by J. Elle
As it burns hotter, the rope squeezes.
The way he smiled, luring her to get inside…
Tighter.
The flames from the car wreck…
Pinker.
Squeeeeze.
He falls with a thud and I step over him.
With a flick of the wrist, the thread of energy fizzles out. I shove his gun in my waistband.
Three left.
“Get that stuff, too, over there. The old radio.” A guy who held me at gunpoint after the coffee shop turns a drawer of Ms. Davis’s things upside down. A porcelain doll that used to sit in her kitchen window smashes the ground. She loved that piece.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say.
They flip around, shock on their faces. No weapons in their hands because they’re neck deep in robbing sweet ole Ms. Davis.
“Oh yeah, says who?” The bigger one kicks a stack of what looks like leather-bound photo albums. He steps on them, walking toward me, and they rip apart.
“Pretty price on your head, little girl.”
“You’re not leaving here with legs,” I say.
He charges at me, but I’m ready. A rush of energy rips from me, slamming into his chest. He flies backward and thuds against the wall. His head flops—his eyes go woozy. I pin him there. My magic spews against his chest like a hydrant, the room glowing blue from the light.
“Ahhh, this shit burns. This stupid girl is crazy. She crazy! L-let me go!”
I push harder and he squirms, his skin growing redder. My arms ache and his cries quiet. I pull back and the stream of magic evaporates as quickly as it came. He plops on the ground, his shirt in shreds. His chest is sunburn-red as he curls in a ball, wincing in pain.
His friend is pale and he falls to his knees. “P-please don’t hurt me. I got a family, kids.”
“Oh, kids matter to you all of a sudden… when they not brown-skinned?”
Tears pour down his face and the crotch of his pants is wet. “Whatever you want. I-I’ll do whatever you want.”
Coffee shop dude lifts his face, red and blotchy. “Just wait until Litto gets his hands on her. He’ll handle her.” He tries to get up, but collapses. I ignore him, turning to the scared dude, his pissy scent wafting to my face.
“What’s your name?”
“B-Billy.”
“Billy, your friend there isn’t very smart. The more he talks, the shorter his life gets.” Billy’s eyes fall to my cuffs and his mouth opens wider.
“But you’re not like him, are you, Billy? You’re smarter than he is.”
His head’s nodding, but he won’t look away from my wrists. A coiled snake with bared fangs marks his neck. “I just wanted to get some stuff and get out of here.”
“I’m going to tell you to do some things and you’re going to do them. You understand that, Billy?”
Dude in the corner tries to speak. “Don’t listen to—”
I fire an arrow of light and it flies with a swish, slamming into his mouth, clamping it shut. He squirms, and his screams disappear.
Two left.
I turn back to Billy. “First, call your crew, every single one, to Dezignz.”
“A meetup like that only comes down from Litto himself. I-I can’t do that.”
I conjure fire in my palm and hold it close to Billy’s face. “Aren’t you the smart one?”
“O-o-okay,” he stutters, pulling out his phone. The phone’s like a wet bar of soap in his hands, but he manages to start tapping. I keep an eye on the mass message.
Orders from the top. Come in.
“N-now?”
“Yep. Right now.”
He adds:
2300.
Military time? Weird.
“N-now what?” He asks.
“Now message Litto. Tell him to come here.”
“H-here? Not Dezignz?”
“Here.”
He hesitates a moment then the message sends with a swish. “Sent.”
“Smart boy, Billy.”
He smiles; I slam my fist into his face. His head swims, and he falls over on the floor.
One left.
The General.
CHAPTER 35
I’M SITTING ON MOMS’S old stoop when the General shows up.
Bo’s still in his spot outside Ms. Leola’s and Julius buzzed to let me know he, Kid, and Ole Jesse are in place at Dezignz, and that the General’s goons are pouring in.
I slip the recorder from my pocket and press the button on top. It hovers a second and disappears. A few taps on my watch and I fire off a message to Bri.
Me: Recording started.
