Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

“I will always want you,” she says. Always, always, always, Charlotte thinks as she kisses the questions away.

Charlotte steps over the threshold, knows that Sabine won’t spring out of the shadows now, because it would be no fun, because that’s all it is to her.

She could be sleeping, but she’s not, and Charlotte turns her stained face into the pillow, and screams. Screams until her lungs give way. Until her heart shatters in her chest. Until there’s nothing left.

She doesn’t pack. There is no point. The only thing worth saving is already dead.

Still, it is not the pain that scares her most of all. It is the fact she can’t fight back. That violence is a one-way road, thanks to her promise.

“You know, I’m always amazed when vampires take themselves so seriously.”

“Did I do the wrong thing?” she asks, knowing Ezra will not coddle her. And he doesn’t. “By killing her or loving her?” he counters. Charlotte flinches. “You told me I was being paranoid.” “Yes, well, I guess we’ve both been proven wrong.”

“For fuck’s sake, Lottie,” snaps Ezra. “Either these girls’ lives matter more than your need for love, or they don’t.”

She swallows. “Isn’t it lonely?” “It doesn’t have to be. After all, loneliness is just like us,” says Ezra. “It has to be invited in.”

She was just collateral in someone else’s war, and Sabine killed her because she was there, because Lottie couldn’t keep her hands to herself, she did it to prove a point, to play a game, and that means it was meaningless, her death was meaningless, and she doesn’t realize how hard she’s been gripping the marble surface of the table until finally it breaks.

If you can’t stop your mind from latching onto something, make sure it’s something else. And when in doubt,” she adds, “think about me.”