Page 50 of Wings of Ebony
It’s almost cute that he cares, but he doesn’t understand who he’s dealing with. What I could do if my magic would answer. I reach beneath my sleeve and thumb the onyx fused to my wrist.
“I agree.” Bri folds her arms. “It’s too risky. And with—”
I cut her a look and she snaps her mouth shut. I know what she’s thinking. Without magic, what am I going to do? And truth is, I don’t know.
But not knowing how to fix something isn’t an excuse not to try.
Can’t they see, ifwedon’t do something, who will?
“I—just,” Bri stutters, tapping her foot like she’s had twelve cups of caffeine. She does that when she’s really worked up. “The odds don’t look good, is all I was going to say.”
“We don’t even know what these people want,” Tasha says.
“They want you dead,” Julius adds. “And they wouldn’t flinch at snatching Rue’s ass too.”
“Butwhyyy?” Hearing my sister’s voice crack wedges a knot deep in my chest.
“Look, I appreciate the concern,” I interrupt. “I feel what you’re saying and I’m not stupid. I’m not trying to walk up in there and demand answers, but Icancheck out the spot they hang at. Try to figure out what the hell they’re after,whythey’re looking for my sister and me, specifically. Pick up some intel.”
Bri sighs, foot tapping a million miles a minute. “Is there a Patrol here? Or someone you can talk to and tell them what’s going on?”
Julius laughs under his breath.
I get it. She’s trying to help. Bri looks between us and the pained expression she wears says everything her words do not: If she stays with me in case I need magic, and ends up using it, Patrol will be here in a heartbeat and have all our asses hemmed up. If I go find these people on my own and end up in danger, I won’t be able to protect myself.
Patrolcannotfind out our location. So her using magic, even if it’s dire, isout! Then all this would be for nothing. She needs to get back to Ghizon and do what we agreed on. That’s best-case scenario at this point.
“I’mjustgoing to collect info. I’ll be fine. And you should get going, Bri. See about that thing we talked about.” I flash her an expression I hope isn’t too obvious. Before the commotion started about me going to scope out Litto’s crew, I had pulled her aside. She’d said before she came to Ms. Leola’s that she looked me up in the Ghizon mainframe and there it was, plain as day:Rue Jelani Akintola… deceased.
“The listing is really clever because it automatically deactivates your onyx, like powering down your magic. There were lots of cases of corpse robbing decades ago, so they added in that coding.”
“So that’s it?” I had gestured to my wrist. “My magic is dead? This is basically some kind of weird wrist jewelry at this point?”
“Pretty much.”
Not the answer I had hoped for.
The best thing she could try to do, she’d said, was hack the mainframe and change the listing toalive. “There has to be an incidental procedure in case some dude spills Juva Juice on a key map or enters it in wrong. Me trying to hack the system is probably our best bet.”
I’d agreed.
But now she’s looking at me crazy, like I was just gonna sit back here and play hopscotch while she’s gone.
“But…,” she says.
“There are no buts.” I face her. “That’s not how things work, Bri. Not here.” No one’s coming to fix this for us.
“Rue, I know odds and these aren’t good. I’m telling you…”
She knows everything, I swear. But life here ain’t like it is back there. Can’t she see that?
“Get going, Bri, please. We talked about this.”
“I mean, if the cops had a handle on Litto’s crew,” Julius chimes in, “they wouldn’t be all over the damn news. I’m not saying do this, Rue. But I get it. If you go, I’m going too.”
Ride or die. Universal code ’round here.
“Then it’s settled,” I say, meeting Bri’s eyes. She nods, barely.
