How could you do that to Abby and Eddy???? I’m literally in tears 😭😭😭 (also I hope you’re doing okay! I noticed you haven’t been on)

emeralddodge:

I’m doing better now. 🙂

Those deaths were some of the hardest lines I’ve ever had to write. I am very fond of Abby, and killing her was excruciating. But the truth is that I didn’t know what to do with them. I’d played with the idea of having them move overseas to be tigers together, but that felt odd in the context of my otherwise-gritty books, almost like a fairytale ending for a couple whose lives were decidedly not fairytale-like. I hate it when other authors do that.

So when I decided to spare Reid, I looked at the other characters, because someone had to die in the finale. Jillian was never going to die. Obviously I wasn’t going to kill Marco, whom I based on my real-life younger brother. Ember was going to live if Reid did. I couldn’t kill the narrator. Reuben had been through enough, and I’d never do that to Gabriela.

That left the star-crossed lovers. Even the brave and beautiful die in war.