Furious Hours Quotes

Without the dark there isn’t light. Without the pain there is no relief. And I remind myself that I’m lucky to be able to feel such great sorrow, and also such great happiness. I can grab on to each moment of joy and live in those moments because I have seen the bright contrast from dark to light and back again. I am privileged to be able to recognize that the sound of laughter is a blessing and a song, and to realize that the bright hours spent with my family and friends are extraordinary treasures to be saved, because those same moments are a medicine, a balm. Those moments are a promise that life is worth fighting for, and that promise is what pulls me through when depression distorts reality and tries to convince me otherwise.

Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul - but so have we. You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them - but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us - we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.

I’ve always been a fan of therapy. You spend an entire hour talking about yourself and someone has to fake being fascinated by the strange assemblage of minutiae that is you.

You have five minutes to call someone, anyone, I don't care who, and order me the finest blend of coffee that rat hole town has, and a dozen beers. If it's not sitting on this table..." a slender finger pointed furiously at the table in question,"... in one hour, you die" - Faith telling Jacob

Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm. One's language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered.

Do you know about the spoons? Because you should. The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That’s a spoon. You take a shower. That’s a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that’s lots of damn spoons … but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning. But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don’t have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won’t have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won’t have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, “I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it’s exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.” And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, “No. I can’t have sex with you today because there aren’t enough spoons,” and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won’t get mad but you don’t have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: “I SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,” and he says, “What the … You can’t pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?” Now you’re mad because this is his fault too but you’re too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn’t go well because you’re too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you’re too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else’s just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives. Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don’t see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he’s fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he’s dead. So technically I’m better than Galileo because all I’ve done is take a shower and already I’ve accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I’d have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I’m not gloating because Galileo can’t control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn’t figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it’s pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine. I’ve learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.

It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. [...] The eyeless crature at the other table swallowed it fanatically. passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grams. Syme, too-in some more double complex way, involving doublethink-Syme, swallow it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?

Water, like violence, is difficult to contain.

I believe it was Sartre who said, “Hell is other people,” and I suspect he wrote that after spending an hour with overinvolved parents who won’t stop yelling at coaches, instructors, or crying four-year-olds who really just want a snow cone.

He might not have believed in what he preached, he might not have believed in voodoo,” she wrote of the Reverend, “but he had a profound and abiding belief in insurance.

It was as if he had two faces, one of utmost calm, one of furious action; and he wore both with ease. He was like the animal whose face he wore, able to sit in silence for hours, without moving a muscle, then flying like a raging storm into battle, returning again to perfect calm when the fight was over.

During the dark hours I felt my sick heart expand and beat more furiously, and I no longer made any distinction between pleasure and pain, but one was similar to the other; both hurt and both were precious. Whether my inner life went well or badly, my discovered strength stood peacefully outside looking on and knew that light and dark were closely related and that sorrow and peace were rhythm, part and spirit of the same great music.

I rented sloths by the hour.

Self-pity is a sin,” she told a reporter in 1963, already frustrated, only three years after Mockingbird. “It is a form of living suicide.

History isn’t what happened but what gets written down,

You see," he continued, beginning to feel better, "once there was no time at all, and people found it very inconvenient. They never knew wether they were eating lunch or dinner, and they were always missing trains. So time was invented to help them keep track of the day and get to places where they should. When they began to count all the time that was available, what with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, it seemed as if there was much more than could ever be used. 'If there's so much of it, it couldn't be very valuable,' was the general opinion, and it soon fell into dispute. People wasted it and even gave it away. Then we were giving the job of seeing that no one wasted time again," he said, sitting up proudly. "It's hard work but a noble calling. For you see"- and now he was standing on the seat, one foot on the windshield, shouting with his ams outstretched- "it is our most valuable possession, more precious than diamonds. It marches on, it and tide wait for no man, and-" At that point in the speech the car hit a bump in the road and the watchdog collapsed in a heap on the front seat with his alarm ringing furiously.

During the opening credits, he said, "We're in the back row. Want to just mess around instead?" She looked across at him, and he grinned. "It's been hours, after all." "Half that time you've been furious with me." "Doesn't mean I don't want to jump your bones.

Nothing writes itself. Left to its own devices, the world will never transform into words, & no matter how many pages of notes & interviews & documents a reporting trip generates, the one that matters most always starts out blank.

The Big Nurse is able to set the wall clock at whatever speed she wants by just turning one of those dials in the steel door; she takes a notion to hurry things up, she turns the speed up, and those hands whip around that disk like spokes in a wheel. The scene in the picture-screen windows goes through rapid changes of light to show morning, noon, and night - throb off and on furiously with day and dark, and everybody is driven like mad to keep up with that passing of fake time; awful scramble of shaves and breakfasts and appointments and lunches and medications and ten minutes of night so you barely get your eyes closed before the dorm light's screaming at you to get up and start the scramble again, go like a sonofabitch this way, going through the full schedule of a day maybe twenty times an hour, till the Big Nurse sees everybody is right up to the breaking point, and she slacks off on the throttle, eases off the pace on that clock-dial, like some kid been fooling with the moving-picture projection machine and finally got tired watching the film run at ten times its natural speed, got bored with all that silly scampering and insect squeak of talk and turned it back to normal.

Adam miserably wondered which of the neighbors were coming to his father’s defense. In an hour, this will be over. You will never have to do it again. All you have to do is survive. The door cracked open. Adam didn’t want to look, but he did anyway. In the hall stood Richard Campbell Gansey III in his school uniform and overcoat and scarf and gloves, looking like someone from another world. Behind him was Ronan Lynch, his damn tie knotted right for once and his shirt tucked in. Humiliation and joy warred furiously inside Adam.

Nobody recognized her. Harper Lee was well known, but not by sight, and if she hadn’t introduced herself, it’s unlikely that anyone in the courtroom would have figured out who she was.

He had wanted to bring a new kind of politics to Alabama: “the politics of reason, not race; of unity, not division; of concern for all citizens, not callous disregard of some for the sake of others.

We’d go to bed furious with each other, and then she’d wake me in the middle of the night and come and lie on my bed and we’d talk for hours, about nothing and everything, and she’d let me touch the scars on her stomach—the scars from where they cut me out of her.

Come,” he whispered. They all were welcome. They scattered for the racks, seizing their spiked swords, and their sharp axes, and the Bloody-Nine laughed to watch them. Armed or not, their death was a thing already decided. It was written into the cavern in lines of fire and lines of shadow. Now he would write it in lines of blood. “Die!” he roared, and the blade made circles, savage and beautiful, the letter on the metal burning red and leaving bright trails behind. And where the circles passed everything would be made right. The Shanka would scream and gibber, and the pieces of them would scatter, and they would be sliced and divided as neatly as meat on the butcher’s block The Bloody-Nine showed his teeth, and smiled to be free, and to see the good work done so well. He knocked a barbed sword from a Flathead’s hand, seized it by the scruff of the neck and forced its face down into the channel where the molten steel flowed, furious yellow, and its head hissed and bubbled, shooting out stinking steam. “Burn!” laughed the Bloody-Nine, and the ruined corpses, and their gaping wounds, and their fallen weapons, and the boiling bright iron laughed with him. Only the Shanka did not laugh. They knew their hour was come.

I looked at it out there. The figures that held my attention, as always (I too had an office at Buna, and spent many hours in front of its window), the figures that held my attention were not the men in stripes, as they queued or scurried in lines or entangled one another in a kind of centipedal scrum, moving at an unnatural speed, like extras in a silent film, moving faster than their strength or build could bear, as if in obedience to a frantic crank swivelled by a furious hand; the figures that held my attention were not the Kapos who screamed at the prisoners, nor the SS noncoms who screamed at the Kapos, nor the overalled company foremen who screamed at the SS noncoms. No. What held my eye were the figures in city business suits, designers, engineers, administrators from IG Farben plants in Frankfurt, Leverkusen, Ludwigshafen, with leather-bound notebooks and retractable yellow measuring tapes, daintily picking their way past the bodies of the wounded, the unconscious, and the dead.

Now come the floods. They charge down atavistic canyons drinking furiously out of thunderstorms, coming one after the next with vomited boulders and trees pounding from one side of a canyon to the other, sometimes no more than hours apart. Sometimes a hundred years apart. Sometimes a thousand. The floods always come.

Ilove having existential crises at bedtime, it’s so restful. I lay awake for at least an hour after the final bell, staring furiously at the blue flicker of the gaslight by the door.

her five favorite novels: Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Richard Hughes’s High Wind in Jamaica, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

So we have to make sure we stop it here," he said. "Exactly. Well,you asked me to get you as close to the water as possible.I presume you have a plan?" "My love,I always have a plan." They heard footsteps rattling behind them and turned as Prometheus and Niten came hurrying up. They were both carrying fishing rods over their shoulders.The slender Japanese man grinned. "Do not ask him how much it cost to hire these," he said. "How much?" Nicholas asked. "Too much," Prometheus answered furiously. "I could have bought an entire fishing boat,or at least a very good fish dinner,for what it cost to rent them for a couple of hours," he grumbled. "Plus a deposit in case we don't bring them back." "What's the plan?" Niten asked. He held out an empty bucket. "We can'nt really go fishing. We don't have bait." "Oh,but we do." Nicholas smiled. "You are our bait.

How was my day? It was a lifetime. It was the best of times and the worst of times. I was both lonely and never alone. I was simultaneously bored out of my skull and completely overwhelmed. I was saturated with touch—desperate to get the baby off of me and the second I put her down I yearned to smell her sweet skin again. This day required more than I’m physically and emotionally capable of, while requiring nothing from my brain. I had thoughts today, ideas, real things to say and no one to hear them. I felt manic all day, alternating between love and fury. At least once an hour I looked at their faces and thought I might not survive the tenderness of my love for them. The next moment I was furious. I felt like a dormant volcano, steady on the outside but ready to explode and spew hot lava at any moment. And then I noticed that Amma’s foot doesn’t fit into her Onesie anymore, and I started to panic at the reminder that this will be over soon, that it’s fleeting—that this hardest time of my life is supposed to be the best time of my life. That this brutal time is also the most beautiful time. Am I enjoying it enough? Am I missing the best time of my life? Am I too tired to be properly in love? That fear and shame felt like adding a heavy, itchy blanket on top of all the hard. But I’m not complaining, so please don’t try to fix it. I wouldn’t have my day or my life any other way. I’m just saying—it’s a hell of a hard thing to explain—an entire day with lots of babies. It’s far too much and not even close to enough. But

There is one hour in his life when we see a flash of utter physical action on Christ's part, an hour when this most curious of men must have experienced the sheer joyous exuberance of a young mammal in full flight: when he lets himself go and flings over the first money changer's table in the Temple at Jerusalem, coins flying, doves thrashing into the air, oxen bellowing, sheep yowling, the money changer going head-over-teakettle, all heads turning, what the...? You don't think Christ got a shot of utter childlike physical glee at that moment? Too late to stop now, his rage rushing to his head, his veiny carpenter's-son wiry arms and hard feet milling as he whizzes through the Temple overturning tables, smashing birdcages, probably popping a furious money-changer here and there with a quick left jab or a well-placed Divine Right Elbow to the money-lending teeth, whipping his scourge of cords against the billboard-size flank of an ox, men scrambling to get out of the way, to grab some of the flying coins, to get a punch in on this nutty rube causing all the ruckus... In all this holy rage and chaos, don't you think there was a little absolute boyish mindless physical jittery joy in the guy?

