Page 123 of Our Violent Ends
Juliette huffed a short laugh, grabbing Roma’s hand and hooking her pinkie with his. “Yes,” she answered. “It means I cannot break my promise or you may chop my finger off.”
“That’s the Japanese interpretation. Yubikiri.”
Her eyes snapped up. “So youdoknow what it means!”
Roma didn’t give her the satisfaction of being caught out. His expression forcibly serious, he only lifted her hand and smoothed out her fist, so that all her fingers were separated, her palm held facing him.
“What if I don’t want this one?” he asked, tapping her pinkie. He moved his touch to the one beside—her ring finger—and grazed the length of it. “What if I want this one?”
Juliette’s heart started to thud in her chest. “So morbid,” she remarked.
“Hmmm.” Roma continued to draw a circle about her finger, leaving no question for what he was implying. “I’m not sure if morbidity was what I was going for.”
“Then what?” Juliette wanted to hear it. “What were you going for?”
Roma breathed a laugh. “I’m asking you to marry me.”
All the blood in Juliette’s body rushed to her head. She could feel her cheeks blazing red, not out of embarrassment, but rather because there was such an uproar swirling inside her that the hot surge of emotion had nowhere else to go.
“My pinkie promise isn’t good enough for you?” Juliette teased. “Did Alisa put you up to this?”
This time it was Roma’s turn to press both his palms on Juliette’s cheeks. She had thought it would be too dark to notice her blush, yet Roma noticed, a smile twitching on his lips.
“She doesn’t have the power to put me up to this,” he said. “Marry me, Juliette. Marry me so we can erase the blood feud between us and start utterly anew.”
Juliette inched forward. Roma’s hands dropped to her neck, smoothing back the loose hair curling around her shoulders. He seemed to think that she was leaning in for a kiss, but she was in fact reaching behind him, and with a start, Roma blinked, sighting one of Lourens’s many copies of the Bible in her hands.
“I wasn’t aware that you were religious.”
“I am not,” Juliette replied. “I thought you needed a Bible to get married in this city.”
Roma blinked. “So you’re saying yes?”
“Sha gua.” She raised the Bible, pretending to beat him with it. “Do you think I’m holding it for a weapon? Of course I’m saying yes.”
Quick as a flash, Roma had his arms around her, pushing her upon the sofa. The Bible fell to the floor with athump. A burst of laughter rose to Juliette’s lips, muffled only by Roma’s kiss. For a moment that was all that mattered—Roma, Roma,Roma.
Then there was the faintest sound of gunfire, and both of them gasped, breaking apart to listen. The windows were blacked out. They were safe. Only that didn’t change the reality, didn’t mean the world outside was not brightening with light and running with red.
It had started. Although faint, a bugle call could be heard reverberating through the whole city, trickling even into this apartment. The purging had started.
Juliette sat up, reaching for the fallen Bible. She doubted Lourens would be happy if they scuffed it up.
“I should have tried sending more help,” she whispered. “I should have sent more warning.”
Roma shook his head. “It’s your own people. What were you to do?”
Indeed, that was always the problem. Scarlet or White Flower. Communist or Nationalist. In the end, the only ones who seemed to benefit from so much infighting were the foreigners sitting pretty behind their Concession borders.
“I despise it,” she whispered. “If my people can fire on the masses merely because they have Communist sympathies, I despise them.”
Roma did not say anything. He only brushed her hair behind her ear, letting her tremble in her anger.
“I will be free of my name.” Juliette looked up. “I will take yours.”
There was a moment of stillness, a moment where Roma gazed upon her like he was trying to commit her features to memory. Then:
“Juliette,” he breathed. “It is not as though my name is any better. It is not as though there is less blood on mine. You can call a rose something else, but it remains yet a rose.”
