Wings of Ebony: Chapter 27–Afterthoughts

The thatched roof solidifies in focus and I can breathe again.

I keep walking toward the pit, now barely distinguishable in the darkness.

Their magic is there, but small, stunted.

The world around us shifts, obscuring everything.

I push past him, eager to hug my girl, but angst is all over her face.

"You can't be serious," she says, an incredulous look on her face.

I want to get back to Tasha and take care of the General from there, meet him off his turf. Basic squabble rules: jump somebody on their home turf, end up outnumbered.

“Do you like him?” he whispers, lips twisted in a suggestive smile.

He steps outside but turns back, a whimsical look in his eye. “I'm just saying, a Ghizoni boy paired with our blood could ma—”

"Get back here," he yells as he snatches my hoodie, pulling it taut around my neck.

He's panting, face bloody, seething mad.

“We can keep this cordial." The General swirls a ball of fire in his hand. “Or I can burn this place to the ground. Hand over the cuffs.”

"The Chancellor isn't keen to let me keep playing my little games here, if I don't keep my word to him."

“Quick on your feet. No one gets one over on you, Rue. You're stubborn to a fault. That is your determination. Your mother swore to me, raising you here in East Row would make you resourceful, protective, a thinker—a leader."

“You are destined for greatness, Jelani. I tell you not to be sentimental. I tell you because it is true. Look at what your Ancestors have come through—that greatness flows in your veins."

His chest stills and the skin on my wrists burns, like the cuffs are piercing the marrow of my very bones.

Paramedics have IV drips out, bandaging people up, carting people off on gurneys.

"The call from Luke was a hoax. Tasha wasn't taken at all. It was a way to draw me out. So the General's men could get me. He wants the cuffs."
She gasps. "Conniving swera. Rue, I—"

“I didn't know all these people was coming, baby. It ain't no problem. I just—" She primps her clothes and the edges of her hair.

“Now, I heated a pot of gumbo. Set out some drinks. But I'ma try to get some ham hocks. Do some turnip bottoms."

"But most of y'all have seen what the Litto gang did tonight and has been doing around here." A few disgruntled voices chime in and I raise my voice above them.

Mouths gape open around the room. Kid’s enthralled. The game he was playing sits ignored on his lap as he fiddles with the recording gadget.

His body jerks, convulsing with each hit.

The dorm quad and courtyard on my left is teeming with students.

Golden Mane instigates and their disagreement grows louder.

He swats at me with the brunt of his gun.

I feel for the divot in the restraints and dig my nail in.

Time is fleeting.
We gotta say the things we think and feel while we can.

It probably helped that I put the General on speakerphone, and with some fiery prodding—literally—he said just what I told him to.

His pupils dilate and he's somewhere between lackadaisical and pissed.

"The Chancellor fashioned that paste for my skin to take on that grayish color, strapped me up with plenty of Yoheem Elixir to metabolize my genetics, replenish my fitness levels. Same stuff Patrol takes to keep them in youthful shape. Same stuff the Chancellor takes to keep his cells regenerating at the rate of a twenty-year-old. The man’s, like, a hundred and twenty-five years old, you do realize?”

"Are you admitting to colluding to commit genocide against...?"

But foreal though, some folks 'round here wary of all this talk about magic...

A few straggling reporters rush my way; their cameras swivel in my direction.

My story makes me strong. Resilient. Unshakable.
I'm a force to be reckoned with. A mountain that won't be moved.