Bearded Oaks" The oaks, how subtle and marine, Bearded, and all the layered light Above them swims; and thus the scene, Recessed, awaits the positive night. So, waiting, we in the grass now lie Beneath the languorous tread of light: The grassed, kelp-like, satisfy The nameless motions of the air. Upon the floor of light, and time, Unmurmuring, of polyp made, We rest; we are, as light withdraws, Twin atolls on a shelf of shade. Ages to our construction went, Dim architecture, hour by hour: And violence, forgot now, lent The present stillness all its power. The storm of noon above us rolled, Of light the fury, furious gold, The long drag troubling us, the depth: Dark is unrocking, unrippling, still. Passion and slaughter, ruth, decay descend, minutely whispering down, Silted down swaying streams, to lay Foundation for our voicelessness. All our debate is voiceless here, As all our rage, the rage of stone; If hope is hopeless, then fearless is fear, And history is thus undone. Our feet once wrought the hollow street With echo when the lamps were dead All windows, once our headlight glare Disturbed the doe that, leaping fled. I do not love you less that now The caged heart makes iron stroke, Or less that all that light once gave The graduate dark should now revoke. We live in time so little time And we learn all so painfully, That we may spare this hour's term To practice for eternity.

Like a lot of small town bookworms, she was too well-read to be a true country bumpkin, but too country to be anything but mesmerized by Manhattan. She had enough books to read, and movies to see, and museums to visit to last her several lifetimes. The city overwhelmed and delighted her.

Mrs. Varden was a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper - a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable. Thus it generally happened, that when other people were merry, Mrs. Varden was dull; and that when other people were dull, Mrs. Varden was disposed to be amazingly cheerful. Indeed the worthy housewife was of such a capricious nature, that she not only attained a higher pitch of genius than Macbeth, in respect of her ability to be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral in an instant, but would sometimes ring the changes backwards and forwards on all possible moods and flights in one short quarter of an hour; performing, as it were, a kind of triple bob major on the peal of instruments in the female belfry, with a skilfulness and rapidity of execution that astonished all who heard her.

For one who sets himself to look at all earnestly, at all in purpose toward truth, into the living eyes of a human life: what is it he there beholds that so freezes and abashes his ambitious heart? What is it, profound behind the outward windows of each one of you, beneath touch even of your own suspecting, drawn tightly back at bay against the backward wall and blackness of its prison cave, so that the eyes alone shine of their own angry glory, but the eyes of a trapped wild animal, or of a furious angel nailed to the ground by his wings, or however else one may faintly designate the human 'soul,' that which is angry, that which is wild, that which is untamable, that which is healthful and holy, that which is competent of all advantaging within hope of human dream, that which most marvelous and most precious to our knowledge and most extremely advanced upon futurity of all flowerings within the scope of creation is of all these the least destructible, the least corruptible, the most defenseless, the most easily and multitudinously wounded, frustrated, prisoned, and nailed into a cheating of itself: so situated in the universe that those three hours upon the cross are but a noble and too trivial an emblem how in each individual among most of the two billion now alive and in each successive instant of the existence of each existence not only human being but in him the tallest and most sanguine hope of godhead is in a billionate choiring and drone of pain of generations upon generations unceasingly crucified and is bringing forth crucifixions into their necessities and is each in the most casual of his life so measurelessly discredited, harmed, insulted, poisoned, cheated, as not all the wrath, compassion, intelligence, power of rectification in all the reach of the future shall in the least expiate or make one ounce more light: how, looking thus into your eyes and seeing thus, how each of you is a creature which has never in all time existed before and which shall never in all time exist again and which is not quite like any other and which has the grand stature and natural warmth of every other and whose existence is all measured upon a still mad and incurable time; how am I to speak of you as 'tenant' 'farmers,' as 'representatives' of your 'class,' as social integers in a criminal economy, or as individuals, fathers, wives, sons, daughters, and as my friends and as I 'know' you?

So back to my question: what are you doing here?” Maia asked. Derek sighed, reached into his pocket and handed her a smartphone. “Viktor wanted me to give you this.” Jack turned livid with anger. “She’s not yet fully recovered,” he said furiously. “It’s barely been 48 hours.” “See, I hate getting caught in the middle of this,” Derek said. “It’s almost like a messed-up love triangle.” Jack’s face grew darker. Maia was controlling a grin. “Viktor is worried that he has no way of contacting you,” Derek continued. “Oh, stop scowling, Jack! You’re with Maia, Viktor comes with the package.” “Like fucking hell!” ~Derek, Maia & Jack

an hour in running shoes, I got almost instantly from these Kangoo boots,” Ted says. “My worldview of what I needed was shattered.” Furious and frustrated, he yanked them off his feet. He couldn’t wait to shove the stupid Kangoos back in the box and mail them back to Switzerland with instructions for further shoving. He stalked

She went from room to room, nosed about in the kitchen, banged furiously on the door of the bathroom which someone was occupying, and she wanted to break in, to manage, to give them a shaking, to ask them if they were going to stay in there for an hour, or remind them that it was late, that they were going to miss the car or the train, it was too late, that they had already missed something because of their carelessness, their negligence, or that their breakfast was ready, that it was cold, that it had been waiting for two hours, that it was stone-cold . . . And it seemed that from her viewpoint there was nothing uglier, more contemptible, more stupid, more hateful, that there was no more obvious sign of inferiority, of weakness, than to let one’s breakfast grow cold, than to come late for breakfast.

It all got too busy, suddenly. Troops were getting into battles at the Moro Bridge and then into Urbino. Maybe in Urbino I stopped. You felt you could be shot any time there, not just if you were a soldier, but a priest or a nurse. It was a rabbit warren, those narrow tilted streets. Soldiers were coming in with just bits of their bodies, falling in love with me for an hour and then dying. It was important to remember their names. But I kept seeing the child whenever they died. Being washed away. Some would sit up and rip all their dressings off trying to breathe better. Some would be worried about tiny scratches on their arms when they died. Then the bubble in the mouth. That little pop. I leaned forward to close a dead soldier’s eyes, and he open them and sniggered, “Can’t wait to have me dead? You bitch!” He sat up and swept everything on my tray to the floor. So furious. Who would want to die like that? To die with that kind of anger. You bitch! After that I always waited for the bubble in their mouths. I know death now, David. I know all the smells, I know how to divert them from agony. When to give the quick jolt of morphine in a major vein. The saline solution. To make them empty their bowels before they die. Every damn general should have had my job. Every damn general. It should have been a pre-requisite for any river crossing. Who the hell were we to be given this responsibility, expected to be wise as old priests, to know how to lead people towards something no one wanted and somehow make them feel comfortable. I could never believe in all those services they gave for the dead. Their vulgar rhetoric. How dare they! How dare they talk like that about a human being dying.

a tragic roster of activists and innocents had died for the crime of being black or supporting blacks in their state. There was Willie Edwards Jr., the truck driver forced off a bridge to his death by four Klansmen in Montgomery. There was William Lewis Moore, the man from Baltimore shot and killed in Attalla while trying to walk a letter denouncing segregation 385 miles to the governor of Mississippi. There were four young girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, killed by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. There was thirteen-year-old Virgil Lamar Ware, shot to death on the handlebars of his brother’s bicycle in the same city. There was Jimmie Lee Jackson, beaten and shot by state troopers in Marion while he tried to protect his mother and grandfather during a protest. There was the Reverend James Reeb, the Unitarian minister beaten to death in Selma. There was Viola Gregg Liuzzo, shot by Klansmen while trying to ferry marchers between Selma and Montgomery. There was Willie Brewster, shot to death while walking home in Anniston. There was Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a seminarian registering black voters who was arrested for participating in a protest and then shot by a deputy sheriff in Hayneville. There was Samuel Leamon Younge Jr., murdered by a gas station owner after arguing about segregated restrooms.

Hours later Kaderin paced in the main cabin of the jet, furious over more things than she could process. The first: because of the Lykae’s stunt, she was being forced into this situation with Sebastian. And she’d left the diamonds. Silly Valkyrie. The second: two of her half-sisters, her coven mates, had been wed, and she’d heard of it after the fact. They are so not getting gifts from me. Were her sisters that averse to her presence at weddings? Am I that dismal?

For an hour or so we were furiously angry, and were possessed with an insane sense that we must go straight to the Bay of Whales and have it out with Amundsen and his men in some undefined fashion or other there and then. Such a mood could not and did not bear a moment's reflection; but it was natural enough. We had just paid the first instalment of the heart-breaking labour of making a path to the Pole; and we felt, however unreasonably, that we had earned the first right of way.

It’s a long story,” he said, taking a sip of Mr. Braeburn’s whiskey, “so I will tell only a very condensed version of it. “Mrs. Marsden and I grew up on adjacent properties in the Cotswold. But the Cotswold, as fair as it is, plays almost no part in this tale. Because it was not in the green, unpolluted countryside that we fell in love, but in gray, sooty London. Love at first sight, of course, a hunger of the soul that could not be denied.” Bryony trembled somewhere inside. This was not their story, but her story, the determined spinster felled by the magnificence and charm of the gorgeous young thing. He glanced at her. “You were the moon of my existence; your moods dictated the tides of my heart.” The tides of her own heart surged at his words, even though his words were nothing but lies. “I don’t believe I had moods,” she said severely. “No, of course not. ‘Thou art more lovely and more temperate’—and the tides of my heart only rose ever higher to crash against the levee of my self-possession. For I loved you most intemperately, my dear Mrs. Marsden.” Beside her Mrs. Braeburn blushed, her eyes bright. Bryony was furious at Leo, for his facile words, and even more so at herself, for the painful pleasure that trickled into her drop by drop. “Our wedding was the happiest hour of my life, that we would belong to each other always. The church was filled with hyacinths and camellias, and the crowd overflowed to the steps, for the whole world wanted to see who had at last captured your lofty heart. “But alas, I had not truly captured your lofty heart, had I? I but held it for a moment. And soon there was trouble in Paradise. One day, you said to me, ‘My hair has turned white. It is a sign I must wander far and away. Find me then, if you can. Then and only then will I be yours again.’” Her heart pounded again. How did he know that she had indeed taken her hair turning white as a sign that the time had come for her to leave? No, he did not know. He’d made it up out of whole cloth. But even Mr. Braeburn was spellbound by this ridiculous tale. She had forgotten how hypnotic Leo could be, when he wished to beguile a crowd. “And so I have searched. From the poles to the tropics, from the shores of China to the shores of Nova Scotia. Our wedding photograph in hand, I have asked crowds pale, red, brown, and black, ‘I seek an English lady doctor, my lost beloved. Have you seen her?’” He looked into her eyes, and she could not look away, as mesmerized as the hapless Braeburns. “And now I have found you at last.” He raised his glass. “To the beginning of the rest of our lives.

