Aloe grabbed Bitter’s hand and she looked up at him, but his face was indistinct. She realized that her eyes were veiled with tears. Theron was dead. Vengeance had executed the most powerful man in Lucille and dropped his body in front of everyone like he was a bag of trash, just being thrown out, just being cleared. There was blood, and she didn’t know how much of it was on her hands, because she had started this, she had called the angel through with her terrible wants. She had wanted to be a monster, to summon something monstrous to get rid of Lucille’s monsters, and now Bitter didn’t know who was the monster or where the lines that described it started or stopped. Did those lines reach into her? Was Vengeance still carrying out her wants or its own? Had she wanted Theron to become inanimate flesh, sudden meat slapping against the floor? Blessing had seemed to agree with the angels that monsters needed to die, and yet here she was, sobbing while Alex held her. Bitter stared at them through her tears. Alex was dry-eyed, but her skin was drawn. Maybe none of them knew what they wanted.
Miss Virtue led them to the edge of the park and was about to turn down a street when Ube stopped her. “There’s Hibiscus,” he said.
Bitter turned to look, and sure enough, there was Hibiscus with the other Assata kids who had chosen to go with the angels. They were under an awning, separate from the crowd, and as one of them moved aside, Bitter saw who they were gathered around.
“They have the mayor,” she said, shocked. His hands were bound like Theron’s were, and he was bleeding from a gash on his head.
“Oh fuck,” Alex said, and the skin around her mouth went bloodless with tension. “Is he next?”
Blessing looked like she was about to throw up. Bitter broke away from them and ran over to Hibiscus. She shoved him in the chest, not caring that he was so much bigger than her. “Yuh happy now?” she yelled. “It feeling like justice to you yet?”
Miss Virtue and the others joined her. Hibiscus looked pale. “I—I didn’t know …”
Alex drew her fist back, then shook out her hand. “I really wanna punch out your goddamn stupid face,” she said. “What d’you mean, you didn’t know? They told you from jump they were gonna kill him!”
Hibiscus shook his head, his voice tangled with confusion, an uncertain wildness flickering in his eyes. “I didn’t know it would feel like this,” he said. “Like, we’ve seen people die before, but this? This shit ain’t the same. It doesn’t … it don’t feel right.”
“Glad to see you’re catching up,” Ube said flatly. He looked over at the others who were with Hibiscus. “How about y’all? You still fiending to see more people die?”
They glanced at each other and shook their heads. “Nah, those things are scary as fuck,” the girl in red said, looking shaken. “They don’t—they don’t care about anything.”
“So maybe let the mayor go,” Blessing suggested. “We don’t have to keep this shit going.”
Hibiscus stepped in front of the man. “We can’t do that,” he said. “He’s been loyal to Theron for years. The council listens to him. We can’t just let him go.”
“You cyah let the angels kill him either,” Bitter snapped. “You realize they never going to stop, right? It go just be executions and executions, over and over again, for anyone they decide is a monster.”
Miss Virtue glanced back at the crowd. Its energy was finally shifting, horror and shock morphing into terror and the seeds of panic. “We have to leave right now,” she said. “Things are about to scatter, and I promised Miss Bilphena I would get all her kids back to the safe house before it got ugly.”
Ube turned to Hibiscus and the rest of the splintered Assata faction. “Y’all ready to come back?” he asked. “We can figure this out at home.”
Hibiscus hesitated, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “We didn’t lead them to the rest of the council yet—it was just Theron and the mayor.”
The boy with long braids looked sick to his stomach. “They killed Theron’s entire security detail,” he said. “As if it was nothing.”
Miss Virtue looked grim. “Sounds about right. Come on. We’ll take the mayor back with us.” Sunlight reflected off her suit as she turned sharply and began to lead them through Lucille, away from the murderous angels and back to the wards of the Assata house.
*
Miss Bilphena sent the little children upstairs when the crew returned, shaking her head at the sight of the mayor, who they had blindfolded. “Really?” she said. “We taking political prisoners now?”
“They killed Theron,” Ube replied, his voice dull. “Snapped his neck in front of the whole of Lucille.”
“What?” Miss Bilphena closed the door behind them.
“Yup.” Ube turned to Hibiscus. “Take him to the atrium?” Hibiscus nodded, seemingly relieved to have Ube making the calls again, and led the mayor away. Miss Virtue sighed and shrugged off her jacket. She was wearing a white button-down shirt underneath with a snakeskin vest.
“Tea?” Miss Bilphena offered.
“Yes, please.” Miss Virtue walked with her into the kitchen and sat down, unbuttoning her cuffs and rolling her sleeves up. “Chamomile, if you have it.” The gas stove clicked as a ring of blue fire erupted under the kettle, and Bitter leaned against the kitchen wall, letting her legs give way until she was sitting on the floor. Blessing sat down next to her.
“How you feeling, babe? This shit is wild.”
Bitter reached out and squeezed her best friend’s hand. “I real sorry I dragged you into this,” she said. Blessing’s eyes looked haunted by what she had seen in the park. She adjusted her hijab around her face and summoned up a little smile.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “All of this just got outta control.” Alex and Aloe joined them, passing out bags of potato chips.
Bitter refused hers. “I not hungry.”
Aloe pressed it into her hand anyway. “Doesn’t matter. You still have to eat.”
“I can’t believe it killed him,” Alex said, sitting cross-legged on the tile. “It looked like it was snapping a toothpick or some shit.” Blessing smacked her arm. “Ow! What?”
Bitter felt sick. “I should’ve done more to stop it.”
“You did everything you could,” Aloe said. “We can’t change what’s happened—we just have to somehow figure out how to stop it from killing the mayor.”
Blessing’s eyes went wide. “How long do you think before it comes here looking for him?” They all stared at each other.
“Shit,” Alex said, and put down the rest of her chips. “She’s right. It’s gonna come right back here, and it’s gonna be pissed.”
Bitter pushed herself up from the floor. “That’s fine,” she said, remembering Mr. Nelson’s face breaking open into a smile as he watched her taste the sweet potato pie in his kitchen just yesterday. Now he was lying gray and cold out in that alley with Alex’s jacket over him, all because of the angel. “I real pissed too.”
Miss Virtue took her cup of tea from Miss Bilphena with a grateful smile. “Shall we join the others in the atrium?”