by J. Elle
I’m pretty sure he’s just showing off now.
Bri gasps again and her jaw drops. “C-can I touch it?”
Everything in Jhamal’s eyes says he wants to say no.
“O-okay,” I cut in. “Well, the point is, yes, you do have it here?”
He meets my eyes and I can feel him thanking me. “We do, my Queen.”
“That’s settled. I’ll use yours. Bri, I want you to hack into the New Ghizon mainframe so that whatever I record plays on every single screen in the District. Can you do that?”
“I-I—”
She hacks into stuff all the time. Why she hesitating?
“I can. It’s a bit different. Instead of getting in and out, I’d have to stay there, monitoring the entire time to make sure the feed doesn’t cut out.”
“It’s risky,” Jhamal says, giving Bri side-eyes. “Much easier to get caught.”
“Yeah, well so is all of this,” I say.
He turns to Bri. “Are you willing to risk getting caught? You could go down for this.”
Silence.
I tap my foot, trying to be patient.
Bri sits there chewing her lip, calculating the risk, no doubt down to a science. If this is how she acts over the news of what the Chancellor’s done, how’s the rest of Ghizon gonna react when I out the truth? I bite my lip and it bleeds.
Jhamal must sense my irritation because he cuts in. “My Queen, I can do this too. You won’t find more advanced capabilities anywhere else.…” He bows his head. “Or a more loyal people.”
He’s laying it on thick and I don’t think Bri’s face could get any pinker.
Jhamal’s about to speak up, but Bri cuts in. “Y-yeah, I-I’ll do it.”
“Look, Bri, if you not down, don’t worry about—”
“N-no, really. Please, I-I w-wanna help. I’ll do it.”
She gon’ take a risk? A real risk? I guess we’ll see. I give Jhamal a look and it’s like he can read my mind, because he nods. I want him to monitor the feed too, just in case.
Always have a plan B.
“It’s settled, then.” I check my watch. “Wait for my signal. I’ll reach out when I’ve got the General cornered.
“Wh-what are you planning to record?” she asks. “So I know.”
“His confession.”
* * *
Back in East Row, Ms. Leola moves around her living room shuffling between clusters of people. Her front room window is half shattered, but the rest of the chaos seemed to miss her brownstone. Chatter buzzes as homies slap hands, handshake, and catch up. Hazy light seeps through mustard-color drapes and scents of onion and Old Bay seasoning linger in the air.
People are everywhere, spread out on her suede couches. Half the block is here, since the Row’s in so much disarray. That’s what family does when one of us is hurting: We carry it together, in living rooms and over food.
I need to get everybody’s attention, tell them the plan. But where’s Ms. Leola? They know her face, how much she means to me. I need her and Tash out of East Row for a little bit.
Ole Jesse dips in and around people, offering to take their empty soda cans. His cart is piled high and parked outside Ms. Leola’s stoop. Cupcake works the room picking up snuggles where he can. He nudges my foot and I pull him into my arms. His purr warms me on the inside. The room is so crowded I lose Tasha. Last I saw her she was gnawing down on a piece of boudin.
I squeeze past some girls neck deep in a bowl of gumbo, making sure my sleeves are down tight. Don’t need more questions right now. Another dude at the coffee table cleans his piece, a ripped-up T-shirt sliding back and forth across the metal. I tiptoe for a better glimpse of Tasha’s neon-streaked braid and step on someone’s toe. A man with tangled gray locs, who I thought was asleep sitting straight up, yelps.
“Oops, sorry,” I say.
“That’s Bo,” Julius says, hurrying toward me. “Hangs outside of the shop I work at. He might look sleep, but trust: He don’t miss a thing.” Julius really came through. So many from the block are here. Kid even showed up. He’s glued to somebody’s phone and apparently winning whatever game he’s playing.
“You really came through with some crew.”
“What, you doubted me?” He says, smirking. “You’re fam. You know that.”
He offers me a fist, but I nudge him instead, playfully. Can’t touch him skin to skin. I spot Ms. Leola, exactly who I was looking for.
