“How come you never said shit about this? It’s been years.”
“I know.” Bitter ran her hands over her head, then bent her knees so she could rest her forehead against them. “It just feel like it belong to a different world, yuh know?”
Alex turned her hand over to show a cut on her palm. “I slipped with one of my tools just before it came alive….”
“Yeah.” Bitter’s mouth twisted. “Blood is what they need to come through.”
Blessing shuddered. “That’s dark.”
Alex was frowning. “They said they’re angels?”
“They said they’re going to kill the monsters,” Bitter replied, raising her head. “I’s a little more worried about that part of it.”
“Is that such a bad idea?” Blessing asked. Bitter and Alex glared at her, and she threw up her hands. “I’m just saying! Can you think of a better way to get rid of a billionaire?”
Alex stared at her girlfriend. “Are you serious, babe?”
“What? Eat the rich, remember? Guillotines? How is this any different?”
Alex shook her head. “We gotta go talk to Assata.”
Bitter drew back. “For what?”
“We need help, Bitter. We can’t handle this shit on our own.”
“Yuh think they going to believe us?” The last thing Bitter wanted was to involve Assata in this. She’d spent so long steering clear of them, even since Aloe, even since her friendship with Eddie. And what was she going to say to Eddie now? I’m sorry? That would just be pathetic. She’d summoned Vengeance for Eddie—how was she supposed to stand in front of Assata and explain that thanks to her, people were going to die?
Blessing reached out and touched Bitter’s arm. “It’s going to be okay,” she said.
“Ube will believe us,” Alex added. “Don’t worry.”
*
Alex made them turn off their phones before leading them on a dizzying route along Lucille’s back streets that ended at a dark doorway. She held her finger up to her lips, then knocked on the door in a rapid pattern, her knuckles ringing off metal. A light turned on from the other side, leaking around the edges, and a distorted voice came through the steel.
“Identification.”
Alex rattled off a string of numbers and letters that Bitter couldn’t follow. There was a pause, and then the door clicked open. Alex pushed Bitter and Blessing through, glancing around the alley before following them inside. A young child in a flowered shirt and gold overalls closed the door behind them, then hugged Alex’s knees.
Alex frowned as she crouched down so the child could see her lips. “Taiwo, why you on door duty? Where are the others?”
Taiwo signed a reply, their hands blurring in the air. Bitter tried to follow, but she didn’t know enough sign language to understand.
“That’s weird,” Alex said, almost to herself.
“What is it?” Blessing asked as Alex dropped a kiss on Taiwo’s head and the child ran off.
“They’re in seclusion,” Alex replied. “But it’s all wrong. The timing is off. Something else is going on.”
Bitter desperately wanted to ask Alex if the rumors were true, because it was kinda looking that way now, like Alex had left Assata for Eucalyptus, but she kept her mouth shut and followed as Alex led them down a wide hallway that opened up into a sprawling kitchen. A dark-skinned woman with gray hair and soft wrinkles around her eyes was seated on a low wooden stool, surrounded by a semicircle of young children on cushions and colorful mats. Taiwo was settling back in among them, and the woman was reading Sonia Sanchez out loud to the children, tortoiseshell glasses perched on her nose. A girl with afro puffs was sitting on a stool next to her, signing along as the woman spoke. They broke off as soon as the woman saw Alex. Her bright red lips split into a smile, and she put the book down on her lap, the pages resting on the canary yellow of her dress.
“Baby girl,” she said, her voice soft. “It is good to see you.”
Alex’s eyes lit up, and she smiled at the children as she went over to the woman, bending to touch her feet before being pulled into a tight hug. “It’s good to see you too, Miss Bilphena.”
Bitter and Blessing stood awkwardly to the side. It felt like they were crashing some sort of family reunion. Miss Bilphena gave them a brief smile, then returned her attention to Alex.
“What you need, baby? Have you eaten?”
“I’m good, Miss Bilphena. We just here to see Ube.”
Something flickered in the woman’s face. She unfolded from the stool and gestured to one of the older children to come take her place, handing the book to them. “Read for a little bit, baby,” she murmured, then jerked her head at Alex, walking over to the far end of the kitchen. Bitter and Blessing followed behind, still unsure of whether they were welcome. Miss Bilphena hadn’t said a word to either of them yet, but her face when she turned back to Alex was different, tense and controlled.
“You’re bringing outsiders to the safe house, Alex. There better be a good reason.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s … it’s an emergency.”
Miss Bilphena looked at Bitter and Blessing, unconvinced. “Then you can tell me what it is.”
Alex faltered. Bitter didn’t blame her—it would sound unbelievable to say it out loud to anyone who hadn’t seen what they’d seen in that studio.
Miss Bilphena folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Go on,” she said. “If you can say it to Ube, you can say it to me.”
Alex bit her lip, and Blessing leaned forward to step in for her girlfriend. “Well, Alex accidentally brought some kind of angel to life, and it’s lowkey on a mission to murder a bunch of people in Lucille—not that I’m entirely opposed to that, but I would say that, yeah, it’s kind of an emergency.”
Bitter took a deep breath and pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Blessing …,” she started to say, but when she looked up, Miss Bilphena was staring at them with new alarm.
“We’re not lying,” Alex said, her voice knotted with worry. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but—”
Miss Bilphena raised her hand for silence, and Alex broke off, shooting a glare at Blessing, who shrugged. Bitter watched the older woman struggle for control again, the muscles in her jaw flexing.
“You can trust them, Alex?” Her eyes were dark and sharp behind her glasses, and Alex almost flinched under her gaze. “And I mean with the lives of those babies in there, because that’s what’s at stake. You know this.”
Alex paled, but she didn’t back down. “Yes, ma’am.”
Blessing slid her hand into Bitter’s and squeezed it tightly. Miss Bilphena stared at them, then hissed out a sharp breath. “Okay,” she said. Her alarm hadn’t receded, and Bitter realized it had been there all along, even as she’d smiled a calm welcome at Alex when they’d entered. She’d just been masking it, but the woman was scared, terrified even. “There are spirits in the atrium.” Her voice was low and frayed.
Alex blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“They arrived not long ago. We called an unscheduled seclusion, and I took the children in here before they could see.”