We've all heard the stories. It's just that some people don't want to believe them. 'He shall rise from the green' doesn't have to mean coming from the Blood Forest or Ruthgar. It could mean he starts out drafting green. One of the first glimmers of Breaker's magical genius showed whyen he went green golem in the Battle of Garriston - he'd never even heard of going green golem. He intuited it on the spot. His will was so strong, he drafted a green that stopped musket balls, Teia. 'He shall kill gods and kings'? He already done both. 'He'll be an outsider'? How much more outsider can you be than a mixed-blood bastard from Tyrea? Each of those things offend the luxiats, and all of them together make their blood boil - as it makes them furious that a Lightbringer would be necessary to put their worship right - but hasn't Orholam's work always offended those in power? I won't put myself on the wrong side of Orholam. 'In the darkest hour, when the abominations come the sores of Big Jasper, when Hope himself has died, then shall he bring the holy light and banish darkness.' 'Hope himself,' Teia. That's Gavin Guile. He's dead. our darkest hour is coming. We have to pick a side.

A masquerade is supposed to be a chance to put on a different face, isn't it? An opportunity to be someone else for a few hours. Yet I can't seem to manage it. I'm still me, beneath the mask." "I know what you mean." Gabe was still himself beneath the armor, too. An interloper among the aristocrats. Unwelcome. Inadequate. "We are who we are, I suppose." "We are who we are," she agreed. Gabe despised the defeated note in her voice. He liked who she was, beneath the mask. And when he was in her company, he almost liked who he was, too. The idea that anyone would overlook her made him vaguely furious.

Daily, almost at the same hour, the continuous sense of atmospheric oppression became thickened;--a packed herd of low-bellying clouds lumbered up from the Gulf; crowded blackly against the sun; flickered, thundered, and burst in torrential rain--tepid, perpendicular--and vanished utterly away. Then, more furiously than before, the sun flamed down;--roofs and pavements steamed; the streets seemed to smoke; the air grew suffocating with vapor; and the luminous city filled with a faint, sickly odor,--a stale smell, as of dead leaves suddenly disinterred from wet mould,--as of grasses decomposing after a flood.

He saw two stars collapse against one another and a nova form; it flared up and then, as he watched, it began to die out. He saw it turn from a furiously blazing ring into a dim core of dead iron and then he saw it cool into darkness. More stars cooled with it; he saw the force of entropy, the method of the Destroyer of Forms, retract the stars into dull reddish coals and then into dust-like silence. A shroud of thermal energy hung uniformly over the world, over this strange and little world for which he had no love or use. It's dying, he realized. The universe. The thermal haze spread on and on until it became only a disturbance, nothing more; the sky glowed weakly with it and then flickered. Even the uniform thermal disbursement was expiring. How strange and goddamn awful, he thought. He got to his feet, moved a step toward the door. And there, on his feet, he died. They found him an hour later. Seth Morley stood with his wife at the far end of the knot of people jammed into the small room and said to himself, "to keep him from helping with the prayer". "The same force that shut down the transmitter," Ignatz Thugg said. "They knew; they knew if he phrased the prayer it would go through. Even without the relay." He looked gray and frightened. All of them did, Seth Morley noticed. Their faces, in the light of the room, had a leaden, stone-like cast. Like, he thought, thousand-year-old idols. Time, he thought, is shutting down around us. It is as if the future is gone, for all of us.

My sleep cycle is a bit more elaborate. The seven stages of sleep (according to my body) STAGE 1: You take the maximum dose of sleeping pills, but they don’t work at all and then you glare at their smug bottles at three a.m., whispering, “You lying bastards.” STAGE 2: You fall asleep for eight minutes and you have that dream where you’ve missed a semester of classes and don’t know where you’re supposed to be and when you wake up you realize that even in sleep you’re fucking your life up. STAGE 3: You close your eyes for just a minute but never lose consciousness and then you open your eyes and realize it’s been hours since you closed your eyes and you feel like you’ve lost time and were probably abducted by aliens. STAGE 4: This is the sleep that you miss because you’re too busy looking up “Symptoms of Alien Abduction” on your phone. STAGE 5: This is the deep REM sleep that recharges you completely and doesn’t actually exist but is made up by other people to taunt you. STAGE 6: You hover in a state of half sleep when you’re trying to stay under but someone is touching your nose and you think it’s a dream but now someone is touching your mouth and you open your eyes and your cat’s face is an inch from yours and he’s like, “BOOP. I got your nose.” STAGE 7: You finally fall into the deep sleep you desperately need. Sadly, this sleep only comes after you’re supposed to be awake, and you feel guilty about getting it because you should have been up hours ago but you’ve been up all night and now your arms are missing.

Peeves, who seemed to have taken Fred’s parting words deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, toppling statues and vases; twice he shut Mrs Norris inside a suit of armour, from which she was rescued, yowling loudly, by the furious caretaker. Peeves smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows; flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.

The Old Man’s voice sinks to a minor. It puts on mourning, it drips unction. A sudden tremor passes over the black flock of masters. Their faces show self-control, solemnity. —“But especially we would remember those fallen sons of our foundation who hastened joyfully to the defence of their homeland and who have remained upon the field of honour. Twenty-one comrades are with us no more;—twenty-one warriors have met the glorious death of arms; twenty-one heroes have found rest from the clamour of battle under foreign soil and sleep the long sleep beneath the green grasses——” There is a sudden, booming laughter. The principal stops short in pained perplexity. The laughter comes from Willy, standing there, big and gaunt, like an immense wardrobe. His face is red as a turkey’s, he is so furious. “Green grasses! —Green grasses!” he stutters. “Long sleep? In the mud of shell holes they are lying, knocked rotten, ripped in pieces, gone down into the bog—Green grasses! This is not a singing lesson!” His arms are whirling like a windmill in a gale. “Hero’s death! And what sort of a thing do you suppose that was, I wonder? Would you like to know how young Hoyer died? All day long he lay out in the wire screaming, and his guts hanging out of his belly like macaroni. Then a bit of shell took off his fingers and a couple of hours later another chunk off his leg, and still he lived; and with his other hand he would keep trying to pack back his intestines, and when night fell at last he was done. And when it was dark we went out to get him and he was full of holes as a nutmeg grater. —Now you go and tell his mother how he died,—if you have so much courage.

As a bonding exercise one weekend, Musk, Ambras, a few other employees and friends took off for a bike ride through the Saratoga Gap trail in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the riders had been training and were accustomed to strenuous sessions and the summer’s heat. They set up the mountains at a furious pace. After an hour, Russ Rive, Musk’s cousin, reached the top and proceeded to vomit. Right behind him were the rest of the cyclists. Then, fifteen minutes later, Musk became visible to the group. His face had turned purple, and sweat poured out of him, and he made it to the top. “I always think back to that ride. He wasn’t close to being in the condition needed for it,” Ambras said. “Anyone else would have quit or walked up their bike. As I watched him climb that final hundred feet with suffering all over his face, I thought, That’s Elon. Do or die but don’t give up.

BERLIN, September 27 A motorized division rolled through the city’s streets just at dusk this evening in the direction of the Czech frontier. I went out to the corner of the Linden where the column was turning down the Wilhelmstrasse, expecting to see a tremendous demonstration. I pictured the scenes I had read of in 1914 when the cheering throngs on this same street tossed flowers at the marching soldiers, and the girls ran up and kissed them. The hour was undoubtedly chosen today to catch the hundreds of thousands of Berliners pouring out of their offices at the end of the day’s work. But they ducked into the subways, refused to look on, and the handful that did stood at the curb in utter silence unable to find a word of cheer for the flower of their youth going away to the glorious war. It has been the most striking demonstration against war I’ve ever seen. Hitler himself reported furious.

I made an appointment with a sleep doctor, who explained that during the sleep study people would be watching me sleep and monitoring my brain waves to see how I reacted during the four stages of sleep. I'd explain those stages if I could spell all the complicated words but they basically range from "Wide awake" to "Just barely not dead." My sleep cycle is a bit more elaborate. The seven stages of sleep (according to my body) STAGE 1: You take the maximum dose of sleeping pills, but they don't work at all and then you glare at their smug bottles at three a.m., whispering, "You lying bastards." STAGE 2: You fall asleep for eight minutes and you have that dream where you've missed a semester of classes and don't know where you're supposed to be and when you wake up you realize that even in your sleep you're fucking your life up. STAGE 3: You close your eyes for just a minute but never lose consciousness and then you open your eyes and realize it's been hours since you closed your eyes and you feel like you've lost time and were probably abducted by aliens. STAGE 4: This is the sleep that you miss because you're too busy looking up "Symptoms of Alien Abduction" on your phone. STAGE 5: This is the deep REM sleep that recharges you completely and doesn't actually exist but is made up by other people to taunt you. STAGE 6: You hover in a state of half sleep when you're trying to stay under but someone is touching your nose and you think it's a dream but now someone is touching your mouth and you open your eyes and your cat's face is an inch from yours and he's like, "BOOP. I got your nose." STAGE 7: You finally fall into the deep sleep you desperately need. Sadly, this sleep only comes after you're suppose to be awake, and you feel guilty about getting it because you should have been up hours ago but you've been up all night and now your arms are missing. I suspected that the only stage of sleep I'd have during the sleep study would be the sleep you don't get because strangers are watching you.

Child, child,” it said, “have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul—but so have we. You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them—but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way—but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us—we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.

As he strode across the room after Lady Tarley, Maria found herself smiling. She ought to be furious with him, knowing that the gossip might make it into the London papers and get back to Nathan. So whywasn’t she? Because he’d done it to save her from embarrassment. And because Oliver rarely said anything on impulse. Considering how he’d fought the idea of marriage, it was astonishing he would let something like that slip. It made her hope… No, she’d be mad to hope for anything more from him-especially given his clear alarm over how he’d misspoken. The woman Lady Tarley had been talking to hurried to Mrs. Plumtree, who broke into a cat-in-the-cream smile after the woman said a few words to her. Mrs. Plumtree glanced over at Maria, and to Maria’s shock, she winked. Winked! Maria didn’t know what had happened in the past few hours, but somehow Mrs. Plumtree had gone from disapproving of her as a wife for Oliver to approving of her wholeheartedly. Oh dear. She had a sinking feeling that this evening was about to head in a direction Oliver hadn’t anticipated. And the worst part was that a tiny, ridiculous corner of her heart was glad.

