An outdated idea. A defunct building. The world still needs books and knowledge, but it’s not going to get them here at the long-closed Tanglewood Library.
There’s no saving it.
No saving me.
The library looks almost sinister in the moonlight with its rough planes and jagged edges. The girl stands at the corner, selling her body. She’s breaking apart, just like the building. I should give her whatever cash is in my wallet—except I didn’t bring my purse. There’s nothing but my hands now. That’s all I ever had, the ability to create. The ability to destroy.
Harper St. Claire distilled down into a single goal.
She gives me a strange look, a little concerned, mostly wary. Like an alley cat I’ve disturbed in the middle of her dinner. “What are you doing here?” she spits.
“What is anyone doing here?”
“I’m trying to stay alive.”
“Same, girl. Same.” I don’t have a death wish; I never did. I want to stay alive, to feel alive, and there are only two things that have ever done that—Christopher and art. I’m in a destructive mood, and I’ve already torn up his chest, so now it will have to be art.
Not anything as clean and pure as creating art.
Tonight is about falling off a yacht.
“You don’t know anything about what I have to do to survive.” Something in her reminds me of me with Christopher—defensive, because she’s been hurt before. Because people who’ve been hurt like knowing it will happen again. There’s comfort in the familiar.
“You’re right,” I say, because the library isn’t going to help. What is it a monument to except for the way things used to be? For the patriarchy and the goddamn men who keep this girl on her knees instead of building and creating and living without fear.
She disappears around the corner, leaving me on the sidewalk.
It’s easy enough to slip through the temporary barriers. The wall seems more majestic at night. A beautiful lie, because it will never survive what comes next. I’m furious that it let me believe, even for a moment. Part of me knows I’m not thinking straight, but the other part is sure that’s a good thing. I’ve had too much straight thinking. Tonight I’m all the way twisted.
The ladder
s are propped against the sides of the library. The scaffolding stands where I can reach it, but I need something more than height and clay tonight.
Out back there are vehicles the construction crew leaves behind. Most of the tools are stored in a white van, which is locked. This isn’t a safe neighborhood after all. Luckily I learned some very bad things over the years, including how to pick a lock. With a bent wire hanger in the doors at the back, I manage to get it open.
I have my pick of weapons—a shovel. A crowbar. Yes, that will work.
It’s almost too easy to climb onto the scaffolding that’s waiting for me at the back of the library. I plunge the sharp end of the crowbar into the crack and lever my whole body, throwing my weight against the iron. Wood splits with a satisfying thwak.
I keep breaking the wall until my hair is full of wood shards.
Thwak.
Keep fighting the wood until it comes apart.
Thwak.
I lose track of time doing this, lose track of my limbs and muscles. Lose track of my thoughts. Even so it’s not quite a surprise when I feel the metal beneath my feet shiver. Christopher climbs onto the scaffold with me, but I ignore him. There are splinters in my hands. I only feel them when he pries the bar from me.
“Look what you’ve done,” he murmurs, smoothing a thumb over my bloodied palm.
I swallow the pain. “Better me than you.”
He swears softly. “Is this what I’ve done to you?”
“No,’ I say, but that feels like a lie. It’s made me feel crazy to love a man who won’t love me back. To have him look at me like he’s burning alive for me, only for him to push me away.
“Come with me.”