“What the hell?”

Greasy Hair drops to the floor, convulsing—I can’t see him but can hear his desperate flailing and the squeak of his sneakers against the floor. Curly Hair staggers forward, and then the door opens slowly.

Slowly.

Shit, what now? I wish Curly Hair had managed to drug me before whatever fresh hell is about to go down takes place.

Fitzroy Sweeney pokes his head in, his wrinkles rearranging themselves as he smiles at us.

“There you are. Good, good.” He opens the door completely and I see that he’s holding a cricket bat in his other hand.

I laugh again; either I’ve had a psychotic break or they’ve given me the drugs already without my realizing because there is no way any of this shit is really happening.

Fitzroy twirls the bat easily in one hand as Curly Hair staggers toward him, then hefts it back and swings right at the researcher’s head; the sound of it smashing into his skull reverberates in the room and then Curly Hair drops out of sight. Fitzroy shuffles over and lays the bat over my knees as he begins to undo the straps.

Someone glides by outside the window and then Gracie steps into the room, dressed in her church clothes and with her gray bob perfectly laid.

“What is going on?” I ask when Fitzroy’s strong grip helping me up makes it clear I’m not drugged or dead. This shit is, indeed, really happening.

“What’s going on is you should have listened to Candace when she told you to come inside,” Gracie says tartly as she pulls the latex out of Theo’s mouth with an expression of disgust on her face. “Just like your mother, always so stubborn and not wanting to ask for help.”

She sucks her teeth.

She unstraps Theo’s hands and chest, and he pops up into a seated position, taking deep ragged breaths. His gaze flies to the two on the floor as he rubs at his wrists. “Do-fa-do.”

“I knew I liked this young man,” Gracie says as she tugs his ankle straps free. “Do-fa-do means ‘tit-for-tat.’ Certainly seemed necessary here, wouldn’t you say?” She grunts as she gives the strap one last tug to free him. “These racists never think about things like the predisposition and mood of the people who prepare their food and beverages. Much like my dear departed husbands. When you expect others to serve you, especially others who you mistreat, you should really be more careful about what exactly it is that’s being served.”

“How did you get in here?” I ask.

“Same way you two did,” Fitzroy says, throwing his arm over my shoulder. I lean into him. “You know we watch out for each other around here. Do you really think you were the only ones who would notice something was amiss?”

Him and Gracie laugh like Theo and I are still in diapers, and even though I’m grateful to them, my anger flares.

“If you knew, then what the f—then what were you waiting for? People are dead. I had to . . . we had to . . .” My throat closes as emotion threatens to swamp me.

Fitzroy takes my hand and squeezes it. “You’re right. We were trying to do things the old way, how we’ve handled it in the past. But the world moves faster now, and evil moves faster, too. We were too slow.”

“I think we can all agree that poison moves quite fast, thank you,” Gracie says peevishly, then sighs. “Bad things happen in this world, every minute of every day. We try to stop them, when we can, how we can. We try to look out for one another. Like, when somebody recklessly buries something in a garden, we move it to a safe location.”

I feel an actual pain in my body, like someone’s kicked me in my chest, but I just squeeze Fitzroy’s hand tighter.

Gracie takes my other hand and helps me off the hospital bed. “That’s what we’ve always done and what we’ll continue to do in Gifford Place.”

“You know Candace,” Fitzroy says, as if he’s about to launch into one of his old man stories. “Candace’s great-grandmother grew up in Weeksville. She was one of the survivors.”

“Survivors?” Theo asks, attempting to stand.

Fitzroy looks at him.

“Cycles,” I say quietly. “Break and build.”

“They can break, but they can’t erase,” Gracie says. “They can build, but they can’t bury us.”

We’re all quiet after that.

When they lead us back into the hallway, I see a line of neighbors helping to evacuate the people who’d been test subjects out through the tunnel.

We get on the end of the line.

Candace is waiting in the cellar of the bodega, holding Frito.

“Sydney.”

She looks at me disapprovingly and I suddenly feel like a child again. Tears well up in my eyes.

“I’m sorry. I should have listened. I should have . . .”

She drops Frito and pulls me into a hug. “Little miss bobblehead. Let’s find you a shower and some sleep.”

“What about the medical center?” The weight of everything starts to crash down on me. The shooting, the bodies, the people in power. We’re alive, but I’ve watched Forensic Files. We’ve left a trail of evidence and will likely be in a VerenTech prison by sunup.

“Oh, we takin’ care of that. Let’s go see.”

When we walk up the steps, the scent of smoke hits my nose. Smoke and an oddly electrical smell, like a battery on your tongue.

We gather yards back from the hospital as it’s consumed in orange flames, with a corona of blue at its center that brightens the sky behind it like a borealis.

Paulette comes to stand next to me, reeking of gasoline.

“Transformer,” she says, more lucid than I’ve seen her in months. “Causes blackouts. Causes fires. Makes the sky so pretty, too. They like the dark; this is so bright that no one in the city can ignore it. If there’re any of them left, and there are, that’s the last thing they want. We gave them an excuse, and a warning. They’ll clean up after themselves.”

A hand comes to rest on my shoulder and I feel Theo’s solid weight behind me.

I lean back into it, and we watch that shit burn down.

Epilogue

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I WAKE UP IN AN UNFAMILIAR BED—the pullout in Candace’s guest room. Arms are around me, in a bear hug, but I’m not afraid.

Theo.

He smells like Ivory soap and smoke, but not the iron of blood anymore.

The scent of coffee drifts in through the double doors that lead to the kitchen, then there’s a hiss and pop of oil and the smell of bacon follows.

When I open my eyes, Miss Ruth is sitting on the arm of the couch, looking down at me and Theo.

“You move fast,” she says, with brows raised and shoulders back in judgment.

I sit up, my entire body sore and my head spinning. My throat hurts from the smoke of the fire we watched and from crying it raw.

“Didn’t you say you never liked Marcus? Let me live, Miss Ruth.”

She leans in closer to me. “Is it pink? Down there? I’ve never seen—”

“Ruth, leave the children alone,” Gracie calls out. “Come help with breakfast.”

When I glance down, Theo is staring up at me, his expression unreadable. Everything that has passed over the last few days barrels into me.

“Good morning,” I croak.

He crooks his finger at me, face still blank.

I lean down close to him and he says, “In the future, if anyone asks, you can tell them it’s taupe.”

I don’t know how it’s possible, but I start to laugh. The laughter shifts to tears so fast that I don’t even realize it, and Theo pulls me against him. Holds me together.

The radio cuts on in the kitchen, which I guess is their way of giving us privacy. After a minute, I pull back, surprised to see that his eyes are red-rimmed and watery, too.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he says, and I kiss him once softly on the lips even though we both know there’s no guarantee of that.

“Fresh asses!” Miss Ruth calls out, and we get up, freshen up, and join them.

And back to the biggest story of the day, and maybe the year: The proposed site for the VerenTech campus has gone up in flames overnight, just weeks before construction was to start. It is believed that a transformer fire spread quickly, trapping several VerenTech employees in the inferno.

Although the new site was opposed by community activists, no foul play is suspected. The project has been canceled as the company faces major restructuring challenges. Stocks plummeted—

Fitzroy cuts off the radio as we pull two seats to the table. Jamel and Ashley Jones are here, too, looking haggard but able to move on their own. They had apparently been taken shortly before Theo and I had found them.

They nod at us, and we nod back.

Candace and Gracie bring platters to the table, not letting anyone help them, and we all dig in.

Jamel clears his throat. “Um. So y’all know I do community activist work. And I’m in some groups. It might be too soon to bring this up, but . . .”