Vengeance made a high-pitched clicking sound that managed to be full of derision. “Your own history proves otherwise, child.”
Bitter shrugged. “Then we will make another history.” She could feel the rightness of what she was doing, and it spread calm in her like a sweeping wind. Bitter closed her eyes and imagined Vengeance being sucked back into the charred wood panel it had come out of, being snapped back into whatever realm it had come out of. It was time. None of her creatures could stay here forever. “Leave our world,” she commanded. “Your hunt is over.”
Vengeance let out an enormous roar and lunged at her, its mouth unhinging as if to swallow Bitter alive. Aloe screamed and Miss Virtue took a rumbling step forward, but then Vengeance blew apart in a cloud of white smoke, eggshells crashing to the ground, ash layering over Bitter’s clothes and eyelashes, wax melting on her sweats.
Just like that, the angel was gone.
Aloe ran up to Bitter and patted her over. “Did it hurt you?” he asked, his voice frantic. “Are you okay?”
Bitter opened her eyes and coughed, brushing ash and paint dust off her face. “I’m okay,” she said. Aloe hugged her tightly, and Bitter looked over his shoulder at Miss Virtue, at the creature that used to be Miss Virtue, at the fallen angel that was maybe still Miss Virtue. “Is everything going to be okay now? Since I sent it back?”
Miss Virtue’s wings rustled against each other, and her many eyes blinked. “I didn’t know gates could do that.”
“Sunflower told me.”
Miss Virtue folded her wings in. “Sunflower and I will have a talk, then.” She looked at Bitter, and Bitter felt a faint jolt of shock at the reminder that the principal had been an angel all along, masked inside a human body. How many lies was Eucalyptus built on? She was too exhausted to process it, but she could dimly recall the emotion in Miss Virtue’s voice when she spoke about her students. Maybe some things were true, then. “You did well, little gate,” the remaining angel said. “We shall fix the rest of it.” Behind her, the mayor was still slumped on the floor, unconscious.
“Okay. Good.” Bitter felt a massive wave of grayness break over her, heavy and suffocating. Vengeance was gone. Theron was dead. Lucille was still burning. Someone still had to tell Eddie about Mr. Nelson.
“Bitter?” Aloe patted her cheek. “Bitter, are you okay?”
She could feel her eyes rolling up into the back of her head, the atrium blurring around her, a soft and enveloping darkness stretching over her, and Bitter had no desire to fight it. She had already done enough. She had already done too much. With Aloe’s voice fading in her ears, she let herself fall into the black.
The first person Bitter saw when she woke up was Eddie, sitting on the edge of the bed, half her face mottled and bruised and bandaged under a curtain of braids. Bitter’s head was ringing, and she felt dizzy. She tried to sit up, but Eddie shoved her back into the pillow gently. They were in the tangerine room at the safe house.
“Chill. Aloe would kill me if I let you get up. You been out all night.”
Bitter sank back without a fight. She felt utterly drained, and an image of Vengeance’s roaring mouth kept replaying in her head. Eddie held a glass of water up to her lips, and Bitter took a careful sip, then cleared her throat.
“So … yuh talking to me now?” she asked.
It was a harsh thing to start with—she hadn’t even said anything to Eddie about losing her eye—but Eddie was also the last person Bitter had expected to wake up to. It felt like there was a world of hurt and guilt yawning open in her chest. She glanced at Eddie’s face and relented a little. “Shouldn’t you be in bed too?”
Eddie put the glass down. “Yeah, but I wanted to see you.” She sounded about as exhausted as Bitter felt.
“I real sorry,” Bitter managed to say. “About … everything.”
Eddie’s voice was light. “Shit, you’re not the one who shot me or Mr. Nelson.”
“They told you.” Bitter closed her eyes, then snapped them open again. “Wait, he was shot?”
“Yeah, they think it was a stray from the police.”
“Is he still in the alley?” Bitter’s chest tightened as she asked the question. She couldn’t bear to think of him lying there, cold and alone for so long.
“No, no.” Eddie shook her head quickly, like she could feel that abandoned horror too. “We got him out. He’s home now, on the farm.”
Bitter forced back the sob that threatened to accompany her words. “I’m so sorry, Eddie. I wish we could’ve done more for him.” She didn’t know if Eddie knew how she had failed at making Vengeance save Mr. Nelson, but she couldn’t help feeling guilty. Eddie had taken her to this man’s house and then Bitter had called an angel and now, Eddie would never smile with Mr. Nelson in his kitchen again.
Eddie shrugged, a spasm of pain crossing her face. “It’s war, right? People get hurt. People die.”
Bitter wanted to ask how his wife was doing, how Eddie was doing, but Eddie wasn’t quite meeting her eyes.
“Yuh okay?” Bitter asked. Eddie nodded and twisted her hands but still didn’t look at Bitter.
“You were right back then, you know,” she said, changing the subject abruptly. “Not about me resenting you, but that we live in different worlds. It wouldn’t have worked out.”
Bitter frowned. “Why yuh bringing that up?”
“To explain,” Eddie answered. “Why I don’t think we can be friends, not really.”
A pang of hurt shot through Bitter. She should’ve known. Eddie had lost too much and Bitter had made things worse and now she was losing Eddie again. “Look, I know the whole angel thing was my fault, but I was—”
“Nah, it’s not even that.” Eddie let her hands fall still. “You were trying to help, B. I know that.” She let out a sigh and looked away. “It’s because you’re not Assata. I just—I need to be around people who know what it’s like, especially now. It helps me feel less lonely. I didn’t talk to you earlier because you wouldn’t get it, how it feels to be out there, what the costs are, all that shit. And it’s not your fault—you don’t have to. I just … I just need to be around people like me.”
Bitter didn’t know what to say. She’d been out there, with the angels running wild, and she’d paid costs too, but Eddie seemed to be talking about something different. The words should have hurt way more than they did, but there was so much pain inside her that this particular rejection wasn’t registering the way she’d expected it to. Maybe there was only so much pain a heart could process at once, and now she was too numb to fight for her friend. Or maybe, there was nothing left to fight for, nothing she could give Eddie that would make Eddie feel safe and seen. “So yuh girlfriend, she’s Assata?” All Bitter could remember was Eddie describing her as a baking and gardening type.
“Malachite? Yeah, she used to be. Like Alex. Tapped out a couple of months ago, but she knows what it’s like.” A semblance of light returned to Eddie’s face. “We’re gonna go out to this community farm she’s setting up for the Elders and anyone who needs to tap out.”