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JUSTICE
Ilove my sister Dada, honestly, I do, but I could cheerfully strangle her right now. Why didn’t she take into account my lack of crafting abilities when she suggested this bracelet-braiding idea to Sandesh?
I’m sweating as I re-tie the complicated knot meant to hold the gem in place in the center of Sandesh’s marriage band. Gah, I’ve watched this YouTube video three times on knot-tying, but it’s no use. Tony was the sailor, not me.
My throat works at the thought of my brother. I miss him so much it causes a physical ache. I send him my love, wherever he is in the cosmos, and focus my grieving mind back on the task.
“Fuck,” I breathe as the red gem skitters from my knot and across Sandesh’s high-top table. It spins across the glass surface, refracting the sunshine from the large balcony door.
Sandesh grabs the gem before it falls off. Unsuccessfully covering his smile, he asks, “Are you sure you don’t want me to do that part for you?”
For a moment, I simply stare at him.Yum. He’s so handsome. I shake my head. “Nope. I want you to seemewhen you look down at this damn thing. Me in all my fucked-up, can’t-craft glory.”
He hands me the gem with a, “Then it will always be beautiful to me.”
Awww. My shoulders relax. I take the gem and try again to tie a knot around it. I weave the first bit of the knot then insert the gem and… the instrumentals on Green Day’s “Espionage” blare from my hoodie pocket. Gah.
I fish out my cell and answer. “Hey, Momma.”
“Daughter.”
Hearing Momma’s voice on the phone has grown commonplace for me. She calls all the time and basically says the same thing every time she calls.
“You need to come home.”
“Need? Not sure I do.”
“Please, Justice.”
Please?
“There is a growing unrest here since Tony’s disappearance.”
I flinch at the worddisappearance. Momma chose to present Tony’s death to the FBI and media as a son leaving for parts unknown to find himself. It’s been widely reported that he’s in the Himalayas, climbing with Sherpas, in Peru doing ayahuasca, in India, in Bali, in Cambodia… I can’t help but wonder how many of these rumors Momma started herself.
Without answering, I cover the phone and tell Sandesh, “Right back.”
He looks up with concern, but nods without commenting.
That man, right there, is the best.
I open the slider and stroll out onto his balcony, walking to the edge. In the distance, the Schuylkill River looks muddy, churned up from a storm last night that raged for hours. The banks are swollen. I’m about as clear in what I’m doing as that water. I once told Sandesh that I’d never leave The Guild, but it turns out, leaving was as easy as having my heart broken. As easy as the dreadful realization that all that anger, all that hate I’d indulged in for years helped cost the life of one of the people I loved most in this world.
“He’s dead, Momma. Everyone in our family knows that, so what’s the unrest about?”
There’s a long pause. She doesn’t like me using the D word even though we’re on a secure line.
“The units are divided on whether Bridget should be M-erased. Her part in Tony’s plan was less involved than his, less aggressive, in that she only took part in warning Walid to alter your mission and didn’t send the drones. The older groups, the Fantastic Five and the A-Team, want her punished. They believe it will thwart cohesion if she is not. The younger groups, starting with the Troublemakers Guild and Vampire Academy, want her spared. They believe that, fundamentally, she was acting by the group’s rule.”
“Which rule?”
“The rule that states that no member of The Guild will willfully allow another member to put themselves in unacceptable danger or risk if there is an alternative.”
My right eye begins to twitch. “That’s the rule that Tony stated in his letter.”
“It is.”
Momma. Getting information from her is like pulling teeth. “Has that letter somehow gotten out?”
