The Hearts We Sold(76)

“Tonight,” he agreed. “Come to the bank.”

And then he simply vanished.

Well, she thought, at least he hadn’t told her the world was ending via text message.





Dee wasn’t sure how one dressed for a potential apocalypse.

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” said Gremma. “If you fail, you’ll be dead before the actual destruction happens.”

“Thanks for that encouraging thought,” said Dee.

It felt odd to be sitting in her dorm room, on her computer chair, lacing up a pair of running shoes. It was exceedingly routine, but she could taste the strangeness of the night on her tongue. Her skin felt as shivery as if someone had run a live current over it. Perhaps it was nerves, or perhaps her heartless body was attuned to this night, to the thinness of this world. To the closeness of another.

She closed her eyes for a moment, steadied herself

“You’re going to be all right, right?” said Gremma. She sounded uncommonly worried. Her face twisted, annoyed she was forced to endure such an emotion.

Dee nodded. Her stomach felt as if she had swallowed shards of broken glass. She looked around her dorm room, acutely aware that this could be the last time she ever saw it—her bed with the worn blue comforter, her desk, their TV, Gremma’s stuffed animals. She made herself say, “Listen. I—I’ve got a letter for my mother. In my desk. If—if something happens.”

Just in case.

Gremma put her hands on her hips. “Oh god. Last requests. It’s always the part of the movie I fast-forward through, usually because the character is dying in some factually inaccurate way.”

“If I do die,” replied Dee, “I’ll try to do it accurately.”

A choked little giggle escaped Gremma. Her hands fell to her sides. “Well, I’ve got something else encouraging for you, too.” She knelt, reached beneath her bed, and dragged out a backpack. “Here.”

Dee looked inside. Nearly dropped the backpack. She stared down into a space filled to the brim with small jam jars. Their metal lids were pierced through, cloth wicks dangling limply, ready to be set alight. “These… aren’t stink bombs, are they?”

Gremma held out a lighter and Dee took it. “Riley had a recipe for Molotov cocktails and we decided to hold our own version of craft night.”

Dee smiled.

She would not be helpless. A fierce joy seized her. She laughed, and some of her fear dropped away. She had something to fight for. She had something to fight with. And people to fight alongside.

This was how normal people survived their own fairy tales.

They became their own kind of monster.

Gremma grinned. “Anything comes at you,” she said, “burn the motherfucker down.”




That evening, fog hung heavy through Portland.

The city lights were muted, headlights struggling to pierce the thick mist, and Dee watched as buildings and other cars slid by. She had decided to take the bus, to walk the last few blocks herself. Gremma would have driven her and James offered to pick her up, but she declined them both. This was what she wanted—the rattling engine of the bus, the smell of sweat and bodies, the squeak and hiss of the brakes, the gentle sway when it took a sharp turn.

It was strangely meditative, but that was not the true reason Dee got on the bus.

Dee got on the bus to see the other people taking it. She did not put in her earbuds, nor pretend to text on her phone. She simply watched the family of three, a mother and two young sons. Twins, perhaps. The single teenage boy with spiked hair and pierced eyebrows who gave Dee a polite nod when he passed her. The homeless man who spent most of the ride doing a crossword puzzle out of the Oregonian.

People. All people. All in danger, if the demons were to be believed.

Dee was no hero. She was afraid.

But looking at these people, she knew there was no running away. She watched them, wondered if their lives were as tentative as her own. And when her stop came, she rose to her feet, thanked the driver, and stepped off. The driver smiled at her—at the teenage girl with Molotov cocktails in her backpack.

The doors to the bank were not chained. They hung open and Dee took a moment, dragging a breath between her clenched teeth, and stepped inside.

James sat on the floor, fiddling with his phone. When he saw her, he scrambled to his feet and hastened to her side. “Hi,” he said, and his smile was almost shy.

She thought she loved him. This boy with freckled feet and paint-smudged hands. This boy who played the world off as a joke, but took others’ suffering seriously. This boy who looked at her and never saw a broken girl—just a girl.

She would say the words. Not tonight, not with the weight of everything hanging over them. But she would tell him.

And for the first time, she thought about what might happen after tonight.

She thought about this summer, and what it might bring. About hot days spent in the loft apartment, of rooms cordoned off with curtains, of a half-constructed kitchen and couches that always smelled of paint. She thought of the freedom of being able to come and go as she pleased, of making her own life. She thought of days spent with James, of going to more art galleries, of watching his ascension into history. He would do it, she knew. He would climb his way into the ranks of the great artists, and she would be proud of him.

Her own future was less defined. Perhaps she would travel, use a fraction of the Daemon’s money to go somewhere she’d never visited. Perhaps James would go with her—she thought of the two of them on some road trip, driving to who knew where with no schedule to bind them.