“We need a moment,” Ube said.
Bitter was trying her best to swallow her sobs, but they kept bubbling up, wet and loud and inconvenient. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry.” Aloe took the headphones from her hands as Blessing and Alex wrapped their arms around her.
“Babes. It’s okay,” they said. “We got you.”
The Assata kids had formed a tight circle around the girls and Aloe. Ube was within the circle as well, with Miss Virtue standing next to him. She was watching the whole thing curiously. It looked like a protocol they had carried out many times before, standing shoulder to shoulder, some interlocking arms and others holding hands. They collectively took deep breaths, exhaling slowly and deliberately, their eyes closed and their heads bowed. Ube swiveled to drag his gaze over everyone, his face calm above his black mask. When he spoke, he kept his voice low, but it carried as clearly as if he was standing right behind each person, speaking into their ear.
“We are each other’s harvest,” he said, and the others joined their voices to his, raising goose bumps along Bitter’s arms. They sounded like they were remembering a prophecy, like they were making a world, reciting a prayer. “We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
They repeated the lines two more times, then broke apart. Bitter’s sobs had stilled into a tearful silence, and her friends were holding her hands. She couldn’t muster up the words to thank the Assata kids, but they gave her small smiles and nods and everyone started walking again.
“Gwendolyn Brooks,” Miss Virtue said to Ube as they moved forward. “You still speak those lines. She has been dead for many decades.”
“Her words will never die,” he replied. “They remind us that we are all in service to one another, we are not separate.” A wistfulness entered his eyes. “Hibiscus has a hard time remembering that. So do a lot of the others.”
“Pain does that to people.” Miss Virtue looked up at the clouded sky. “You all are so young to be doing this work.”
Ube shrugged. “Someone has to. The older folk mean well, but they still got ideas about respectability and working through the system. That shit ain’t gonna save none of us. The angel had a point when it said the world gotta burn before we can build a new one. We just got different ideas about what kinda fire we need, you know?”
Miss Virtue looked amused. “How do you know your way is the right way?”
“I don’t. But we moving with love, and I figure that can’t be wrong.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Even for the monsters?”
Ube had dark shadows under his eyes. “If you’re asking me if I hate them, the answer is no. My mama didn’t raise me like that. I want to stop Theron more than the others do, shit. I just don’t think killing him is the way to go.”
“A different type of fire.”
“Exactly.”
They were close to the city center now. Bitter could see Eucalyptus’s buildings standing up against the sky. For a second, she thought about just breaking out of the pack and running, running until she was through that side gate and up the stairs and back in her room as if none of this had happened, except there was a charred panel of wood there that would remind her that her world had changed, her paintings were no longer safe, and she could no longer hide. The group stopped walking, and Miss Virtue cocked her head to listen to the commotion.
“They’re already at the center,” she said. “We’re running out of time.”
“We’re like a block away,” Aloe said. “What do we do?”
Ube glanced around. “Aight, Assata, to me. Eucalyptus, y’all post up in that alley for a few minutes, okay? We’re going to get closer and see what the situation looks like. We’ll be right back.”
“Five minutes,” Miss Virtue said, then melted away into a gaggle of people.
“Where the fuck is she going?” Alex asked.
“No fucking idea. Doesn’t matter.” Ube turned to leave. “And I mean it, stay there. We don’t have time to be looking for people.” He went off with the Assata kids while Bitter drew back into the alley with her friends. It was a dead end, which made her feel better, like no one could sneak up behind them.
Blessing poked Alex. “How come you didn’t go with Ube?”
Alex leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “I’m Eucalyptus now, I told you. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
“Why did you leave Assata?” The question spilled out of Bitter unintentionally, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh shit. I eh mean to say that out loud.”
Alex chuckled. “It’s cool. I just got burned out. Wanted to make things.”
“They didn’t mind?”
“Eh, some of them did. The ones who mattered didn’t.”
“Did you ever feel … guilty?”
“For not being in the trenches anymore? Fuck no. That shit is brutal.” She bent over and wiped some dust off her boots, then straightened back up. “Like, I got mad respect for my Assata folk, for sure. But we all know what it takes out of you, so yeah, most people get it when you have to tap out. Some folk just chill at the house, you know, work with the babies, work in the garden. There’s always a ton of admin work for all our programs—the free breakfasts, the rent assistance, all of it. I wanted to learn shit you can only get at Eucalyptus. I think they woulda been more chill about it if I’d tapped out but still stayed.”
“Wow. I used to think allyuh had to be, like, doing frontline shit.”
Alex laughed. “Nah, that’s wild. Don’t trust any movement that’s tryna make martyrs out of kids, man. We not even twenty-one yet.”
Bitter turned her head to look down the alley, losing focus on the conversation for a minute. She thought she’d heard something rustle back there. Aloe and Alex were talking about back when the drinking age used to be twenty-one. “Wild, right?” he was saying. “But then they’d give you a gun soon as you turn eighteen.”
“Old enough to die, not old enough to drink.”
The sound came again, and Bitter took a step back. “Allyuh hearing that?” she asked. She wasn’t about to head toward it alone, not in a dim and dead-end alley on a day like today. The rest of them fell silent, and then the sound came again, this time weaker.
Blessing stepped back as well. “See now, I think this is where we dip the fuck out immediately.”
“Ube said not to leave, though,” Bitter replied.
“You wanna get jumped in an alley, be my fucking guest. I vote for leaving right now.”
“Hold up,” Alex said, taking slow steps forward.
“That is a nonmelanated decision if I’ve ever seen one,” Blessing muttered. “Why she moving toward the creepy sound?”
“Nah, I think there’s someone back there,” Alex continued, squinting.
“That’s not helping your case, my love.” Her girlfriend was starting to look really worried. “Please come back?”
“Lemme go with her,” Aloe said. “You two stay ready, okay?”
“Been ready.” Blessing looked like she was about to burst into a sprint any second.