We Set the Dark on Fire (We Set the Dark on Fire, #1)(24)

He looked into her eyes, not in the searching way Carmen was so fond of, but in a way that reminded her of still water or colored glass. This was a staring contest she couldn’t win.

“I can’t,” she finally said, though the twinge of disappointment was back. “You don’t understand. If anyone finds out I’m helping you . . .”

“It’ll be the end of life as you know it,” said Sota, not looking away. “It’ll be arrest. Prison. Interrogation. It’ll be the endangerment of your family and friends back home. Of people across the border you don’t even remember.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Dani said. “I’m the one with something to lose here.”

For a second that might have been a trick of the light, Sota’s eyes looked almost sad. “Then I guess you’d better not fail.”

“And if I refuse?” Dani asked, though she already knew the answer.

“It would just be a shame if everyone in that house found out how you got through the checkpoint,” he said, like he resented being forced to spell it out. “Or how you got into school. Or how your parents got you across the border to that adorable little town in the first place.”

“Blackmail,” Dani said, spitting the word on the ground at their feet. “After all that inspiring talk about the Median government being the real criminals, this is your big play? Intimidate me? Blackmail me with a gift you gave me and the fear of a situation I can’t control?” 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.

Sota only shrugged. “Regrettable. But here we are.”

“Let me tell you something,” said Dani, stepping closer without noticing, suddenly not caring who heard or saw. “I grew up just inside that wall, in a place full of other people just like me. Scared people. Beaten people. The kids up here got ghost stories, myths, and legends, a lady with long hair searching the waves for lost children.”

For his part, Sota stood, listening without impatience as she picked up steam. Around them, the bugs had gone quiet. The only sound was the water, carrying all their words away.

“Do you know what I heard instead? I heard about men with big boots and helmets who would come in the night, step on your garden and steal your food, and make your parents disappear. I heard about a dark room with no windows where they’d take you if you didn’t behave. Where they’d ask you questions until you forgot what the sun felt like on your skin.” Dani drew a shuddering breath. “I heard about a wall so tall and so wide that if you woke up on the wrong side of it you’d never find your way home again.”

Sota nodded, just once, like he knew where she was going next.

“You know what the difference was between the scary stories they told my husband, and the ones they told me?” Dani asked, jerking her head up the lawn toward the massive rose house, filled with people who would never know her fears.

“Yours were true,” Sota said.

“They were true,” Dani agreed. “The night my best friend’s papa was taken, her mama sent her to my house and she screamed and cried all night in my bed. The day my neighbor was dragged out after having lunch with his family, beaten and cuffed and taken away, never to be seen again. They weren’t just stories. It was my life. The life I escaped. And now you want to come here and make those bad dreams real again, just to get what you want.”

“Yes,” said Sota simply, and Dani couldn’t tell if she hated him more or less for the admission.

“You’re not the good guys,” she said, swatting at a mosquito buzzing curiously around her head. “I just want you to know that. I don’t have a choice here. You don’t get to pretend you’re freeing me. You’re a bully and a monster. Just like them.”

“Understood.”

“Who’s the girl?” Dani asked, anger keeping her hands still for the moment.

“Jasmín Flores,” he said. “She’s a—” But Dani cut him off.

“I know who she is,” she said, her chest tightening. “She was my roommate,” she continued, softer now, like she was talking to herself. “Until she graduated last year and became a Flores. Jasmín Reyes.”

Sota’s eyes narrowed, like he was surprised by this news.

“You didn’t know?” she asked in a hollow voice. “Maybe you should find better intel.”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” said Sota, cracking half a smile.

“She was my friend,” Dani said, ignoring his joke. “How can I spy on her?”

“She was your friend?” Sota asked, going cold as quick as he’d smiled. “You must have a pretty low bar for friendship. What does she know about you? And I mean the real you? What does anyone? This world has made it so you can never have a friend, Dani; doesn’t that bother you? Don’t you hate them for it?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Dani said, finally breaking, just a hairline crack. “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.”

Sota was quiet for a minute. “I understand that better than you think.”