Our Violent Ends

Darling daughter”—Lord Cai pinched the bridge of his nose—“get in the car please.”

“Father,” Juliette shot back, “I crave violence.”

“Get in the car. Now.”

There will be hatred. There will be war. The country will fight itself to pieces. It will starve its people, ravage its land, poison its breath. Shanghai will fall and break and cry. But alongside everything, there has to be love—eternal, undying, enduring. Burn through vengeance and terror and warfare. Burn through everything that fuels the human heart and sears it red, burn through everything that covers the outside with hard muscle and tough sinew. Cut down deep and grab what beats beneath, and it is love that will survive after everything else has perished.

She became a Communist spy.