The Invocations

by Krystal Sutherland

No face, no weapon, nothing to indicate that he might do her harm. Just a man. But she is a girl. And she is alone. And it is night. And that is enough.

Men do not walk alone on dark streets and think about fingers closing around their throats or their skulls thudding dully against the pavement. They do not think about strangers coming to their house and slaughtering their entire family.

Because there is no need to fear if you are a man. You own the darkness. It is your space.

“It makes you look like a lesbian,” he said to her once. Lawrence Wolf failed, rather spectacularly, to realize that was precisely the point.

Once, Jude was practically a princess, the spoiled daughter of a very rich man. Now she is walking nuclear fallout in the form of a girl.

“Even the devil does not trust men to honor a bargain, so it does not deal with them. It offers power only to women.”