—and I say you still haven't answered my question, Father Bleu." "Haven't I, dear lady? I thought I stated that death is merely the beginning of—" "No, no, no!" Her voice was as high as a harpy's. "Don't go all gooey and metaphysical. I mean to ask, what is death the act, the situation, the moment?" She watched him foxily. The priest in turn struggled to remain polite. "Madame, I'm not positive I follow." "Let me say it another way. Most people are afraid of dying, yes?" "I disagree. Not those who find mystical union with the body of Christ in—" "Oh, come off it!" Madame Kagle shrilled. "People are frightened of it, Father Bleu. Frightened and screaming their fear silently every hour of every day they live. Now I put it to you. Of what are they afraid? Are they afraid of the end of consciousness? The ultimate blackout, so to speak? Or are they afraid of another aspect of death? The one which they can't begin to foresee or understand?" "What aspect is that, Madame Kagle?" "The pain." She glared. "The pain, Father. Possibly sudden. Possibly horrible. Waiting, always waiting somewhere ahead, at an unguessable junction of time and place. Like that bootboy tonight. How it must have hurt. One blinding instant when his head hit, eh? I suggest, Father Bleu, that is what we're afraid of, that is the wholly unknowable part of dying—the screaming, hurting how, of which the when is only a lesser part. The how is the part we never know. Unless we experience it." She slurped champagne in the silence. She eyed him defiantly. "Well, Father? What have you got to say?" Discreetly Father Bleu coughed into his closed fist. "Theologically, Madame, I find the attempt to separate the mystical act of dying into neat little compartments rather a matter of hairsplitting. And furthermore—" "If that's how you feel," she interrupted, "you're just not thinking it out." "My good woman!" said Father Bleu gently. "Pay attention to me!" Madame Wanda Kagle glared furiously. "I say you pay attention! Because you have never stopped to think about it, have you? If death resembles going to sleep, why, that's an idea your mind can get hold of, isn't it? You may be afraid of it, yes. Afraid of the end of everything. But at least you can get hold of some notion of something of what it's like. Sleep. But can you get hold of anything of what it must feel like to experience the most agonizing of deaths? Your head popping open like that bootboy's tonight, say? A thousand worms of pain inside every part of you for a second long as eternity? Can you grasp that? No, you can't, Father Bleu. And that's what death is at it's worst—the unknown, the possibly harrowing pain ahead." She clamped her lips together smugly. She held out her champagne glass for a refill. A woman in furs clapped a hand over her fashionably green lips and rushed from the group. Though puzzled, Joy was still all eyes and ears. "Even your blessed St. Paul bears me out, Father." The priest glanced up, startled. "What?" "The first letter to the Corinthians, if I remember. The grave has a victory, all right. But it's death that has the sting." In the pause the furnace door behind her eyes opened wide, and hell shone out. "I know what I'm talking about, Father. I've been there." Slowly she closed her fingers, crushing the champagne glass in her hand. Weeping, blood drooling from her palm down her frail veined arms, she had to be carried out. The party broke up at once.

A challenge.” He tsked. “I’ll let you take it back. Just this one.” “I cannot take it back.” At that, Irex drew his dagger and imitated Kestrel’s gesture. They stood still, then sheathed their blades. “I’ll even let you choose the weapons,” Irex said. “Needles. Now it is to you to choose the time and place.” “My grounds. Tomorrow, two hours from sunset. That will give me time to gather the death-price.” This gave Kestrel pause. But she nodded, and finally turned to Arin. He looked nauseated. He sagged in the senators’ grip. It seemed they weren’t restraining him, but holding him up. “You can let go,” Kestrel told the senators, and when they did, she ordered Arin to follow her. As they left the library, Arin said, “Kestrel--” “Not a word. Don’t speak until we are in the carriage.” They walked swiftly down the halls--Arin’s halls--and when Kestrel stole sidelong looks at him he still seemed stunned and dizzy. Kestrel had been seasick before, at the beginning of her sailing lessons, and she wondered if this was how Arin felt, surrounded by his home--like when the eyes can pinpoint the horizon but the stomach cannot. Their silence broke when the carriage door closed them in. “You are mad.” Arin’s voice was furious, desperate. “It was my book. My doing. You had no right to interfere. Did you think I couldn’t bear the punishment for being caught?” “Arin.” Fear trembled through her as she finally realized what she had done. She strove to sound calm. “A duel is simply a ritual.” “It’s not yours to fight.” “You know you cannot. Irex would never accept, and if you drew a blade on him, every Valorian in the vicinity would cut you down. Irex won’t kill me.” He gave her a cynical look. “Do you deny that he is the superior fighter?” “So he will draw first blood. He will be satisfied, and we will both walk away with honor.” “He said something about a death-price.” That was the law’s penalty for a duel to the death. The victor paid a high sum to the dead duelist’s family. Kestrel dismissed this. “It will cost Irex more than gold to kill General Trajan’s daughter.” Arin dropped his face into his hands. He began to swear, to recite every insult against the Valorian’s the Herrani had invented, to curse them by every god. “Really, Arin.” His hands fell away. “You, too. What a stupid thing for you to do. Why did you do that? Why would you do such a stupid thing?” She thought of his claim that Enai could never have loved her, or if she had, it was a forced love. “You might not think of me as your friend,” Kestrel told Arin, “but I think of you as mine.

I’ll tell you what,” she said, prepared to make a deal. “Let’s see how your ‘diplomacy’ would profit us. If you can give me a decent solution to a pretend situation, I’ll agree to have you accompany me instead of Shanks. Although, I don’t know how wise it is to leave a Viidun captain on the Kemeniroc in your absence.” Derian agreed to the test. “Okay, what’s your question?” She thought hard for a moment; her eyes scrunching in concentration, lips pulled down to one side. Then, as a crooked grin spread across her lips, she set up an imagined scenario. “Pretend we’re down on the planet with this King Wennergren when he graciously offers to walk us through his cherished garden. While we’re there he begs me to touch his favorite, award-winning flower, hoping my powers will make it thrive and blossom. But for some strange reason it doesn’t respond to me the way plants do on our world. Instead of thriving, the flower withers and dies right before his shocked and furious eyes. Now pretend he’s easily offended and has a horrible temper…” Derian cut it. “You have no idea what his temperament is like.” “I know. That’s not the point.” Her eyes scolded him for interrupting. “Just pretend that he becomes outraged by my actions, assuming that I purposefully destroyed his prized plant. The angry king orders both of us to be seized and thrown into his deep, dark, inescapable dungeon. But, somehow we manage to dodge his line of soldiers and run into a nearby congested jungle, hiding beneath the foliage from our determined pursuers. “Finally, pretend that we trudge along for hours, so deep within the trees that we begin to hear howling in the distance from dangerous, hungry beasts. They seem to sound off all around us. Every now and then we hear weapon’s fire as King Wennergren’s men fend off these wild animals. This only reminds us that the soldiers are still in pursuit. Far, far buried within the dark jungle we spot a clearing and head for it. Unfortunately, once we reach it we come across an entire pack of ferocious animals who begin to stalk us. So we turn around, only to face a line of soldiers from behind, pointing their weapons our direction. We’re surrounded by danger on both sides, Derian! Now, what do you do?” She looked at him, wide-eyed and expectant. “Eena, you have a terribly overactive imagination,” he said flatly. She rolled her eyes, then impatiently asked him again, “Well? What would you do?” “I’d stop pretending." She fell back in her chair, groaning. “You’re still not going.” “Try and stop me,” he dared. “You know I can,” she reminded him. He glared at her. “When the time comes, we’ll see.

The Duration Here they are are on the beach where the boy played for fifteen summers, before he grew too old for French cricket, shrimping and rock pools. Here is the place where he built his dam year after year. See, the stream still comes down just as it did, and spreads itself on the sand into a dozen channels. How he enlisted them: those splendid spades, those sunbonneted girls furiously shoring up the ramparts. Here they are on the beach, just as they were those fifteen summers. She has a rough towel ready for him. The boy was always last out of the water. She would rub him down hard, chafe him like a foal up on its legs for an hour and trembling, all angles. She would dry carefully between his toes. Here they are on the beach, the two of them sitting on the same square of mackintosh, the same tartan rug. Quality lasts. There are children in the water, and mothers patrolling the sea's edge, calling them back from the danger zone beyond the breakers. How her heart would stab when he went too far out. Once she flustered into the water, shouting until he swam back. He was ashamed of her then. Wouldn't speak, wouldn't look at her even. Her skirt was sopped. She had to wring out the hem. She wonders if Father remembers. Later, when they've had their sandwiches she might speak of it. There are hours yet. Thousands, by her reckoning.

for I saw them, while I was still struggling through the bushes, looking out of the back window,—and yet drove on indifferently? Did he suppose that in all the wide world there could be forgiveness for such people? He shrugged his shoulders. “Aprés tout, madame,” he said, “cc n’est qu’un chien.” It seemed to me as I drove home, with Woosie wrapped in a cloth I had begged of the vet, at my feet—Woosie so quiet now, who had never yet been quiet, so for ever acquiescent,—it seemed to me as if I saw for the first time, in their just proportions, the cruelty and suffering which is life, and the sure release, the one real consolation, which is death. From having thought highly of being alive—for, with a few stretches of misery, I have been a fortunate and a happy person,—I began to think highly of being dead. Out of it all. Done with torment. Safe from further piteous woes. My mind, that is, during the drive, ran in directions which the comfortable would call morbid; it ran, in other words, in the direction of stark truth. And I don’t see how it could do anything else with a little dead thing, a thing so lately of my intimate acquaintance, which an hour before had been almost fiercely alive and furiously enjoying itself, lying at my feet in the awful meekness of death. Finished, Woosie was; and the manner of his ending left me with a great desire, if only it were possible, to beg his pardon, and the pardon of all poor helpless creatures, for the tragic unkindness of human beings. I

How was my day? It was a lifetime. It was the best of times and the worst of times. I was both lonely and never alone. I was simultaneously bored out of my skull and completely overwhelmed. I was saturated with touch—desperate to get the baby off of me and the second I put her down I yearned to smell her sweet skin again. This day required more than I’m physically and emotionally capable of, while requiring nothing from my brain. I had thoughts today, ideas, real things to say and no one to hear them. I felt manic all day, alternating between love and fury. At least once an hour I looked at their faces and thought I might not survive the tenderness of my love for them. The next moment I was furious. I felt like a dormant volcano, steady on the outside but ready to explode and spew hot lava at any moment. And then I noticed that Amma’s foot doesn’t fit into her Onesie anymore, and I started to panic at the reminder that this will be over soon, that it’s fleeting—that this hardest time of my life is supposed to be the best time of my life. That this brutal time is also the most beautiful time. Am I enjoying it enough? Am I missing the best time of my life? Am I too tired to be properly in love? That fear and shame felt like adding a heavy, itchy blanket on top of all the hard. But I’m not complaining, so please don’t try to fix it. I wouldn’t have my day or my life any other way. I’m just saying—it’s a hell of a hard thing to explain—an entire day with lots of babies. It’s far too much and not even close to enough.

