For She Is Wrath

by Emily Varga

“Are you a ghoul? Finally come to devour me?” “I’m not a very cunning ghoul if I had to get imprisoned myself to steal your soul.” Her eyes roved over me, a frown deepening her face. “And you look awful. You’d think I’d find healthier humans to feast on.”

This was who I would become in front of him. A sweet, beautiful confection. And when he bit into the honeyed sugar, it would be poison filling his mouth.

The problem when someone you loved betrayed you was that you had a lifetime of good memories with them that you had to examine in a different light. What was once a safe place to be—beside him, engulfed in his arms, inhaling the smell of rainstorms and pine—was actually the most dangerous place of all.

For a second I forgot I was pretending to be someone different. I forgot that I was looking at him through unfamiliar eyes. And when he met my stare it must have showed, because his own eyes widened, and he tilted his face as if he were examining a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

“You know I’d follow you anywhere, Dani.” Something twisted in my heart, and I was suddenly robbed of breath in a way that had nothing to do with the battle.

Tell me something true. I leaned toward him, my heart in my throat, my voice low and quiet. “The first time I saw you, I wanted to wring your neck.”

“I would read you like a novel. From cover to cover, learning everything about you.” He tilted his head. “Leisurely, only taking me out when you felt like it?” I snorted. “Is that how you read your novels, Mazin? How uninspiring. No, I mean in a fierce frenzy, by candlelight, devouring you until I finished every page and committed it to memory, and then I’d flip right back to the front and start again from the beginning.”

“I’d read you like scripture, a prayer. And all the worship I felt, I’d heap at your feet.”

A history of women and girls being wronged by men who never had any consequences. Now I would be the consequences. “I choose vengeance. I choose death. And in the end, that’s what you chose too.”

I hated that it made me think of him as human, as someone who buys something thoughtful for someone he’s thinking about. And mostly, I didn’t know whether I wanted to kiss him for giving it to me or wrap my fingers around the hilt and plunge it into his chest.

“Let me prove it to you now. Tell me what you want, Dani.” “What I want?” I lifted my sword in front of my face, the rain beating against the blade. “I want my fucking cat back.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know you? I’d know you with any face. Any skin. Any hair. A thousand djinn could disguise you from me and I’d still be able to find you just by the sound of your breath.”

“Don’t let his actions destroy your life. You may have given him forgiveness, but that doesn’t mean you owe him kindness.”

“Digging the wrong way and ending up in your cell was the best thing that ever happened to me, you know?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” “How am I looking at you?” A slow curve of his lips had my heart racing faster. “Either like you want to kiss me or stab me. I can’t always tell with you, but for some reason they are both equally as exciting.”