At the corners of my vision, Bo looks like some homeless dude catching a nap. A pair of curtains flutter on a window at the far end of the block. Tasha’s peeking. As long as she stays inside, we’re good. I’m out here alone on purpose. I want the General to think I’m his only competition.
He walks toward me, no more than a few stoops away. His white shirt is crisp; its tail blows in the wind. I don’t get up to meet him, but I tug down my sleeves. Let him think I’m weak. He gazes around, looking for his men no doubt.
“Rue,” he says. “It’s poetic you’d be here at Naomi’s door.”
The sound of my Moms’s name on his tongue makes the magic in my fingers twitch. I want to shoot a dagger right at his chest, pierce that thumping organ that gives him the freedom to live. A freedom he’s taken away from so many others.
Brian, his name is Brian.
But first I need his confession.
The onyx on his wrists mocks me, my anger rising.
“Those cuff bracelets you’re after were from ancient Ghizon. The Ghizon you and the Chancellor tried to erase.”
He’s close now—so close I can smell his stench. His mug is hateful, lips in a permanent grimace. His pasty grayish skin, like all the Ghizonians have, is dull in the lamplight, but his is extra flaky. Or something.
I hate him.
“A-ah,” he says, wagging a finger at me. “Now let’s not go pointing fingers. That was the Chancellor’s doing before I met him. Here, I’m practically following orders.” He smiles.
Every second he draws breath, I hate him more.
Confess.
“That’s what you call this? Following orders? Flooding East Row with drugs, hanging out at community centers, stalking schools, all the while holing up in Ghizon?”
A smirk splits his lips as if he’s savoring this moment. Satisfied with himself like he has me cornered or some shit. I’ll be wiping that grin off your face. I swallow the spit I wanna hurl at his mug.
“Well,” he says as if he’s amused, “when you put it like that… I’ll certainly take credit where credit is due.”
I’m up on my feet, inches from him. “Ain’t no other way to put it. You bleeding my block. You got a whole world in Ghizon to stir up shit, but you come here.”
His skin is even stranger up close.
I slam a finger at his chest. “WHY!”
He grabs my wrist. Tight.
For a second he’s so angry his head looks like a pimple that needs to pop. But as his grip tightens on my metal arms, his eyes grow wide.
Yeah, be scared. I shove him. “WHY?”
Confess.
He stumbles back and his jaw tightens. He points at me and the onyx on his wrists swirl with energy.
“You wanna throw down?” I roll up my sleeves and my cuffs gleam in the evening sun. “Go ahead. But before the light leaves your eyes, you will say what you did and tell me why.”
“You’re a waste of space, just like your mother.” He shoots first and I dart sideways, a streak of light flying by with a crack.
I fire back, flames rolling from my fingertips. They barrel through the air and catch his shirt. Flames lick up his sides and he growls before putting them out with a spray of water.
We circle. He spins and stretches light with his hands into the shape of a machete. Oh shit. He slashes and I jerk left, dodging. It flies by with a whoosh. En
ergy tears through my palms like barbed wire and I shoot, aiming for his head. He spins sideways a second too late and my magic slashes his cheek. He cups his face, gasping.
“Give it up, old man, you ain’t winning here.”
His blade slashes left, then right, as he steps toward me. The weapon’s heat swishes past me, so close. So very close, like dancing with fire. I step back and my heel catches on a crack in the pavement. I slam the ground, pain shooting up my spine.
I try to get up, but his blade is over me like a guillotine. It comes down fast and I shield my head. Clang. His machete slams into my wrist, his full weight bearing down overhead.
Up, I gotta get up.
Screeech. His blade scrapes my arms as I push, straining to force him backward.
“Ahhhh!” He’s so strong. I push, remembering everything I’m fighting for. I thrust with all my might and he falls back, his blade fizzling out.
I gulp down air while he’s on the ground, recovering from the blow.
P-pop, pop-p, pop, pop.
I fire blasts one after another, my magic slamming into him with a hisssss. He grimaces, clutching each singed spot. I fire again, harder, faster. His body jerks, convulsing with each hit. He tries to get up, but my magic knocks him back down. I push forward, blasting blow after blow, not letting up.
