Daggermouth

by H.M. Wolfe

These weren’t criminals. They were people who’d dared to be human in a city that demanded they be livestock.

“Be careful. The Heart is changing. Becoming more unpredictable.” “Dying beasts often are,” he replied, then slipped past her out of the room.

The Veyra were nothing more than little boys who liked the power of a gun in their hands, but when it finally came time to be men—they failed on every front.

“I’m a woman in a system designed to grind us down into nothing, to strip us of our worth and dignity and rights. I’ve survived that system and it didn’t make me weak or submissive, it made me angry. So fucking angry that sometimes I can barely breathe through it.” She paused for only a breath and straightened her shoulders. “Women are the backbone, the foundation, the immovable force that still does not falter when men stand on our spines to grab power. So no, Callum, I am not fragile. The cracks in my soul aren’t broken places. They are veins cemented together with rage. And it will take more than the hands of men to kill my spirit, to break my will.”