a breath and dig the knife into my flesh. Agh, it hurts!
I dig around the tracker’s metal rim, then slip the knife underneath it. Everything’s slippery with blood and my neck burns like a ring of fire. I bite down harder and ease the blade a millimeter deeper. A scream claws at my throat, but I swallow it back down and in one smooth motion, tilt my wrist up.
The tracker slips out, slimy and coated in red. A white light blinks from its top. Shoot, it’s still active. I toss it on the ground and it crunches under my shoe. The room sways a moment.
“Find me now, asshole,” I say under my breath, pressing my sleeve hard against the wound.
“Boo!” A paw touches my back.
“Ah!” I snatch up the butter knife and whip around. Best I got at the moment.
Tasha laughs. “OMG, the cat’s not gonna hurt you. A-and… is that… blood?”
“Meow.”
“Get that thing away from me.” I toss the knife. My nerves are shot. “It’s nothing. I-I’m fine.”
She looks at me weird a second, then rolls her eyes, stroking the cat’s head. “If you say so. And whatever, he’s cute. The rooms are empty, by the way. Looks like kitty lives here by his lonesome.”
I exhale. Across the length of the room and back, I pace over and over. Tasha’s on my heels going on about how she’s always wanted a cat, but it was always a no growing up because it was another mouth to feed. Her mouth is moving but I barely hear the words.
How do I get us out of this? Moms always said we make a way out of no way. She said it’s not a choice, it’s required for anyone growing up in her household.
How do I make a way, Momma? How? When there really is no way. I have no weapon, no magic. People in Ghizon chasing us, some dude here after her…
Oh shit.
The guy from her bus stop.
She was grinning and got in his car! And he fled. Who doesn’t stay to see if the person in the car with you during a wreck is okay? That doesn’t add up.
“I need to know who that guy was, T.”
Her brows cinch and she strokes the fur cradled in her arms. “I have no idea, Rue.” She looks away. Like she usually does when she’s lying.
“You cannot be serious right now. You lying?”
“I swear I do not know that dude. I thought he was from that place—Gize.”
“Ghizon. And no, from far away they sorta look like white folks but their skin has a grayish tint. Hard to explain. They sort of look sickly.”
“All of ’em? What about the Black folks?”
“What Black folks?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see any in your memories, but I figured there’d be some. I mean, that’s weird, right?”
What is she talking about? How is that important? “Listen, I can protect us from the Chancellor”—I hope—“because I know what I’m looking out for. But whoever these dudes you got looking for you, I can’t protect you from them if I don’t know who they are.” I grip her shoulders. “I need the truth. All of it.”
“Who is they?”
“Tasha!” Full on yelling at this point. “You saw some buttoned-up white dude at your bus stop the morning everything went down!”
Her mouth falls open.
“You were grinning your ass off to go talk to him. He had dark pants, a white shirt. You got in his car. Who is he?”
“Oooooh. I didn’t know you meant him. I thought we were talking about coffee shop dude.” She twists the end of her shirt. “He’s one of the guys from the Community Center. He told me he’d drop me off so I didn’t have to take the bus. Said we would get donuts on the way.” She screws up her mouth like I’m making a big deal out of nothing.
Who gets up that damn early in the morning to take some random kid for donuts from her bus stop? He ain’t pick her up from home. I don’t buy it. “So, you think you know him?
“I mean, yeah, I see him after school most days.” She pulls out her phone and swipes up. “He’s cool. He plays basketball with us and stuff.” She swipes past images on her Instagram and double taps. “There he is, Chad.”
Chad’s surrounded by a group of kids about Tasha’s age, with a basketball under his arm and a giant snake tattoo on his neck.
I’ve seen that same tattoo somewhere before.…
My stomach drops.
… on the guy at the coffee shop.
CHAPTER 11
WAIT. SO YOU THINK the coffee shop dude and Chad know each other?”
“Either that or they coincidentally have the same tattoo in the same spot and a strange interest in you.” I swipe through a few more pictures on her phone. That’s definitely the guy from the bus stop. “You wanna explain now? I’m listening?”
“I swear to God I do not know that man from the coffee shop.” Her eyes water and she looks like she did curled up in Moms’s closet. So small, so scared. She’s not lying. “I-I swear, Rue.” She’s full on crying now and it hurts. She ain’t ask for any of this, neither of us did. And yet this is what it is, this is our life.
I pull her in to me. “I believe you, okay. It’s going to be alright. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
She smooths away her tears. “So, what now?”
“Well first, I need to figure out”—why my magic won’t work—“how Chad and coffee shop dude are affiliated.”
“It’s a tattoo. A lot of people have those.”
“Yeah, but these are in the same shape and in the same spot—down the side of the neck. That ain’t coincidence, T. Ink ain’t cheap, either. My ex, you remember Julius?”