“Excuse me a sec.” I walk off, Julius’s lingering stare warms me all over. Ms. Leola peers at the people flooding her living room. Her expression is more wrinkled than usual.
Kid barrels into her, hugging around her waist. “Sup, Ms. Leola?”
“Kid, that you? You looking good, boy! Get yo’self in there and get you a plate.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bumps his way through the crowd, eye on his video game.
She turns to me. “I didn’t know all these people was coming, baby. It ain’t no problem. I just—” She primps her clothes and the edges of her hair. “I was gon’ head out to my sister’s, but it’s fine. I’ll stay.” She counts on her fingers. “Now, I heated a pot of gumbo. Set out some drinks. But I’ma try to get some ham hocks. Do some turnip bottoms.”
There isn’t time for all that. “Ms. Leola, listen to me. Litto’s men fled. But it’s like stirring a wasp’s nest. They’ll be back. I’m sure of it. And this time we ain’t losing. So we don’t really have time for you to make sure everybody gets a plate.”
She looks like someone’s slapped her. Flashes of my shattered cuffs blown through the air like ash, the stillness of my father’s chest, his empty stare whip through my mind.
I pull her to me firmly. “I need you gone. Just in case, please.”
She considers me for a few moments. “I see that look in your eye, chile. So I’ma do as you say, but you be careful now, you hear?”
I hug her as tight as I can and she scoots off to get her keys. I spot Tasha’s braids moving through the crowd toward me.
“So, what’s the plan, Stan?”
“The plan is you’re going with Ms. Leola to her sister’s.”
“What?” She folds her arms. “Why?”
“Tasha, it’s about to go down. It’s dangerous and—”
“I don’t get why you the only one who gets to make a way. Rue, Momma taught me that too. I don’t wanna miss whatever is ’bout to go down at Ms. Bertha’s smelly old house.”
“T—”
“No, listen to me!” Her voice is about two octaves too high. “Moms raised a diamond. Those ain’t just words to me. These people trying to kill me. Trying to kill all of us.”
Chatter quiets.
People are staring.
She goes on. “I’m always sitting on the sidelines watching you protect me. You looked out for me my whole life. Then Moms died and I didn’t see you again for a minute. I ain’t know what to do. I was so scared. I’m staying, Rue. The Row my home too.”
Am I this stubborn?
“T, this ain’t a game. You could get…” I can’t even say the word.
“Look around, sis. Everybody here is ready to do what we gotta do. What you always say? We protect us because—”
“—nobody else going to.”
“Exactly. I’m part of that we.”
She doesn’t know what she’s asking. She asking a lot. All this started to protect her, keep her safe. Now I’m supposed to let her walk into the line of fire?
“Please,” she says.
Ms. Leola’s white hair cap moves through my silent audience. “Alright, baby you ready?” she asks Tasha. Then glances at literally everyone staring at me, confusion written on her face. “Was it the gumbo?”
“No,” I say. “I—the food is fine.”
Tasha narrows her eyes.
I guess I have to let her be who she wants to be.
“Tasha’s staying here.” I regret the words as soon as I say them. Ms. Leola doesn’t like it either, by the expression on h
er face, but she kisses us both on the cheek. Her bony hand wraps around my wrist with an iron grip. “You keep yo’self and that baby alive, you hear?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Ms. Leola shuffles out the door and silence falls on the place. Ole Jesse’s arms are overflowing with cans, but his eyes are fixed on me. Julius is posted up on a wall, arms folded across his chest. He’s not talking to anyone or looking at anything in particular. His jaw is tight, mean. He’s worried. Something twinges in my chest.
He really does cut for me.
Bo’s eyes are wide open, and the sound of a gun clicking into place sends a chill up my arm. Spoons chime and bowls set on tables, a sea of eyes staring back at me.
Everyone’s watching, waiting for me to speak.
I tap my pocket of recorders. It’s time.