Grabbing my hair and pulling it to the point my skull throbs, I rock back and forth while insanity threatens to destroy my mind completely. Father finally did what Lachlan started. Destroyed my spirit. The angel is gone. The monster has come and killed her. Lachlan Sipping his whiskey, Shon gazes with a bored expression at the one-way mirror as Arson lights the match, grazing the skin of his victim with it as the man convulses in fear. “Show off,” he mutters, and on instinct, I slap the back of his head. He rubs it, spilling the drink. “The fuck? We are wasting time, Lachlan. Tell him to speed up. You know if you let him, he can play for hours.” All in good time, we don’t need just a name. He is saving him for a different kind of information that we write down as Sociopath types furiously on his computer, searching for the location and everything else using FBI databases. “Bingo!” Sociopath mutters, picking up the laptop and showing the screen to me. “It’s seven hours away from New York, in a deserted location in the woods. The land belongs to some guy who is presumed dead and the man accrued the right to build shelters for abused women. They actually live there as a place of new hope or something.” Indeed, the center is advertised as such and has a bunch of stupid reviews about it. Even the approval of a social worker, but then it doesn’t surprise me. Pastor knows how to be convincing. “Kids,” I mutter, fisting my hands. “Most of them probably have kids. He continues to do his fucked-up shit.” And all these years, he has been under my radar. I throw the chair and it bounces off the wall, but no one says anything as they feel the same. “Shon, order a plane. Jaxon—” “Yeah, my brothers will be there with us. But listen, the FBI—” he starts, and I nod. He takes a beat and quickly sends a message to someone on his phone while I bark into the microphone. “Arson, enough with the bullshit. Kill him already.” He is of no use to us anyway. Arson looks at the wall and shrugs. Then pours gas on his victim and lights up the match simultaneously, stepping aside as the man screams and thrashes on the chair, and the smell of burning flesh can be sensed even here. Arson jogs to a hose, splashing water over him. The room is designed security wise for this kind of torture, since fire is one of the first things I taught. After all, I’d learned the hard way how to fight with it. “On the plane, we can adjust the plan. Let’s get moving.” They spring into action as I go to my room to get a specific folder to give to Levi before I go, when Sociopath’s hand stops me, bumping my shoulder. “Is this a suicide mission for you?” he asks, and I smile, although it lacks any humor. My friend knows everything. Instead of answering his question, I grip his shoulder tight, and confide, “Valencia is entrusted to you.” We both know that if I want to destroy Pastor, I have to die with him. This revenge has been twenty-three years in the making, and I never envisioned a different future. This path always leads to death one way or another, and the only reason I valued my life was because I had to kill him. Valencia will be forever free from the evils that destroyed her life. I’ll make sure of it. Once upon a time, there was an angel. Who made the monster’s heart bleed.

It seems to me," he said, "that we as a society have come to overlook the second clause. We hear only 'Take what you want, says God'; nobody mentions a price, and when it comes time to settle the score, everyone's outraged. Take the national economic explosion, as the most obvious example: that's come at a price, and a very steep one, to my mind. We have sushi bars and SUVs, but people our age can't afford homes in the city where they grew up, so centuries-old communities are disintegrating like sand castles. People spend five or six hours a day in traffic; parents never see their children, because they both have to work overtime to make ends meet. We no longer have time for culture--theaters are closing, architecture is being wrecked to make way for office blocks. And so on and so forth." He didn't sound even mildly indignant, only absorbed. "I don't consider this anything to become incensed about," he said, reading my look. "In fact, it shouldn't be remotely surprising to anyone. We've taken what we wanted and we're paying for it, and no doubt many people feel that on balance the deal is a good one. What I do find surprising is the frantic silence that surrounds this price. The politicians tell us, constantly, that we live in Utopia. If anyone with any visibility ever suggests that this bliss may not come free, then that dreadful little man--what's his name? the prime minister--comes on the television, not to point out that this toll is the law of nature, but to deny furiously that it exists and to scold us like children for mentioning it. I finally had to get rid of the television," he added, a little peevishly. "We've become a nation of defaulters: we buy on credit, and when the bill comes in, we're so deeply outraged that we refuse even to look at it.

You look... refreshed,' Lucien observed with a glance at Tamlin. I shrugged. 'Sleep well?' 'Like a babe.' I smiled at him and took another bite of food, and felt Lucien's eyes travel inexorably to my neck. 'What is that bruise?' Lucien demanded. I pointed with my fork at Tamlin. 'Ask him. He did it.' Lucien looked from Tamlin to me and then back again. 'Why does Feyre have a bruise on her neck from you?' he asked with no small amount of amusement. 'I bit her,' Tamlin said, not pausing as he cut his steak. 'We ran into each other in the hall after the Rite.' I straightened in my chair. 'She seems to have a death wise,' he went on, cutting his meat. The claws stayed retracted but pushed against the skin above his knuckles. My throat closed up. Oh, he was mad- furious at my foolishness for leaving my room- but somehow managed to keep his anger on a tight, tight leash. 'So, if Feyre can't be bothered to listen to orders, then I can't be held accountable for the consequences.' 'Accountable?' I sputtered, placing my hands flat on the table. 'You cornered me in the hall like a wolf with a rabbit!' Lucien propped an arm on the table and covered his mouth with his hand, his russet eye bright. 'While I might not have been myself, Lucien and I both told you to stay in your room,' Tamlin said, so calmly that I wanted to rip out my hair. I couldn't help it. Didn't even try to fight the red-hot temper that razed my senses. 'Faerie pig!' I yelled, and Lucien howled, almost tipping back in his chair. At the sight of Tamlin's growing smile, I left. It took me a couple of hours to stop painting little portraits of Tamlin and Lucien with pigs' features. But as I finished the last one- Two faerie pigs wallowing in their own filth, I would call it- I smiled into the clear, bright light of my private painting room. The Tamlin I knew had returned. And it made me... happy.

It makes you worry about what people think about who you married, or if your new house you bought is less expensive than the last one you bought, or that your husband may have a roving eye.” Amanda felt a sudden twinge of sympathy, and ruthlessly tried to quell it. She really didn’t want to feel it for the mayor at all. “Doesn’t excuse her bad behavior, I know, but thought it would help for you to hear a bit about her. My Dad says she used to be really well-liked in town. She didn’t always push people around like this.” Amanda thought about that, trying to imagine the mayor as a carefree bride, hopeful for her future. It wasn’t easy. She needed some time to think about it. Maybe the mayor changed because she thought she had to change, or because she was afraid what would happen to her world if she didn’t. Maybe she was just trying to survive. Amanda subdued any twinges of compassion as she furiously cleaned in the corner between the wall and the massive bed. Yes, people change, she thought, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to treat other people like garbage. Just because she had a bad life doesn’t mean she can act like she rules everyone else. She saw the corner of the torn envelope the moment she flipped back the corner of the rug. She picked it up and was just going to toss it into the small garbage can she was dragging with her through the room, when her eyes caught some writing on the outside. YOU HAVE TWO HOURS Big dark letters, written in an angry scrawl across the front. Amanda’s blood ran cold. This wasn’t a piece of mail carelessly left. This was something that had been deliberately hidden, and that was much more personal and angry. She glanced sideways at James, who was busy ripping down the heavy velvet curtains, a cloud of dust poofing around his head. It took only a moment for Amanda to fold the envelope in half and stuff it into her pocket. She patted it hard to ensure there’d be no telltale bulge, and pulled the

My head snaps around at the hiss, but it takes awhile to believe he’s real. How could he have gotten here? I take in the claw marks from some wild animal, the back paw he holds slightly above the ground, the prominent bones in his face. He’s come on foot, then, all the way from 13. Maybe they kicked him out or maybe he just couldn’t stand it there without her, so he came looking. “It was the waste of a trip. She’s not here,” I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. “She’s not here. You can hiss all you like. You won’t find Prim.” At her name, he perks up. Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. “Get out!” He dodges the pillow I throw at him. “Go away! There’s nothing left for you here!” I start to shake, furious with him. “She’s not coming back! She’s never ever coming back here again!” I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. “She’s dead.” I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. “She’s dead, you stupid cat. She’s dead.” A new sound, part crying, part singing, comes out of my body, giving voice to my despair. Buttercup begins to wail as well. No matter what I do, he won’t go. He circles me, just out of reach, as wave after wave of sobs racks my body, until eventually I fall unconscious. But he must understand. He must know that the unthinkable has happened and to survive will require previously unthinkable acts. Because hours later, when I come to in my bed, he’s there in the moonlight. Crouched beside me, yellow eyes alert, guarding me from the night. In the morning, he sits stoically as I clean the cuts, but digging the thorn from his paw brings on a round of those kitten mews. We both end up crying again, only this time we comfort each other. On the strength of this, I open the letter Haymitch gave me from my mother, dial the phone number, and weep with her as well. Peeta, bearing a warm loaf of bread, shows up with Greasy Sae. She makes us breakfast and I feed all my bacon to Buttercup.

Here are two examples of just how strange and unique humans can be when they go about harming one another and caring for one another. The first example involves, well, my wife. So we’re in the minivan, our kids in the back, my wife driving. And this complete jerk cuts us off, almost causing an accident, and in a way that makes it clear that it wasn’t distractedness on his part, just sheer selfishness. My wife honks at him, and he flips us off. We’re livid, incensed. Asshole-where’s-the-cops-when-you-need-them, etc. And suddenly my wife announces that we’re going to follow him, make him a little nervous. I’m still furious, but this doesn’t strike me as the most prudent thing in the world. Nonetheless, my wife starts trailing him, right on his rear. After a few minutes the guy’s driving evasively, but my wife’s on him. Finally both cars stop at a red light, one that we know is a long one. Another car is stopped in front of the villain. He’s not going anywhere. Suddenly my wife grabs something from the front seat divider, opens her door, and says, “Now he’s going to be sorry.” I rouse myself feebly—“Uh, honey, do you really think this is such a goo—” But she’s out of the car, starts pounding on his window. I hurry over just in time to hear my wife say, “If you could do something that mean to another person, you probably need this,” in a venomous voice. She then flings something in the window. She returns to the car triumphant, just glorious. “What did you throw in there!?” She’s not talking yet. The light turns green, there’s no one behind us, and we just sit there. The thug’s car starts to blink a very sensible turn indicator, makes a slow turn, and heads down a side street into the dark at, like, five miles an hour. If it’s possible for a car to look ashamed, this car was doing it. “Honey, what did you throw in there, tell me?” She allows herself a small, malicious grin. “A grape lollipop.” I was awed by her savage passive-aggressiveness—“You’re such a mean, awful human that something must have gone really wrong in your childhood, and maybe this lollipop will help correct that just a little.” That guy was going to think twice before screwing with us again. I swelled with pride and love.