Something behind me that sounds like a door claps closed.
The General hunches over in pain on the ground, his skin blotchy and bloody. His lips are swollen and his trembling fingers conjure a flame that keeps shorting out. I cut a glance at the place where the recorder disappeared. It’s getting all of this. But what I need, what I want is him admitting what he’s done. I let him get up.
“TELL ME WHY!”
Confess.
He scowls as if he has no plans to say a word.
I pull at the threads of energy sizzling through me and shove with both hands. The air ripples like waves, slamming into him. He flies backward, lands hard, and howls in pain.
I’m over him now and rage flows through me instead of blood. A flame dances from my fingertips and I hold it to his throat. “Say it. Say what you’ve done. I wanna hear it.”
He flares his nostrils, glancing both ways.
“No one’s coming to save you.” I hold the flame closer to his throat. “Confess!”
“Confess?” A deranged look, then a smirk flit across his face. “What do you want to hear, huh? How I came to your mother’s doorstep looking for you? How I have more drugs running through that one high school than in half the city? That’s what you want to know, huh?”
“I want the truth. All of it.”
“You want to hear how it’s cheaper to buy a cop in this town than a pair of courtside seats? How many faces I’ve buried for not doing what I say? Where I’m going to hide your body too.” His jaw clenches.
He’s trying to scare me.
“I run your neighborhood. Me! That’s what you want to hear, Rue—Rue from East Row? I do things to people like you that make nightmares seem like sweet dreams.” He laughs to himself. “Your mother thought she was tough too. But she bled to death like a piece of meat. And so will you. The Chancellor ordered you to be killed as soon he found out what your father did. But we couldn’t find you. He was gonna give up searching, thinking you’d never seek out Ghizon.” He glances at my cuffs. “But he showed me the books.…”
What books?
“And I knew what kind of threat you’d be. I saw it all my life; I told him, give Coloreds a little power and they’ll want to start changing shit.”
Wait. “What do you mean you saw it all your life?”
He flinches, but I catch it and I let the flame lick his face. The spot it touches turns from gray to pink. What the? I slide a finger down his pasty skin and it’s gritty on my fingers, like makeup. The fire’s peeling away his gray complexion?
How… unless he’s… no way…
I gasp, the realization sending shockwaves through me. “Y-you’re human?”
“Not completely stupid, I see,” he says. “But I guess even dogs have brains.”
I glance at where the recorder disappeared, and I let out the tiniest sigh of relief. I’m getting all this, all this proof. The Ghizoni won’t be pleased.
Looking away was a mistake.
Something slams into me and I fly backward, skidding on the ground. Prickles of pain shoot up my spine and I can’t feel anything. My head pounds, throbbing, when a familiar girl’s voice swirls in my ear.
“No!” the voice screams.
Tasha?
No! I told her to stay back. The girl yells again, louder. Thoughts tangle in my head as I try to pull myself up on my feet.
“Get off my sister,” she yells, slamming into the General’s back, her nails digging into his face. She catches him off guard for a split second.
And it’s the second I need.
I’m up, still woozy, but I channel every fragment of humming inside me to my wrists and shove. A roar of energy rolls through me, bursting from my hands and slamming into him. He stumbles, but latches onto Tasha by the hair. She howls in pain.
Shit! NO!
I rush toward her. Everything’s woozy, but I fling myself forward toward the blurry image of them. I throw a dart of fire in his direction, groaning in pain, still dizzy from slamming the concrete. My shot blows right past him. Before I can fire another, his magic wraps around her like a lasso.
“Let her gooooo!” The words come out like nails clawing a chalkboard. He’s marching toward me, dragging her. “Now you’ll cooperate, won’t you?” he says, tugging at Tasha’s scalp.
He’s gonna take me back—back to Ghizon.
The recorder. I need the recorder.
Up. I have to get up.
Before it’s too late.
