Botanica Blues Read Online Free Page B

isn’t the same. It’s more than the sky. I swear I feel the building shake. An earthquake? I look at my family members and all of us look at each other, not saying anything. I walk over and look out the window.
    My phone shakes and I pull it out while staring, sliding my finger across the screen and finally look at the message. It’s from Yang.
    [Turn on the news]
    “Turn on the news,” I croak, staring out the at scene. To the south I see it. A cloud. Black and brown, still surging in the hot, thick summer air. The windows are already closed but I can see the trees whipping around. The sky is green like an old bruise, sick and twisted. The clouds are simmering in the sky and I hear my sisters shouting at the kids to turn off the damn video game, shouting for the remote. Then they gasp. I know what’s on the television. I don’t want to see it. But I turn and walk over.
    It’s the news. They’re reporting an explosion in downtown, massive. A huge storm is making it difficult for any helicopters to get in but the crater is estimated to have a two to three block radius. The power station by the Drive is on fire. I see flames dancing in the background. Steam rises off the ground. The reporter chokes and a wind whips across him, making him fall to the side.
    “
Abuela
,” Delia gasps. I grab my jacket and I don’t listen to their encouragements or protests. I leave the apartment, the metal door closing with a slam behind me. I think I tell them all to stay put.
    The lights in the building flicker three times and then die, another rumble from outside laughing at the darkness within the building. I take the stairs, wishing I had my flashlight. People are standing in their doorways. I flash my badge at them. “Stay inside,” I order them. They don’t know it’s not a police badge. I’m just a private investigator but they can’t see in the dark and the doors close and slam. I hear their locks click shut. Stay inside, I tell myself but I can’t.
    It’s hot outside and if hell has a sky it looks like this. Green and surging with clouds of black and gray. The wind is whipping around, the trees lining the street shaking and I hear a branch cracking. I watch the sky as I run to my car, other people staring up at the sky too, mouths hanging open, gasping, crying, praying.
    I see it. The hole in the sky. Like a wicked smile. The clouds boil over it, obscuring it but I can see it. I know it’s there. I know what Hernandez did, how he set the load and the fuel in that basement with the twelve and then had the fuse somewhere else. And it blew. The ritual set the keg and he lit the thing to blow before the cops took him in. I know that now, now that the keg has blown. I didn’t know it yesterday when I was too pissed off from being kicked off the team, or yelling at Yang or talking to Danny. Danny. Fuck, Danny. He’s probably dead. I pull open the door of my car, opening my glove compartment. My gun spills out onto the floor and I pick it up and put it in the seat.
    The clouds still billow up ahead and I pull out, a passing car almost sideswiping me as I back out. I curse at the car and pull into the street. My hands are shaking on the wheel. My grandma probably left before this all happened. She might be trapped in a subway tunnel but that’s it. She’s probably alive. Danny, maybe he went to go visit his uncle’s grave today. Maybe. I drive with one hand as I fish for my phone with the other, scrolling through the numbers. I call Dan’s cell and get an automated voice. No connection. I growl at the phone and try Yang. Same thing. My grandma doesn’t even have a cell phone so I throw the phone to the floor of the car, not bothering to signal before I turn on the street.
    I hit my steering wheel with both hands and curse. People are just parked in the street, standing outside, mouths open, stupid. Mesmerized by the cloud and the sky. I can’t be the only one who sees it, right? I roll down my window. “Get in your