She nods.
“He was tatted up and down both arms, all across his chest and back, collecting art from all these dope artists in town.”
Julius was always skipping to hang at Dezignz, this ink spot in Houston that don’t care about age long as you got an ID that says what it needs to say. At first he was getting tats for free in exchange for “favors” to the dude who runs the place. But when Julius’s grandma got sick he started pushing his own weight to make bills. That’s when he changed, started dressing nice, hair always fresh. So, of course, THOTs start coming around. I’m not ’bout that life. I’m the only one or not one at all. I was goo
d to him too. Kept a scrapbook of our dates. I ain’t care what he dressed like, either. He was always cute to me and smart as hell. That’s how we got close, studying for a Geometry test. But the money got to him, or maybe it was the ass thrown his way, because I sure wasn’t ready for all that. I don’t know. Either way, he started acting dumb, so I dumped him. His loss.
I chew my lip. He would probably know something about the snake tattoo though. Ugh. The last thing I need is a reason for one more person to be sniffing around us. No, I’m not reaching out to him. Not a good idea.
Hmmm, but the scrapbook…
“Tash, where’s all Moms’s old stuff? My stuff?” The scrapbook I kept when we were boo’d up was full of pictures, ticket stubs. The first test we studied for together I got an A, so I put that in there too. So lame in hindsight. He added pics of each of his tattoos, signed by the artist, hoping it’d be worth something someday. If I get my hands on my scrapbook, maybe I can find out who did the tats to see if there’s a connection or something.
“Ms. Leola’s, I think.” She nuzzles the cat cradled in her arms and he purrs. “That’s what my daddy said. But I haven’t been over there since the CPS lady came and got me.”
“Then that’s where we’re going—to Ms. Leola’s.” She’s everybody’s grandma in East Row. Whatever’s going down, you can count on some pound cake from Ms. Leola and tea so sweet it’s like instant diabetes. “The bus stop’s right on the corner. Don’t even need a transfer. We should hurry up.”
She hands me her bus pass and some spare change in her pocket as we make our way to the door. The cat’s under her arm nibbling on one of her fingers.
“You gotta leave that thing here, you know that, right?”
“His name is Cupcake.” She smiles big and her eyes do too. “We can’t just leave him here all alone. That’s so sad. Everybody should have somebody.”
“Tash, we don’t even know if we can feed ourselves. How the hell are…”
Her expression droops.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I cannot believe this shit. “Fiinnnne. Tuck his ass away so we don’t get kicked off the bus.”
She grins bigger and hurries past me out the door. Out of sight, I tap my watch.
Me: Bri, can we talk? In person. It’s urgent!
Two taps and the geolocation for Ms. Leola’s house sends with a swish.
* * *
Ms. Leola came over first that night, even before the cops. Cops ain’t stay long. Didn’t write shit down. I ain’t never been more scared in my life.
But Ms. Leola fed us, had us come to her house, and even let us stay home from school the next day. That morning, though, some lady came from CPS and took Tasha. She told Ms. Leola someone else would be coming for me. But I don’t have family like Tasha. Ms. Leola’s the closest thing I have to a grandma. I didn’t understand why I had to leave at all.
Ms. Leola argued with the CPS lady for me to just stay there. It didn’t go well because she slammed the door when she left. Hours passed and I just sat there by the door, hoping it was a mistake. Hoping somehow Moms was actually at the hospital and she’d be okay. Ms. Leola tried to feed me, tell me somehow it would be okay, but I refused to move from that door. I just knew Moms was coming back. Tash too. That it was all some bad dream.
I waited so long that I dozed off.
Next thing I knew, I was in Ghizon with Aasim standing over me, introducing himself as my father.
Haven’t seen Ms. Leola since.
Going back to her house feels like walking into the past, about to relive that night and morning all over again.
I’m not ready for this.
As if that matters.
I have to be.
I give Tasha a reassuring nod as we step onto the bus. My watch screen’s black. No response from Bri yet. The front of the bus is empty, so I fall in a seat and tuck my face deep in my hood. Tasha sits next to me talking into her jacket, because that’s not suspicious.
Two elder ladies sit in the front row, giggling over an issue of O magazine. A boy no taller than the seat, with earbuds, sits near the back, nose in a book. No one else. Bus is empty otherwise.
I hunch down in my seat as we roar into motion. Buildings and blocks move past in a blur and I almost nod off when my watch buzzes.
Bri: What’s wrong? Are you okay? You mean you want me to leave? Like leave Ghizon and come there? It’s been crazy here since you left. Security is insane.
Bri’s a rule follower. Hacking is her one vice, which is I think is actually a useful skill. She always makes the best grades. A model student. And the irony is she ended up with me as a best friend. But she’s my only access to information in Ghizon and I need answers.
Me: Yeah, pls! Something’s wrong
Everything’s wrong.
