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CHAPTER13
Onyx
“Has Tati seen you this morning?”Alicia asked, eyes wide, as she greeted me at her compound. I’d requested this meeting with her out of necessity.
She kept a treasure trove of information swirling around in her head.
I raised an eyebrow. “No…She left early to go toBottomswith Keira to handle somePredatorstuff. Why?”
Alicia sucked her teeth. “Why? You’re playing right?”
“What would I have to play about?”
“Do you need a mirror?” Alicia countered. “There’s no way Tati was going to let that happen, that’s why you did it after she left.”
“That woman doesn’t run me, and I’m not sure why you think she does.”
“Sure.” Alicia giggled. “I’ll just hope that she doesn’t do you like she did Trinidad Rojas when she sees you cut off your locs.”
I never had much trouble with self-confidence—not with regard to my physical appearance anyway. From a young age—much too young—the fact that I was a pretty motherfucker was a double-edged sword that forced me to be tougher. Too often, people thought a well-designed face was some sort of testament of strength or toughness.
Even as aThorn.
I’d had to dispel people of that notion very,veryearly on.
Still, I raised a hand over the faded haircut I’d talked my way into at thePredatorsclubhouse.
I thought it looked good.
And Alicia hadn’t said that itdidn’t, only that Tati might be a bit bothered about it; which was a fact I’d considered too, but couldn’t allow to be a primary concern.
“I don’t need anything on me that can be used against me,” I explained. “Don’t need anything weighing me down.”
“Of course.” She nodded, but the smirk she wore told me I wasn’t getting off easy. “I get it. I’ve long considered shaving mine off, but at this point I think Cree would have a fit. What I do instead is, I put it in this thing called a braid, and pin it up, sometimes with plastic so I don’t set off any sort of weapons detection systems…”
I sucked my teeth. “You say that as if you’ll be on any special ops anytime soon.”
“Well no, not in my condition; at least not now that everybody knows,” she said. “Exactly why I was going to keep it to myself for as long as possible. Everybody is acting like I’m some delicate flower or something now. Like I won’t beat all you motherfuckers up.”
I chuckled. “Well I can’t argue with you on beating folks up, but… you’re definitely their precious flower. Of all times for you to come to terms with that, pregnancy can definitely be that moment.”
“Shut up,” she said. “I thought you needed a favor from me anyway?” she asked and I nodded.
“You came right out the gate about my hair though.”
“My bad. What’s going on? Something happened since the meeting yesterday?”
“Nah,” I assured. “I just didn’t want to talk about this in front of the others, and afterwards I wanted to go check on Tati.”
“That’s right, she skipped that meeting. Was I right about why though?” she asked. After we were done, wehadspoken briefly about Tati’s absence, which Alicia had made a prediction about.
“Yeah,” I said. “She was in her head about the Trinidad thing. But she hyper focused on Margeaux.”
Alicia nodded. “Margeaux is the easier target,” she said, dropping to a seat. So far, our conversation had happened in motion, with her leading me to her office. “Jealousy isn’t as complex—it’s what most women would be fixated on.”
“But Tati isn’t most women.”
“You’re right; she’s damn near aRose,” Alicia said. “Just without the trauma that would have made taking a life not mean anything to her. She doesn’t have that coldnessThe Gardenimplanted in us.”
