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

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

In the rear window, the sea was visible at last—a shimmering horizon line. From up here, you couldn’t see that people were starving. Couldn’t see the ancient wall with the armed sentries stationed along it. Couldn’t see the mothers’ hands reaching, begging for a scrap of something to give their children as armored trucks rolled through the gate with just enough food to keep most of their families alive and hungry. From here, it was almost like quivering-chinned teens weren’t probing for a place to sneak their younger siblings across, just hoping not to be gunned down or sent back. Like big men with knives and a little scraped-together power weren’t taking more than their fair share, ganging up on the already downtrodden until they were forced to do something desperate and dangerous just to survive.