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.

“It doesn’t matter if I like them or I don’t. If I want this life or I don’t. This is what I have. This is how I survive.”

“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.”

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

The pleasant buzz of alcohol was the only thing that kept her from committing an act of physical violence.

“We protest for lack of shelter. We protest for lack of medical care. We protest because our children are hungry, and you, with all this excess, would rather kill them than feed them.”

When has there ever been true protest without injustice? Who really cast the first stone? Who is attacking, and who is bleeding?”

Some people said this conflict, the one they would not officially call a war, had started thousands of years ago during a falling-out between two brother-gods. But here, today, Dani could see that was just a fanciful story, perpetuated to give people an easy answer. The real answer was harder. Prejudice. Privilege. Hatred.

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

If we’re not all free, none of us are free,

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

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 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.”

I knew who I was when I was nine years old. I knew I could talk adults into or out of anything. I knew who I wanted to be and who I wanted to love. I never, ever expected to meet someone like you. To feel the way I feel about you. Even if this wasn’t what I thought was right, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, don’t you see?”