Bri: I could get in HUGE trouble for that. Can you talk?
I cut a glance at Tasha, still grinning with Cupcake, and hide my watch arm a bit more.
Me: No, I can’t talk. My onyx won’t work! My magic isn’t responding.
My watch suddenly vibrates in short pulses, her name flashing on the screen. Shoot, she’s calling!
I tap. “Bri?”
“What do you mean it won’t work?” Her voice comes through like a loudspeaker and I almost stumble out my seat. I tap tap tap the volume wayyyy down.
Tasha gives me a weird look and I play it cool. I stand and put as much distance between my mouth and her ears as I can.
“That’s not possible,” Bri says, this time only loud enough for me to hear.
You can’t tell Bri something she doesn’t already know.
“I’m telling you, it’s broken.”
“Have you reached out to Aasim? Surely he can help.”
I grind my teeth and resist the urge to roll my eyes.
“No,” I yell a little too emphatically.
The driver glances my way a second but quickly moves on back to his phone playing some soap opera.
“Bri, I’m not comfortable with that. I don’t know him like that.”
“Comfortable? Rue! You’re asking me to sneak out of Ghizon. Fourteenth Law, Clause B, states…
Oh god, do not recite.
“Departing Ghizon territory—”
She’s reciting.
“—without express consent from the Chancellor is strictly forbidden.”
I massage my temples. “I know what the law says. I just… someone’s after us… someone here.”
She gasps.
“Without magic I don’t have a way to watch out for us, keep us safe. Please meet me, bring whatever books you can find and all your lab stuff. So we can figure this out.”
Silence. She’s considering it.
“You won’t need to do any magic here, so they’ll never know. And you can zap here undetected because of this bomb-ass watch.”
“The watch doesn’t have weapon capabilities.”
“OMG, for the hundredth time, bomb doesn’t actually mean…” I sigh. “I just meant the watch is really cool because you can get here undetected like I did.”
She tsks. “I mean, that’s true and the probability of the watch not working with the amount of testing I put it through is… about .00008 percent.”
That’s probably a literal calculation.
“See! No issues. No risk.”
“It really is a fine product. The frequencies are synthesized to optimal levels. I even engineered duplicate sound waves to mimic the ones in the air, but affixed a cloaking spell to it at the molecular level.” She’s grinning, I can tell. “I mean there’s really no risk, y—”
“Bri?”
“Ya?
“You’re geeking out on me again. So, is that a yes?”
For several moments, nothing.
“I can’t believe I’m actually thinking about doing this! What’s that thing you always say about friends dying together?”
“Ride or die?”
“Yep, that’s the one. I hope that’s metaphorica
l. I’ll be there soon.”
“You da real MVP.”
“I’m really not.” She chuckles. “There’s, like, no chance I’d get caught if I use the watch. So I’m going to try to be a proper ride or die.”
I laugh. “Aight, see you soon!”
Ride or die is a code. Means friends—the real ones, not the fake-ass flaky ones—are always there for the good and the bad, even when shit gets real.
And right now, shit’s real AF.
CHAPTER 12
EVERY NIGHT IT’S THE same.
Darkness hangs in the sky like a guillotine. A thick nest of forest hugs around me, frigid air rustling the thinner branches. Trees like I’ve never seen with black bark and wide leaves twist, bent like a leg with several knees, out of sight. Goose bumps prick my skin and I shiver, standing there.
I always stand there, heart thumping.
Like I’m waiting for someone.
And he always shows up.
Like he knew I was coming.
The whites of his eyes are beacons in the night as his tiny fingers wrap around my wrist. How old is he? Like, three? He presses a finger to his lips and worry knits his tiny brow. He pulls me along and my heart races as fast as my feet. Leaves crunch under us, cracking through the air, and my breath comes quicker. I duck under a bristly branch with fuzzy crimson flowers and step over several fallen ones.
Something cracks.
I don’t breathe.
He stops and squeezes my hand, listening. The fear in his eyes is thick like the night.
“Where…,” I start.
Then I wake up.
I gasp and blink the world back into focus. The hum of the bus settles my nerves. Some.
“Rue?” Tasha asks, smoothing her hair down from resting her head against the window. “You okay?”
“I dozed off. I’m sorry. I-I’m fine.”
Outside, the sun dips below a tall brick building and darkness sets on us.
“You don’t look fine. You’re panting like a racehorse and your lips have, like, no color.”
“I said I’m fine.” I hop up for a better view. “That’s our stop up there. Come on.”
Familiar buildings of East Row slink into view, orange in the streetlight. I sit up, soaking in the sight of home. My insides twist like a knot, half nerves, half anticipation. I know I’m asking Bri to risk a lot. The last thing I’d want is to get her in trouble over something I had her do. But I had to ask. I need answers from Ghizon.
