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In New York, she planted roses and hoped they would bloom where their love couldn’t. She couldn’t keep doing this— she couldn’t keep digging the thorns out of her palms and imagining his corpse was buried beneath the flower bed— but it was all she had. In a way, Roma had become the only thing to keep her tied to this world, more grounding than the letters from her own family.
He was hers to kill and no one else’s and that was what kept her sane.
She ate spring and devoured summer and swallowed autumn whole, but her body was chilled to the bone and aching when winter rolled around and she was still in New York. Still away from her family, her gang, her people, her city.
And it was all his fault.
She thought of him in abstract and the feeling that came with it was so bitter that it seemed tangible, like blood rolling over her tongue and making her want to scrub herself clean from the inside out. She imagined his blood staining her hands and his flesh splitting beneath her knife and his warmth when he held her like she was all that mattered, longing for Shanghai and longing for the chance to avenge herself.
Violent delights had violent ends and she would make sure that Roma Montagov got everything he deserved.
Back then, she was all too used to priming herself to be held and cherished, but now things had changed. No longer was she dangerously soft and desperate for the affection he had to offer. She was just as wicked and piercing as the thorns on the stems of roses the Scarlets tacked to doors as a warning.
Juliette had come too far to apologize for no longer being able to politely fit into his palm.
And yet, she reaches for him with hope in her heart and fragility in her resolve, without knowing what comes next, for what is love if not the vulnerability of man?
He gasps, nerves still frayed from his close encounter with the madness, but does not resist her touch even as her nails dig crescent moons into his wrist.
“Do you remember when we were children?”
He looks at her like she’s contracted a different kind of madness herself, forehead wrinkling in his confusion and lips parting to say something Juliette is surely not in the mood for.
“I said I could be a Montagov,” She’s so out of it that she can’t bring herself to be embarrassed. He’s staring at her, dark eyes gleaming in the little sunlight that reaches them in this alley. “You remember that, don’t you?”
She knows his answer before he says it.
This boy would set the streets of Shanghai ablaze if only to keep her warm, knowing she would grab his hand and lead him into the flames in a moment’s notice, and he would follow without resistance, burning flesh and all.
He could never forget a moment that meant so much to him.
“Of course I remember,” Roma’s voice is a whisper, as if saying his words any louder will make them too public, too insincere. “I dreamt about it for days after. How could I forget?”
Drunk on love and hungover with longing, she bites the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning at him. Under his curious gaze, she feels at home and more secure than she’s felt in years.
What if I did become one?”
He laughs, then, a genuine and light-hearted thing. Juliette feels privileged to even be hearing such a sound, after so many years without it.
“You can’t be serious,” His laughter fades, slipping into a more serious tone when her expression does not change. “Juliette, think about this. They’d kill us both in an instant. We’d be signing ourselves up to be target practice.”
“Not if we weren’t here.”
A moment passes.
“I stayed in New York for several years and we’re both fluent in English,” Juliette lifts a thin eyebrow, unable to keep a smile from pulling at her lips. Daring him to put the puzzle together. “Thousands of ships leave the Bund daily, going anywhere they please. Stowaways are commonplace.”
And then the pieces click into place.
“Juliette,” Roma starts, sounding breathless. But she can see the crazed look in his eyes as he mulls the idea over— a childhood dream that could become a reality if they played their cards right. “You can’t be suggesting what I think you are.”
“Oh, but I am. Mr. Montague,” She coughs lightly, switching from Shanghainese into English and tossing a glare Roma’s way when he laughs. “And his darling wife Zhu Liye from Shanghai! Two lovebirds fleeing from the communists to find their home. Devotees of the American Dream they speak of on propaganda flyers. I think we could play the parts well, don’t you?”
“What happened to never leaving Shanghai? I thought you said we’d go down with our city, for better or for worse. Capitalist dreams of a new life in a new hell be damned,” Roma looked at her— really looked at her, for such a long moment that Juliette thought he was analyzing the cracks and missing pieces of her soul— and gave a small smile. “You don’t have to do that for me. I’d have you anywhere, especially here, where we risk death any time we walk on the same street.”
“Who says we have to leave? Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov can die as martyrs,” Juliette’s eyes are wild. “Who is to say that we can’t have both? Our lives can end here and we can be reborn anew, still together, with new names and on new soil. Just as we talked about then, Roma.”
How long had it been? How long had he wished to be someone else? How long had he dreamed of a world where he and Juliette were allowed to be themselves, no longer anchored by their responsibilities as the heirs of the Scarlets and White Flowers?
Roma allows himself to imagine it.
Juliette, love-soaked and rain-soaked, smiling at him with her shoes held in one hand and her heart— his hand, oh how she would lace her fingers with his own as she guided him— held in the other as they walked home together on the shores of Long Island. The gentle pressure of Juliette’s hand smacking his arm when he stepped on her toes mid-dance, under the lights of one of the jazz clubs that littered New York with the same prominence as the speakeasies of the Prohibition era, her head thrown back and laughter bubbling up out of her chest. Juliette’s nimble fingers playing the gaps in his ribcage like piano keys, her lips pressed to the hollow of his throat as he tried to usher her out of their kitchen, lest their dinner burn.
It was so clear to him that he was sure he could see it on the back of his eyelids, forever playing for him like a private picture show.
But then the fear sinks in, washing over him like a cold bucket of water, and his heart constricts in his chest.
“What if they catch us?”
Juliette knew he could see the fear claw its way into her very core, her grip on him tightening and her breath becoming shaky. She knew he could tell what this was now, what selfish fantasy she’d asked him to indulge in for her own sake: Juliette laid bare, nearly incoherent with fear, wanting nothing more than to be the author of their story for once. Where the act of choosing each other wasn’t a monstrous act of betrayal.
“We’re dead no matter what at this point,” She looks up at him, lashes wet and mouth tilting into a frown. “I don’t think we have much to lose.”
Except for each other.
He twists his wrist out of her grasp, moving to hold her smaller hands in his larger pair, and leans forward. A kiss, warm and dangerously soft in the way that they used to be, presses against her temple.
“Alright,” He says, a sad smile playing on his lips. “We’ll make it up as we go.”
She leans back to lock eyes with him, a challenge and a confession of love rolled into one.
“Together, Mr. Montague?”
As if he could ever bear to leave her.
“Always, Mrs. Montague.”