On trial were two men, one in a plaid shirt, and the other with a long, ZZ Top-style beard. They looked intimated by the crowd that had turned out, even though Plaid Shirt stood six foot four. He was the main perpetrator, charged with animal cruelty. He had brought his young son along during the bear killing for which he was on trial. The main reason the state managed to bring charges is that the hunters had made a videotape of their gruesome acts. The state trooper who confiscated the video couldn’t even testify at the time of the trial, he was so emotionally overcome. Then they showed the video in court, and I understood why. ZZ Top and Plaid Shirt cornered the bear cub. In order to preserve the integrity of the pelt, they attempted to kill the cub by stabbing it in the eyes. It was absolutely gut-wrenching to watch. The bear struggled for its life, but Plaid Shirt kept thrusting his knife, moving back as the animal twisted frantically away, then moving forward to stab again. The bear cub screamed, and it sounded eerily as though the bear was actually crying “Mama,” over and over. Plaid Shirt and ZZ Top sat unfazed in court. The bear screamed, “Mama, mama, mama.” From my place in the gallery, I watched as a towering man in a police uniform burst into tears and walked out of the courtroom. At the end of the video, Plaid Shirt brought his nine-year-old son over to stand triumphantly next to the dead bear cub. “Clearly, you deserve jail,” the judge told Plaid Shirt as he stood for sentencing. “Unfortunately, the jails are filled with people even more heinous than you: rapists, murderers, and armed robbers. So I am going to sentence you to three thousand hours of community service.” I approached the judge after the trial, furious that this man might end up collecting a bit of rubbish along the highway as his penance. “I want him,” I said, referring to Plaid Shirt. I said that I ran a wildlife rehabilitation facility and could use a volunteer. The first day Plaid Shirt showed up, he actually looked scared of me. He cleaned cages, fed animals, and worked hard. He liked the bobcat I was taking care of, “Bobby.” He said it was the biggest one he had ever seen. It would make a prize trophy. I asked him every question I could think of: where he hunted, how he hunted, why he hunted. Whether he had any kind of shirt other than plaid. I felt as though I was in the presence of true evil. For months he helped. He had some skills, like carpentry, and he could lift heavy things. He fulfilled his community service. In the end, I couldn’t tell if I had made any difference or not. I was only slightly encouraged by his parting words. “You know,” Plaid Shirt said, “I never knew cougars purred.

The little sneak caught me one day, coming around the car when I was outside puffing away. “I was wondering what you were doing,” he said, spying me squatting behind the truck. He’d nailed me, but the look on his face made it seem as if our roles were reversed--he looked as if he were in shock, as if I’d just slapped him. When I went back inside, I found he’d taped signs to the walls: DON’T SMOKE! I laugh about it now, but not then. “Why are you so devastated that I’m smoking?” I asked when I found him. “Because. I already lost one parent. I don’t want to lose you, too.” “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m going to stop.” But of course it wasn’t nearly that easy. As horrible as I felt, I was deep into the habit. I would quit for a while--a day, an hour--then somehow a cigarette would find its way to my mouth. I continued to rationalize, continued to struggle--and Bubba continued to call me out. “I’m trying,” I told him. “I’m trying.” He’d come up and give me a hug--and smell the cigarette still on me. “Did you have one?” “Yes.” “Hmmmm…” Instant tears. “I’m trying, I’m trying.” One day I went out to the patio to take what turned out to be a super stressful call--and I started to smoke, almost unconsciously. In the middle of the conversation, Bubba came out and threw a paper airplane at me. What!!! My son scrambled back inside. I was furious, but the call was too important to cut short. Wait until I get you, mister! Just as I hung up, Bubba appeared at the window and pointed at the airplane at my feet. I opened it up and read his message. YOU SUCK AT TRYING. That hurt, not least of all because it was true. I tried harder. I switched to organic cigarettes--those can’t be that bad for you, right? They’re organic! Turns out organic tars and nicotine are still tars and nicotine. I quit for day, then started again. I resolved not to go to the store so I couldn’t be tempted…then found myself hunting through my jacket for an old packet, rifling around in my hiding places for a cigarette I’d forgotten. Was that a half-smoked butt I saw on the ground? Finally, I remembered one of the sayings SEALs live by: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Not exactly the conventional advice one uses to stop smoking, but the conventional advice had failed me. For some reason I took the words and tried applying them to my heartbeat, slowing my pulse as it ramped up. It was a kind of mini-meditation, meant to take the place of a cigarette. The mantra helped me take control. I focused on the thoughts that were making me panic, or at least getting my heart racing. Slow is smooth. Slow down, heart. Slow down--and don’t smoke. I worked on my breathing. Slow is smooth. Slow is smooth. And don’t smoke.

I would rather face the devil himself than that man,” Elizabeth said with a repressed shudder. “I daresay,” Lucinda agreed, clutching her umbrella with one hand and the side of the cart with her other. The nearer the time came, the more angry and confused Elizabeth became about this meeting. For the first four days of their journey, her tension had been greatly allayed by the scenic grandeur of Scotland with its rolling hills and deep valleys carpeted in bluebells and hawthorne. Now, however, as the hour of confronting him drew near, not even the sight of the mountains decked out in spring flowers or the bright blue lakes below could calm her mounting tension. “Furthermore, I cannot believe he has the slightest desire to see me.” “We shall soon find out.” In the hills above the high, winding track that passed for a road, a shepherd paused to gape at an old wooden wagon making its laborious way along the road below. “Lookee there, Will,” he told his brother. “Do you see what I see?” The brother looked down and gaped, his lips parting in a toothless grin of glee at the comical sight of two ladies-bonnets, gloves, and all-who were perched primly and precariously on the back of Sean MacLaesh’s haywagon, their backs ramrod-stiff, their feet sticking straight out beyond the wagon. “Don’t that beat all,” Will laughed, and high above the haywagon he swept off his cap in a mocking salute to the ladies. “I heered in the village Ian Thornton was acomin’ home. I’ll wager ‘e’s arrived, and them two are his fancy pieces, come to warm ‘is bed an’ see to ‘is needs.” Blessedly unaware of the conjecture taking place between the two spectators up in the hills, Miss Throckmorton-Jones brushed angrily and ineffectually at the coating of dust clinging to her black skirts. “I have never in all my life been subjected to such treatment!” she hissed furiously as the wagon they were riding in gave another violet, creaking lurch and her shoulder banged into Elizabeth’s. “You may depend on this-I shall give Mr. Ian Thornton a piece of my mind for inviting two gentlewomen to this godforsaken wilderness, and never even mentioning that a traveling baroche is too wide for the roads!” Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something soothing, but just then the wagon gave another teeth-jarring lurch, and she clutched at the wooden side. “From what little I know of him, Lucy,” she managed finally when the wagon righted, “he wouldn’t care in the least what we’ve been through. He’s rude and inconsiderate-and those are his good points-“ “Whoa there, whoa,” the farmer called out, sawing back on the swayback nags reins and bringing the wagon to a groaning stop. “That’s the Thornton place up there atop yon hill,” the farmer said, pointing.

Excuse me, sir.” One the young officers put his hand up to stop them. “Are you Furious Barkley?” “Maybe. Maybe not. Is there a problem, officers?” Doug stepped in front of Furi. “Damn straight there’s a problem.” Syn stepped inside the door, yanking his dark aviator glasses off his face. The scowl he wore told Furi this was not a pleasant coincidence. “Thanks guys, you can go.” Furi stood with his mouth hanging open while Syn dismissed the officers. “Seriously, Starsky. You gonna track my boy down every time he leaves the house?” Doug said angrily, still blocking Furi. “He’s not your boy. And what I do regarding Furi is none of your goddamn business.” Syn’s clenched jaw made his words sound like an evil hiss. He shouldered past Doug and got directly in Furi’s face. “When I’ve been calling him for over six hours and he hasn’t picked up or returned any of my calls, I’ll send a fuckin’ SWAT team to find him if I want to.” Syn spun and pointed his finger in Doug’s face, “That’s my say, not yours.” Syn’s voice was rising with his growing temper, and all eyes were on them. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” Furi pushed at both men, urging them out the door. As soon as they were out in the brisk fall air, Syn rounded on Furi, pushing their chest together. “Where have you been, Furious? I’ve been going crazy trying to check on you, and you’re sitting here casually eating pancakes,” Syn growled. “Hey, back up, man.” Doug tried to wedge in between Furi and Syn. Syn looked up in annoyance. “Doug, I swear, if you touch me, I’m gonna ensure that you never regain the use of that hand.” “Okay, okay.” Furi put both hands flat on Syn’s chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat underneath all that muscle. Fuck. He really was scared. What was I thinking turning off my phone with everything that’s going on? “Syn. I’m so sorry. I turned my phone off because–” “You don’t owe him an explanation. You’re a grown man, Furious. You were having a business meeting; he has no right to demand you be available to him at all times, just like Patrick.” Furi and Syn both snapped at Doug. But Furi took control. “Hey! Don’t you ever say that again. This man is nothing like that asshole.” Furi shook his head at the absurdity of Doug’s accusation. “Don’t even say his name in the same sentence as Patrick’s.” Doug looked at Furi as if he were a stranger. “Doug, you don’t know everything that’s been going on. But I promise I’ll catch you up, okay? Then you’re going to feel pretty shitty about what you just said about Syn.” Furi nodded his head. “Go home. I’ll call you when I’m back at Syn’s place.” “You’re staying with him?” Doug yelled. “Doug. You know it’s not safe at my place,” Furi said softly, his eyes pleading with his friend for him to understand. “Then you should come to stay with me. I don’t trust this guy!” “This is fuckin’ crazy,” Syn snarled. “I know you’re his friend, but you’re sounding more pissed than a friend should be.” “Don’t try to read me, Detective. Furi is my best friend, and I’ve had his back since the first day he got here.” Doug wasn’t backing down from Syn’s intimidating posture. Syn’s dark glasses were back on, creating a perfectly badass look with his black leather coat and boots. All the hardware Syn had tucked under his arms and the shiny badge hanging around his neck was a sight right out of a sexy cop porno.

Neither Gerow nor de Gaulle had to tell Leclerc to hurry into Paris. He was ridden by the fear his troops would reach the capital after its German garrison had fired the explosives seeded through its streets. Angry and disappointed, Leclerc had had to accept the face he would not reach the city for another twelve hours. The red-haired captain jeeping toward Leclerc...was furious too...twice he had been curtly ordered by his immediate superior to rejoin the main line of attack..."What the hell are you doing here?" Leclerc asked. Dronne told him. "Dronne," Leclerc said, "don't you know enough not to obey stupid orders?...I want you to get into Paris. Take whatever you've got and go.

Many of Beethoven’s relationships followed a rocky path. In fact, it was common for him to become estranged from many of his companions following bitter arguments that often could be traced back to rash words or actions on his part. Naturally impulsive and strong-willed, pushed into a heady society at a young age, Beethoven had never received the type of wise, consistent guidance from his father that would have helped him learn to control his emotions. Even as an adult, Beethoven could be furiously angry one moment and pitifully repentant the next.

