Page 35 of Wings of Ebony
“I swear I donotknow 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 isthey?”
“Tasha!” Full on yelling at this point. “You saw some buttoned-upwhite 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 meanthim. 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 THINKthe 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 thesameshape and in thesamespot—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’mthe onlyone ornot oneat all. I was good 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. Hewouldprobably 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.