“Thank you all for coming.” I shuffle on my feet. Public speaking isn’t really my thing. “I-I know there’s some folks that don’t know everything that’s been going on, and I swear I’ll explain more when I can.” I tug my sleeves down. “But most of y’all have seen what the Litto gang did tonight and has been doing around here.”
A few disgruntled voices chime in and I raise my voice above them. “Litto is—”
“A racist,” someone says.
“Littering our streets,” someone shouts.
“Killing our kids,” says someone else.
“Yes, all that,” I cut in. “He runs most of his drugs through Jameson High, using students. It’s disgusting. And his men trashed half of East Row tonight. He’s done so much foul stuff on our block and I’m done just taking it. The police ain’t taking him down. It’s like no one cares when our people dropping dead or getting locked up left and right.” A few “wells” and “amens” rise from the crowd. “I’m gonna draw him out, back here, and—”
A gun cocks. “And I’ll handle his ass.”
“Wait, listen. If we just knock him off and he disappears, one of his minions could take his place. Us taking down some dude on our own, cops would blame us. I say we go about this smart—with evidence. We know what he’s up to; all we have to do is prove it.
“We are the eyes and ears of East Row. All of us. We see what he’s doing to East Row, our high schools, our streets. The twisted-ass cops he has rolling through here. Reporters don’t come here. Maybe the world don’t wanna see. But we can make them—with proof.
“The world wanna pretend like we not here being hunted because what we look like, where we live. We’ll show them. And with all the evidence we’ll have recorded, plus his confession, when I’m through with him he’ll have nowhere to hide.”
In either world.
I pull out the phototrifiters and pass them out.
“I’m gonna get Litto himself to confess and this little device will record it.”
I hand a phototrifiter to Bo. He examines it and passes it on. The next does the same and the gadgets move down the line.
“You can use your phone if there’s not enough to go around, but these buggers are invisible, so he and his dawgs won’t even know we’re collecting evidence.”
“There’s a white boy at my school, a big snake tat on his neck,” says Kid. “He’s always flashing his bankroll to his boys, talking about all Litto’s pushing.”
“Yes! Video clips of that would be great, Kid. We can get him on drug trafficking, theft, all the stuff he gets away with. With proof, the world will have to listen.”
I press a button on the recorder and it glows green a second, then vanishes.
Gasps echo around the place and someone mutters, “Oh shit.”
“It’s recording everything around me, my voice, my face, the entire scene,” I say. “When you’re done, just touch it and it’ll reappear.” I swipe the spot where it vanished and the slender metal chills my fingers, flickering back into view.
I mash the replay button and a sliver of orange light bursts from its center like a laser and contorts into the shape of my face. The hologram glitches a moment and in seconds, an image appears like a 3D movie, saying everything I just said.
“See, easy.”
Mouths gape open around the room. Kid’s enthralled. The game he was playing sits ignored on his lap as he fiddles with the recording gadget. “This is dope.”
“Oh nah,” someone says from the back. “I don’t want nothing to do with no voodoo shit.” He puts on his cap. “If you’ll excuse me.” The door shuts behind him.
Sigh. My people, I swear. “I-I promise in time I’ll explain e-everything.” Everything I can. “Ole Jesse?”
The man with the cans looks up. “Yea, ma’am. Still here.”
“I want you outside Dezignz recording everything you see.”
He nods and slips the phototrifiter in his pocket. Something about the way he’s chewing his tongue makes me think he’s contemplating how much he could make on it at the place he sells his cans. I ain’t mad at the hustle. Long as he does the recording first.
“And Kid, you’re a good size to sneak under their back gate. Get that recorder inside the warehouse where they keep those stacks of moving crates. It might look like industrial goods, but it ain’t. That’s all their drugs disguised.”
He gives me a thumbs-up.
“Bo, I want you posted up outside against Ms. Leola’s. Eyes on everything.”
“Got it,” he says, wrapping himself tighter in his tattered coat. “They’ll think I’m sleep.”
“Everyone else, I want you keeping eyes out for Litto’s boys. The snake tat is the most obvious mark, but they don’t all have that. Keep your eyes peeled for people who just don’t belong here.” Heads nod and a murmur of voices agree.