Sharon did have house guests to keep her company, though. Abigail Folger, the heiress to the Folger Coffee Company and her boyfriend, Wojciech Frykowski, were also living at Cielo Drive. On the evening of August 8, 1969, Sharon made phone calls to her sister and her friend to cancel plans she had made, saying that she was tired and would spend the night in with another friend, Jay Sebring. The foursome, Sharon, Jay, Abigail, and Wojciech, ate at a local Mexican restaurant before returning to Sharon’s home at Cielo Drive. At 11.30 pm, Manson took his follower and right-hand man Tex Watson to one side and explained to him what he had to do. For the good of the family, Manson said, Tex had to lead the others to Cielo Drive to “totally destroy everyone in that house” and steal whatever they could. It’s unclear whether Manson even knew who was now living in that particular house, but he must have known they were rich and that they would serve as an example to the rest of the world that no one was safe. Manson rounded up Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and new follower Linda Kasabian. Dressed in black, the girls grabbed their knives and jumped into the car with Tex. Manson rested at Spahn Ranch, waiting for news from 10050 Cielo Drive. When the group arrived at the house, Tex climbed a telephone pole and snipped the wire. It was only now that the group had arrived that Tex told the girls exactly what they were there to do. If the girls were shocked, they didn’t show it, and they dutifully followed Tex’s lead in what came next. Steve Parent, an 18-year-old friend of the caretaker at Cielo Drive, was the first to be murdered. Parent was leaving the property in his car, having just visited his friend, when Tex shot him four times. Tex then entered the house through an open window and told the girls to follow him inside. New follower Kasabian was terrified and unable to help, so Tex told her to go back to the car and keep watch. In the sitting room of the house, Tex woke Wojciech who had fallen asleep on the couch, and Susan ventured upstairs where she found Abigail reading in bed. Abigail saw Susan but wasn’t alarmed at first. It wasn’t unusual for strangers to be in the house. But when Susan brandished a large knife and told Abigail, Sharon, and Jay to go with her downstairs, the group were terrified. Tex tied a rope around Wojciech’s throat, threw it over a beam in the house, and tied it around Sharon’s throat. Tex demanded money and grew furious when no one produced any, then he shot Jay in the stomach. As Sharon and Abigail screamed in terror, Tex stabbed Jay, over and over again. Realizing that no one was going to escape alive if he didn’t do something, Wojciech tried to break free, causing Susan to attack him with a knife. Wojciech was able to overpower Susan, so Tex shot him twice then battered him with the handle of his gun. Incredibly, Wojciech still managed to escape the house, but Tex caught up with him on the lawn and ended his life with a knife. Abigail also broke free of Patricia, but she caught her and stabbed her repeatedly. Tex finally ended Abigail’s life with his knife. Sharon was the only person still alive in the house; she pleaded for her life and the life of her unborn child. As Sharon begged, Susan Atkin’s began stabbing her, being sure to stab her directly through her pregnant stomach. Later, Susan said she “got sick of listening to her so I stabbed her and then I just stabbed her and she fell and I stabbed her again, just kept stabbing and stabbing.” The group almost left without writing the bloody graffiti Manson had explicitly told them to leave behind. Susan went back into the house and used a towel to write “PIG” on the front door of 10500 Cielo Drive in the victims’ blood.

was sick of people in the program quoting the principles of the Big Book. I wanted to scream when I heard, “But for the grace of God.” What fucking grace had God given me? And don’t get me started on the gratitude list. I had no gratitude. The distress and loneliness made me again consider ending my life. I thought the program was a trick to psychologically prevent me from slicing my wrists. Quotations like “Easy does it,” “This shall too pass,” “Thanks for sharing,” “Keep coming back,” did nothing for me but induce intestinal illness. Holding hands and watching people go out of their way to do anything and everything for me made me extremely uncomfortable. I loathed the closeness and companionship of the people who were working hard for my benefit. The disgrace of not having my own form of transportation, career, dignity, and independence made me resent everything this horrible existence had to offer. I held these feelings inside and operated like a robot going through the motions of living. I contemplated how to extinguish my mental anguish. Death is what first came to mind. I'd fantasize driving at a hundred miles an hour into a tree, taking a full bottle of Valium or Trazadone, or, better yet, taking a full bottle of both drugs and then doing it. But something inside woke me up, convincing me there was a certain merit, some reason worth living for on this miserable planet. From there, my determination and drive to attain dignity and independence kicked in. I wanted to believe there truly was a good person inside. I wanted to find him. Insidious images of relaxation flashed through my mind like bright pictures. It was as though all my tension was being released after inhaling a fat line of cocaine while watching porn. The excitement of reliving the act seemed so real that my heart palpitated erratically. I'd get furious with myself for even thinking about going back to that sinister part of my life. When I returned to the Oxford House after the retreat, I was introduced to a local priest who was in the fellowship for treatment. When I first found out he was a priest, I couldn’t stand the sight of him. It disgusted me that people gave him respect because he was a man of the cloth. The fellow addicts thought it was cool they had one of God’s errant angels among them confessing his sins of addictions. Little

The story of that first ascent to Leh from Manali is in this verse that I wrote after that terrible drive. To a land called Ladakh we were preparing to go, Over high roads generously peppered with snow. The old monk saw us packing the car and a greeting he waved, Which I returned since I am moderately well-behaved. ‘So you’re off to my land of Ladakh I guess, It will take you two days to reach at best.’ ‘No sir, I have a very capable car, you see, And within a day in the city of Leh we’ll be.’ ‘Yes son, the car will handle the road, that is true, What I’m wondering is whether or not will you. Those roads are high and almost touch the sky It would be prudent to be a little shy.’ And, worrying his beads, he walked away with a limping gait, And I scoffed at his warning—I was in good physical shape. It was a terrible mistake I made, And the price in full I paid. We climbed that towering road too high and too quick, And at the fifteen thousand-foot high Baralacha La fell violently sick. Altitude mountain sickness had enveloped me in a deadly embrace, My head hurt, my stomach retched, and around me the world reeled at a furious pace. Had to make Sarchu, the only sheltered place to stay, And it was misery personified every kilometre of the way. Mountains and streams make Sarchu a place of unimaginable beauty, But appreciating it was beyond me as I lay groaning, nauseous and retchy. It could have been paradise for all I care, Inside my mind it was the devil’s lair. The gentle monk had tried to warn us, Words that I’d dismissed as an old man’s fuss. Here in the mountains where altitude is king, Hurry or haste is a very deadly thing. A million times I called to my God that night, And then I saw the bright shining light. I snapped awake shivering with fear; are the angels here, is my end near? ‘Not yet, my son,’ a voice seemed to say in my ear. It was the sun shining through the tent, the beginning of another day, My head felt good and I could stand without feeling the world sway. That remains my most distressing night, Those seven hours that I took to fight the height. I am wiser now and whenever that awesome road I drive, I remember the monk and am never in a hurry to arrive. Apart

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the BloodClan deputy struggling free from Bramblepaw and Ashpaw. Before Firestar could spring at him, a screech of defiance sounded above the noise of battle and several more apprentices hurtled across the clearing. Bone was barely visible under the writhing heap of furious young cats. Bramblepaw and Ashpaw were there, with Featherpaw and Stormpaw and, yes, Tawnypaw, fighting beside her brother. Within a few heartbeats Bone had stopped trying to defend himself; his body went into a series of spasms, ending in his twitching tail, and as Firestar watched the twitching stopped. Ashpaw let out a hoarse cry of triumph. At the same instant Jaggedtooth appeared out of nowhere. Firestar felt his fur stand on end. Once a rogue, then a member of ShadowClan, and now part of the insult to the warrior code that was BloodClan. The massive warrior flung himself on the apprentices and fastened his teeth in the nearest—Bramblepaw—dragging him off Bone’s body. At once Tawnypaw launched herself at the rogue cat. “Let go of my brother!” she spat. The rest of the apprentices sprang forward with her, and Jaggedtooth abruptly dropped Bramblepaw, turning tail and fleeing across the clearing with all the apprentices in pursuit.

JFK was an asylum, a processing plant, a study in chaos—snaking lines, recorded announcements, furious passengers with their taped-up baggage, clerks fielding complaints in the midst of the madness. For the better part of an hour

The news of Harold’s coronation reached Normandy very quickly and William did not take it well. He was furious that Harold had broken his promise and had himself crowned.

bad legislation included a serious, if inexplicable, effort to remove Alabama from the United Nations, which made it through the house but not the senate; a bill that would have allowed the legislature to approve or reject speakers at state schools, which Tom managed to quash,

The horses, reluctant and excited from the first, become furious and wild. At the next shoal-personal nastiness being past consideration-we dismount, at knee-deep, to give them a moment's rest, shifting the mule's saddle to the trembling long-legged mare, and turning Mr. Brown loose, to follow as he could. After a breathing-spell we resume our splashed seats and the line of wade. Experience has taught us something, and we are more shrewd in choice of footing, the slopes around large trees being attractively high ground, until, by a stumble on a covered root, a knee is nearly crushed against a cypress trunk. Gullies now commence, cut by the rapid course of waters flowing off before north winds, in which it is good luck to escape instant drowning. Then quag again; the pony bogs; the mare, quivering and unmanageable, jumps sidelong among loose corduroy; and here are two riders standing waist-deep in mud and water between two frantic, plunging-horses, fortunately not beneath them. Nack soon extricates himself, and joins the mule, looking on terrified from behind. Fanny, delirious, believes all her legs broken and strewn about her, and falls, with a whining snort, upon her side. With incessant struggles she makes herself a mud bath, in which, with blood-shot eyes, she furiously rotates, striking, now and then, some stump, against which she rises only to fall upon the other side, or upon her back, until her powers are exhausted, and her head sinks beneath the surface. Mingled with our uppermost sympathy are thoughts of the soaked note-books, and other contents of the saddle-bags, and of the.hundred dollars that drown with her. What of dense soil there was beneath her is now stirred to porridge, and it is a dangerous exploit to approach. But, with joint hands, we length succeed in grappling her bridle, and then in hauling her nostrils above water. She revives only for a new tumult of dizzy pawing, before which we hastily retreat. At a second pause her lariat is secured, and the saddle cut adrift. For a half-hour the alternate resuscitation continues, until we are able to drag the head of the poor beast, half strangled by the rope, as well as the mud and water, toward firmer ground, where she recovers slowly her senses and her footing. Any further attempts at crossing the somewhat "wet" Neches bottoms are, of course, abandoned, and even the return to the ferry is a serious sort of joke. However, we congratulate ourselves that we are leaving, not entering the State.

