We Set the Dark on Fire (We Set the Dark on Fire, #1)

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

She couldn’t help it; she had expected more. Wanted more, even. But this was just intimidation. Manipulation. The same kind perpetrated by all boys who thought they were stronger than girls.

“I’m talking now,” she said, and he closed his mouth. “I don’t need you to tell me how impressive I am, or how well-suited to your task. I’m well aware of my own skills. You think you can see something in me first? Give a purpose-starved girl a compliment and turn her to putty in your hands? Think again. I know I’d be good at what you’re asking. But you said it yourself: I value myself and my potential above all. So what you’ve failed to tell me, besides some run-of-the-mill attempt at blackmail, is why I’d want to risk my life for you.”

“Speaking to a girl like an equal,” Dani said. “Was that really so hard?”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, the door closing behind his eyes as quickly as it had opened. “Be useful.”

In a battle between two men trying to control her, she’d chosen herself.

She thought of the people shot at the wall, deemed criminals because desperation forced them to cross a border they hadn’t built or consented to. She thought of the children, sent back to starve for being born on the wrong side of that line, or forced—like her—to live with lies and ghosts trailing them all their lives.

This was politics. This was humanity, and the refusal to recognize it.

“And the more threatened the privileged feel, the more drastic the measures they’ll be able to justify in the name of ‘safety.’”

But Dani knew now that to crack open what you thought you knew, to allow it to scar with truth, that was what made you truly strong.

“The past may comfort us,” she said to the fire. “But it cannot feed us.”

“The bad stuff will be there,” Carmen said, kissing the side of Dani’s neck. “If we want to fight it, we have to find joy where we can. We have to find beauty. We have to take our moments to be happy. Because the joy is what keeps us strong and reminds us we have something to fight for.”