I turn to Julius. “I need you to get to Dezignz. Take Ole Jesse and Kid. I’m going to make sure all Litto’s roaches show up. Hold them there, play along, whatever you need to do to keep them waiting there.”
“But how you gon’ get all his boyz—?”
“You trust me?”
“It ain’t even question.” His gaze is soft, tender.
“It’s better if you know less right now,” I say. “Just do this, please.” I should tell him everything. Show him, at some point. After… after this is all done I will explain. Julius nods and his eyes flicker with something that twists a knot inside me.
He’s a ride or die if I ever had one.
“I got you, Rue. Always.” He winks, and he, Jesse, and Kid head out the door.
“Everyone else, go ahead. Get moving, collecting evidence.” The door creaks open and people file out the living room.
“Uhhh, Rue.” Tasha pulls back the polyester fabric at the window. “I don’t think we have time to go look for Litto’s dawgs—”
My heart stops at her deadpan tone.
“The looters—they’re back.”
CHAPTER 34
WITH EVERYONE GONE, RECORDERS in hand, I peep for a better view of a group of men disappearing into a neighbor’s house. Bo posts up outside Ms. Leola’s house for a view of the block. This time I got backup.
I slip past Bo looking like he’s fast asleep out against Ms. Leola’s siding, the silver clutched in his fingers.
“Now,” I whisper, and his recorder flickers in the air then disappears.
I creep through Ms. Leola’s hedges toward the neighbor’s, on the heels of the men who snuck inside. Another thing I learned growing up ’round here: Watch your surroundings. Someone’s always watching.
The Row is in a state of repaired disarray. Some houses have cracked doors. Glass and broken furniture lie in piles outside of homes. I step over a prickly rose bush and peek in Ms. Davis’s front room window. Nothing. But I hear shouts, banging, then a crash. I’m up the stoop, peeking for a view through the hole in the door.
There’s Ms. Davis tied up, knees to her chest next to her granddaughter, Miesha. Their wide eyes dart my way.
I press a finger to my lips and mouth, “It’s gonna be okay.”
Miesha points and holds up the number three.
>
There are three inside.
I listen at the door first. Silence. The knob is cold in my palm. I twist and it opens with a quiet click. Ms. Davis’s hands are shaking, forehead sweating, and a tiny cut drips above her eye. She reaches her bound hands for a zipped-up pouch inches from her fingers. Her insulin. I tiptoe across the carpet and slide it to her.
“I’m going to get them,” I whisper and slip the ties off her hands.
Miesha points toward the hall.
“Go out the back,” I say to her. “Get her out of here.”
Miesha nods, helping her grandmother up.
Banging and commotion spills from the hall. The sound of things knocked over and breaking. They’re going to pay for this. In blood. I peek around the corner for a glimpse of the hall. Wooden picture frames filled with black and white photographs line the olive walls.
Metal clicks.
Shit, they have guns.
One’s standing there, on watch, with his back to me, the hint of a snake tattoo on his neck. I press against the wall, my heart an earthquake in my chest. If there’s only the one in the hall, the other two must be in one of the bedrooms. Another crash and the walls tremble, louder this time, like an entire chest of drawers shattered against a wall.
I dig inside for that twinge of heat—my magic—and picture it like a snake. A coil of light slithers from my fingertip, while I hide around the corner. It twists, stretching across the maroon carpet silently. The guy looks both ways completely unaware. The thread of energy is a thin rope inches from his feet. It tugs from my center, like a jagged thread ripping through me, snaking its way up his pant leg toward his neck. So close. If he moves, he’ll see it coming.
My shoe catches on the baseboard. Shit. He looks my way.
I jerk the rope and it slips around his neck before he can utter a scream. It coils tighter by the second and he drops the gun to claw at his neck. The metal hits the carpet with a muffled clang. So much for stealth. I ease around the corner and I can better see his face. It’s the guy from the car wreck, the same one on T’s Instagram. Anger burns through me and his face turns pink, his lips sputtering.