Before he zaps us out of here and the only bit of evidence I have stays here.
I stumble up to my feet, but the world is spinning.
“It’s too late, Rue,” he cackles. “Just quit.”
Quitting isn’t in my vocabulary.
He shoots and my skin burns like fire’s split it open. I force myself to ignore the throbbing and run back toward Moms’s stoop where I activated the recorder. My feet are clumsy over each other, but I reach Moms’s stair rail and grip it to steady myself.
Panting, I reach for the spot where the recorder vanished, hands swatting the air. It was here. Somewhere. I reach higher, grabbing, grasping at nothing. Shit! WHERE IS IT?
Fire slams into my reaching fingers. “Ah!” Another strike pounds my back and I fall to my knees. Everything hurts.
The recorder, get the recorder.
I strain, reaching around in the air. It was just here. I activated it sitting right here. I touch the tip of something cold and stretch my fingers, reaching. So close. I-I’m so cl—
Metal handcuffs close around my wrists, subduing my magic.
“No!” I’m going to Ghizon with no proof of who he is, what he’s done.
He gestures at Tasha. “I’ll be keeping her alive for now, so you behave.” He snatches me up by the wrists and the metal cuffs bite into my skin.
“But, you… oh, you will die slowly for being a pain in my ass.” He smooths a speck of blood from a gash in his cheek. “But first, the Chancellor intends to have those cuffs, even if he has to cut them off.”
He mumbles the transport spell and everything goes black.
CHAPTER 36
I BLINK AND GHIZON SURROUNDS me.
Angry stares cling to my skin like sweat on a humid day. It’s like déjà vu except this time how do I get away? And now Tasha is a hostage, too.
The sun scorches my head and thoughts rattle in my brain. I’m screaming inside. The Justice Compound—where they keep prisoners—is up ahead, a short walk through Central District. The General touched up his makeup, then called for backup as soon as we arrived, so Patrol surrounds me on either side.
For two “little girls,” they sure act scared.
If
we make it to that detainment room, we won’t make it out alive. Guaranteed.
The General tugs at my wrists to make me walk. It’s probably a hundred steps. A hundred steps before they tuck me away and I never see the sun’s light again. I pull harder, but I can’t get my hands free.
“I’m going to get us out of this,” I whisper to Tasha.
“I-I’m sorry,” she says, sniffling. “I just saw him trying to hurt you—” Her face is stained and tears mixed with blood slip down her face.
“No talking.” Patrol butts the back of her head with a gun and she whimpers. I’m going to hurt him for that. For a second he meets my glare and doesn’t look away. I hope he feels my hate, my anger.
If he doesn’t yet, he will.
I yank my wrists, but the metal clamped around them won’t give. The dorm quad and courtyard on my left is teeming with students.
Ninety steps.
Ninety before they tuck me away and the truth dies with me. With us.
I force down the anxiety swelling in my gut. The crowd glances from the General’s bashed face and singed, shredded clothes to me, covered in rips and cuts. They whisper, pointing at the golden cuffs seared into my wrists.
One watcher, a taller fellow with golden hair, almost like a mane, stops tinkering over a cart of baubles and meets my eyes. I don’t know him, but something in his stare makes my insides slosh.
Eighty steps.
Time’s running out.
The General jerks me harder and Tasha bumps into me. She’s still a bit woozy and her lip’s busted.
“Can you reach my hands?” I whisper.
“I’ll try,” she says. Our fingers clumsily try to unlatch each other’s restraints. I feel the latch for one and try to open it. That’s it, come on, T. Pry it open. A Patrolman catches us and snatches us apart, putting himself between us. And just like that our two seconds of progress is gone.
Sixty steps.
We keep moving down Main Street and Golden Mane works his way through the onlookers, his eyes dead set on me. Maybe I do know him? I squint. Nope, I don’t. The grease stains on his shirt say he must be Zruki. But the baubles he’s peddling look fine, like gold.
Gold.
The detainment area looms ahead and more Patrol, armed with shields, wait. Fear bubbles up my throat.
