Girls with Razor Hearts

When she’s close, Quentin gets out of the driver’s seat, clutching the door and watches the building. Annalise walks to the passenger side and does the same.

Dark smoke billows from the chimney of Innovations Academy, thick and black. There is an orange glow from the basement windows. She hears crackling, and a window shatters as the first flames lick out.

Quentin gets behind the wheel and tells her to come on. Annalise climbs into the passenger seat and looks at Quentin.

“But I want to watch it burn,” she says. “I want assurances that the academy is officially destroyed.”

Quentin looks sideways at her, studying her, before nodding. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, all right.”

She sighs and leans to rest her head on his shoulder. Exhausted. A bit sad. But in her pocket is an address, and that makes her smile as flames become visible behind the windows of one of the main-floor rooms.

This part of their lives is finally over. And soon, they’ll have Valentine back.

Annalise and Quentin watch until the bars fall from the windows and the top floor crashes down. They watch until Innovations Academy is gone altogether. It’s gone except for its girls.