Page 122 of Meet Me on Greenwood

A tall man moved forward. "Even if they didn’t, they still killed our man," Gray Sterling said, joining the mob’s ranks. He pointed a gun in my direction. "That just won’t stand."

"You can move, or you can die with them. Which will it be?" I heard Larry Page’s voice. He was itching for an excuse to get back at me.

I was going to have to do something, and I knew it would likely get me killed. I turned to face Gema on last time, her eyes wide and beautiful. "I’m sorry," I said, readying to do what needed to be done so that the guns were trained on me.

"Please," a man called out. "People are hurt. We have to get them to the hospital."

I turned to see Dr. Brown holding a woman who’d gone limp.

"These people didn’t do anything," he cried.

I turned to tell him to stand back when a gunshot rung out. The whole street stood still and I watched in horror as one of my dearest friends gripped his chest. Blood seeped from it.

"No!" I yelled, charging forward, but I was held back.

"I have you now, Whitaker," a voice whispered in my ear.

Sterling. "I told you once those Black bitches never get away. You took mine, so I’m taking yours." He lifted his pistol, and I kicked him in the torso before he could shoot. He coughed as if taken completely off guard.

I dove into the frenzied crowd, trying to retreat back into the hotel as more shots were fired. I strained to look for Gema. She wasn’t with the pile of bodies that fell to the ground, the women tripping over their dresses, or the men with blood blooming over their stark white collars. This ball, I realized, had been the opportunity the Klan needed to get all the wealthiest Black families in one place. This was an execution, and I’d put Gema in danger.

Raindrops hit my neck as I fought through the crowd, and the rest of the storm unleased before I could blink. More rain pelted us from every direction in an unnatural curtain, slowing the chaos just enough for me to find my way through horde. People scattered around me, the gunfire momentarily slowed by the sudden wall of water.

I did not question it. I pushed through.

Then something warm hit my face. I pressed my hand to my cheek, certain I had been shot, but when I pulled my hand back the blood wasn’t mine. I turned.

Gray Sterling stood very still. His eyes were wide and searching, looking for something he would not find. Then he fell.

The surrounding men scattered, guns raised, looking in the direction the shot had come from. I did not wait to find out. I turned and went back for Gema.

I found her crumpled on the ground, blood seeping from her stomach. She’d been shot. Sterling had hit his mark, and it was all my fault.

45

Bri

Race Harmony Foreshadowed?

My whole body hurt. It was like my system understood that it had been exactly three weeks and four days since I’d had a drink. I hadn’t needed one since Gema fell into her coma. A social worker came to talk to me when I visited Gema in the hospital, and she’d gotten me to open up in a way I never had before.

Maise visited as much as she could. She was able to stop the sale of Gema’s company while she was incapacitated, but we were both unsure how long that would hold. I’d been reeling ever since she’d shared her suspicions that Gema wasn’t in a coma at all, but stuck in her own invention. Maise and I’d agreed to keep our theory to ourselves. Maise insisted it was what Gema would want, so as not to endanger her research, and as much as my heart want to rebel, I knew she was right. Gema was passionate about her work and she wouldn’t want to put it into jeopardy, even if it saved her life.

In the meantime, Gema’s prognosis had not changed. She continued existing in her comatose state. I was grateful the talks of hospice had not begun as Gema was still breathing fine on her own. She just wasn’t conscious.

I opened my 12-step manual and was perusing through it when Gema’s monitors went off. I looked up, but her eyes were closed. The monitors grew louder and I shot up, ready to call the nurses down, but they were there in seconds. One scanned her vitals, and the look of alarm on her face told me that she was concerned by what she saw.

She paged the doctor. He marched in reading the numbers for himself before putting on a stethoscope to listen to Gema’s heart. He pulled back the covers and began to assess her, even calling in another doctor for a second opinion.

"What is going on?" I cried.

The doctor turned as if he hadn’t realized I was present.

"We don’t know," he said, "but she is on the brink of entering cardiac arrest."

46

Gema