Page 132 of Wings of Ebony
The reporters look at one another, brows furrowed, completely bewildered.
“Once I looked the part, he told the people I was an old buddy from Moyechi, his tribe. He announced I’d be heading up the territory’s security measures. Tightening things up to keep us safer from outsiders. Given their history, they bought it, of course.”
The lies. So many lies.
Still, that doesn’t explain everything.
“What does my mother have to do with any of this?”
“When the Chancellor found out about you, it rattled him,” he says, reluctantly. “You see, I’m a sea of calm under pressure. Not him. He was hasty, and ordered me to find you and your sister. He demanded I snuff out your entire bloodline to be sure Aasim’s seed was cut, root and stem. We weren’t sure about Aasim’s relation to that Tasha girl, but didn’t want to take any chances. I sent a few guys from my crew here to keep Patrol’s nose out of it. I couldn’t have them knowing about my dealings here, because that would blow the Chancellor’s and my story. The Ghizoni believed I was from there,see. An old friend of his. But they made mistakes. They killed your mother, but couldn’t find you or the other one.”
My mother and sister might have been an order from the Chancellor, but the General’s smug grin makes it clear he was happy to carry it out.
“The Chancellor keeping Aasim alive, believing he could make a ‘son’ out of him in case he needed his raw magic later, was a costly, arrogant misstep.” He turns from the camera to me. “Had he made absolutely sure he killed all those brown fuckers when he united the tribes, you wouldn’t exist. And I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”
I slap him so hard my hand stings. Reporters and bystanders with phones out swallow us on this tiny patch of concrete in the center of my home. I slap him again.
“Are you admitting to colluding to commit genocide against…?” The reporter looks to me for clarification.
“All kinds of brown-skinned people, Black people,” I say.
“… Black people?” She finishes the question and holds the microphone to him. More microphones pile in next to hers.
“I did it and I’d do it again,” he says. “Only smarter next time.”
I clench my fists. I want to clock him, just one more time. But the lady with the yellow poster holds me back. “You’re a racist and you chose to take out your hate on my community! You will rot for this.”
The reporter prods him again. “Are you the notorious boss of the Litto gang? The gang allegedly responsible for strings of unsolved murders, armed robberies, and drug trafficking across the city?”
He struggles with the words, fighting the serum, but they force their way out anyway. “I am. You say it like it’s a big deal. These people don’t matter. Never did. Never will.”
I bite my knuckle to keep from punching him again. Our crowd has swelled, more parents showing up. Between families and the media, there are a hundred around us, maybe more. I recognize Demarcus’s mom, Aunt Bertha. She’s holding a poster with Demarcus’s face grinning at me in his starter jersey from the Jameson basketball team. And like a trigger, more memories play on repeat in my head.
Brian, his name was Brian.
Reporters crowd me and video lights turn on.
The world is watching, Rue, what you gotta say?
“Brian, his name was Brian,” I say. “He was in the National Honor Society and he was Homecoming King. I didn’t know him personally, but he was Black, like me. He refused to sling drugs. I saw it. And they killed him for it.” I face the General. “Brian, his name was Brian, andhemattered. SAY IT, or so help me I’ll burn your eyes off your face!”
Anger rises off him like steam. “B-Brian. H-his name w-was Brian.…”
“And?”
If looks could kill. “A-and h-he m-mattered.”
Aunt Bertha’s crying hard, shoulders shaking. I pull her to me. She points to her poster. “H-his name was Demarcus a-and he mattered.” Her voice cracks, but another mother holding a different poster loops her arm in Aunt Bertha’s.
The General scowls, glancing at me, then speaks. “D-Demarcus. H-he m-mattered.” The words leave his tongue as if they taste like rotten meat, but I’ll take them.
Another mother speaks up. The one looped in Aunt Bertha’sarm. “And my daughter’s name was Ebony. She was so bright. Only fourteen, and she mattered.”
He repeats Ebony’s name, seething. More lines of onlookers face the General and tell him their children’s names. He repeats each one, saying they mattered, begrudgingly.
It doesn’t bring them back.
It doesn’t change that they’re gone.