Try to remember, you’re not a hot rod. You don’t ever need to “fill ’er up.” The difference between feeling “satisfied” and feeling “full” after a meal is about 1,000 calories. Then, even worse, there are about 2,500 calories between feeling full and feeling “stuffed”! So if you go to town on that all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, and leave the place feeling stuffed, you may have wolfed down as many as 4,000 unneeded calories. A typical reaction is to do some cardio the next day to “burn off those calories.” But to burn that many calories with cardio would require, for example, jogging nonstop for 20 hours. The problem is not burning calories, which is done even while you sleep, but that we cram too many calories into our mouth. Get into the habit of eating until you are no longer hungry, not until you are completely stuffed. Remember, if you follow my advice, you’ll be eating again in 2.5 – 3.5 hours. Take your time, chew your food, and relax. It takes 15 – 20 minutes for the body to register how full it actually is. Eating fast and furious can be a hard habit to break. But you’ll very quickly notice improved energy and well-being once you make the change to frequent, smaller meals.

The bile came again, sudden and furious. He curled up on the floor around the chamber pot, gagging and heaving until his insides hurt. Were When it had passed he felt better. He lay there for nearly an hour without moving, his eyes open but un- focused. He got up and cleaned himself again. He wan- dered around his room for a few moments, unsure of what he wanted to do. Aimless, always aimless. It was still early, just after midnight. Sleep would not come again, not without the bottle. He looked at it on the dresser and reached for it but then stopped. The thought of more made him nauseous. Extraordinary. Even I have had enough. He stopped in front of the mantel, where

Another popular saga tells of the Wild Hunt, Furious Host, or Raging Host—the Asgardsreien. It starts on October 31, and spectral horsemen and horsewomen led by Frigga and Odin on Sleipnir, his great eight-legged steed, can be seen racing across the winter sky in company with the Valkyrie and the fallen warriors in training from Valhalla. The sounds are earth-shattering: blaring horns calling the howling hounds, thundering hooves, and raging winds sweeping through the still, cold night.

Though I myself have come to this safe harbour – if safety can be found in this life – yet I mourn my former simple days. I have lost my Innocence, in more ways than one. I have seen the gears and furious machinery of the world that lies unreckoned beneath our feet. No longer can I note, as other men do, the passing hours upon the heavens' gilded face, without a vision of a hidden master-spring uncoiling to its final silence. I await the day when all clocks shall stop, including the one that ticks within my breast. Do thou the same, Reader, and profit from my example.

The areas they traveled through became less and less populated. They followed an interminably straight road, thickly surrounded by maples and conifers as far as the eye could see. Only rarely did their path cross a truck or car. Night was falling. Now and again they saw points of light in the distance, boats that must have been navigating the rivers and lakes. They had driven about sixty miles when the man told her to turn onto a path. The headlights lit the massive bases of tree trunks. Lucie felt she was on the edge of the abyss; she had seen only two or three houses in the past half hour. A cabin emerged from the darkness. When the cop stepped onto the ground, feeling feverish, she heard the furious roar of a waterfall.

Leaving the Connecticut River March 8, 1704 Temperature 40 degrees The only good thing about this rough land was firewood. No human had ever gathered a fallen branch here. So they could stay warm, but they had nothing to cook over the flames. It seemed to Eben the Indians ought to worry more about this than they did. They spent every daylight hour looking for game, found nothing and did not mention it. Instead, they sat by the fire, smoked and told war stories. It was the captives who discussed food, describing meals they had had a month ago or hoped to have in the future. They discussed pancakes, maple syrup and butter. Stew and biscuits and apple pie. Ruth said to Mercy, “You and Eben and Joseph are so proud of your savage vocabulary. Tell them they’re Indians, they’re supposed to know how to find deer.” “There aren’t any deer,” said Joseph. Ruth snorted. “We just have stupid Indians.” Suddenly the whole thing seemed hilarious to Mercy: a little circle of starving white children, crouching in the snow, and a little circle of apparently not starving Indian men, sitting in the snow, all of them surrounded by hundreds of miles of trees, while Ruth spat fire. “Ruth,” said Mercy, “do you know what your name means?” “My name is Ruth.” “Your name is Mahakemo,” Mercy told her. “And it means ‘Fire Eats Her’.” Mercy began to laugh, and Joseph and Eben and Sarah laughed with her. Even Eliza looked interested, but Ruth, furious to find that the Indians were laughing at her instead of being respectful of her, began throwing things at Mercy. Mercy rolled out of range while Ruth pelted her with Joseph’s hat and Tannhahorens’s mittens and then with snowballs; finding them too soft, Ruth grabbed her Indians powder horn. Mercy jumped up and ran away from Ruth and out into the snow, and in front of her were a pair of yellow eyes. The eyes were level with Mercy’s waist. They were not human eyes. No deer for humans also meant no deer for wolves. Mercy meant to scream, but Tannhahorens got there first, in the form of a bullet. Wolf for dinner. It turned out that the English could eat anything if they were hungry enough.

Just take me home,” Furi mumbled and moved to the passenger side of the truck. The drive home was deathly quiet. Syn wasn’t sure if Furi was going to forgive him or not, he was certainly hoping he would. Syn really did like Furi. He was the type of man he’d want to spend hours talking to because the deep sexiness of his voice did funny things to Syn’s groin, listening to him laugh was like the sweetest music to his ears. He wanted to see Furi's gorgeous face when he came home from working a shitty case, knowing he would make it better. He wanted to get into bed with him after a hot shower and bury his face in Furi’s soft hair and just lose himself in the erotic scent that lingered in those gorgeous locks. Syn fought the urge to apologize again; he’d done it at least five times now. He looked over at Furi, wishing he would turn and look at him. “Are you going to say anything?” Furi did look at him then, but what he said wasn’t exactly what Syn wanted to hear, “Your truck needs a tune-up.” Then he turned his head back toward the window. Syn pulled up to the curb opposite Furi’s apartment and shut off the engine. Furi didn’t say anything; he just opened the door, got out of the truck and walked across the street. Syn jumped out calling to him, “Furi, please wait.” Furi stopped in the middle of the street and turned to face him, looking completely exasperated. “What?” Syn was just making his way around the truck when he heard tires screeching and bright headlights headed directly at Furi. “Furious!” Syn yelled, but he saw there was no time. He ran at full speed, leaping and slamming his body into Furi's, the car’s front end just missing them. Syn rolled with Furi, a messy tangle of long limbs, hitting the curb hard. Syn kept one arm around Furi while craning his neck to try to see where the car was. All he could see was the make of the dark vehicle and two letters of the license plate. Syn pulled his S&W from behind his back just in case they circled back around. Syn jumped up and pulled Furi up with him. “Inside, now.” Furi moved quickly, Syn right behind him. As soon as they got inside the apartment, Syn turned Furi to face him. He looked him over and determined that he was okay for the most part. Furi looked like he was in shock, and rightfully so, someone had just tried to kill him. Syn put both his hands on Furi’s flushed cheeks. “Furious look at me.” Syn waited for those now haunted eyes to look at his. When Furi finally focused on his face, he had to slip into cop mode and ask his questions while the details were fresh in his mind.

Syn unlocked his door and let Furi into his place for the second time that night. “Shouldn’t I be in witness protection or something, in a secure location?” Furi fired off indignantly. Syn flicked on the lamp in the living room and turned to look at Furious, shooting him a look that said ‘really?’ “Would you rather I take you down to the station, where a detective can question you for five hours before they take you to the shittiest hotel in the next city? While some cop that’s ridden a desk for the last ten years sits on his ass the entire time he's so-called guarding you?” Furi dropped his duffle bag to the floor and shook his head. “I guess not.” “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” Syn grinned. He removed his coat and draped it over the back of his new sofa. It was nice, but he hadn’t had the chance to enjoy it yet. Furi walked backwards until the back of his legs hit the couch. He flopped down like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Syn rubbed the back of his neck, wincing at the tension there. He needed to say something to Furi ... anything ... but what? Bad people, crime, guns blazing, cars running you off the road, all this was normal for Syn, but Furi was just trying to live his life. Syn sat down next to the beautiful man, his hand hovering over his knee before he moved it and placed it on his shoulder. The gesture was meant to be comforting but didn’t look like it was helping. “Are you okay?” “No, no, Syn. I’m not okay. That crazy bitch just tried to kill me, and for what? Because I wouldn’t fuck her.” Furi’s voice was rising with each word.

Weren’t movies his generation’s faith anyway—its true religion? Wasn’t the theater our temple, the one place we enter separately but emerge from two hours later together, with the same experience, same guided emotions, same moral? A million schools taught ten million curricula, a million churches featured ten thousand sects with a billion sermons—but the same movie showed in every mall in the country. And we all saw it! That summer, the one you’ll never forget, every movie house beamed the same set of thematic and narrative images—the same Avatar, same Harry Potter, same Fast and the Furious, flickering pictures stitched in our minds that replaced our own memories, archetypal stories that became our shared history, that taught us what to expect from life, that defined our values. What was that but a religion?

day, the trigger was an older woman with deep wrinkles. To this day, I cannot be certain about what caused her to react so strongly. Perhaps she had used up her patience simmering in the sun for hours at the back of the line. Perhaps she had some desperately hungry grandchildren who she needed to get back to. It is impossible to know exactly what happened. But after she received her allocation of wheat, she broke the established rules of the feeding site and moved toward Bubba. She looked up at him and unleashed a verbal attack. Bubba, as gentle as ever, simply smiled at her. The more he smiled, the angrier she got. I noticed the commotion when our Somali guards suddenly tensed and turned toward the disturbance. All I could see was Bubba, head and shoulders above a gathering crowd, seemingly unperturbed, and smiling down at someone. His patient response only fueled the woman’s rage. I heard her sound of fury long before I spotted the source when she launched a long stream of vile curses at Bubba. Thankfully, he didn’t understand a word that she was saying. It was now possible to understand her complaint. She was upset about the quality of the “animal feed” that was being distributed for human consumption. She was probably right in her assessment of the food. These were surplus agricultural products that United Nations contributing members didn’t want, couldn’t sell, and had no other use for. As this hulking American continued to smile, the woman realized that she was not communicating. Now, furious and frustrated, she bent down, set her plastic bag on the ground, grabbed two fistfuls of dirty, broken wheat, grain dust, dirt and chaff. She straightened to her full height and flung the filthy mixture as hard as she could into Bubba’s face. The crowd was deathly silent as I heard a series of loud metallic clicks that indicated that an entire squad of American soldiers had instinctively locked and loaded all weapons in readiness for whatever might happen next. Everything felt frozen in time as everyone waited and watched for Bubba’s reaction. A Somali man might have beaten the woman for such a public insult—and he would have considered his action and his anger entirely justified. I knew that Bubba had traveled half-way around the world at his own expense to spend three months of personal vacation time to help hurting people. And this was the thanks that he received? He was hot, sweaty, and drained beyond exhaustion—and he had just been publicly embarrassed. He had every reason to be absolutely livid. Instead, he raised one hand to rub the grit out of his eyes, and then he gave the woman one more big smile. At that point, he began to sing. And what he sang wasn’t just any song. She didn’t understand the words, of course. But she, and the entire crowd, stood in silent amazement as Bubba belted out the words to the 1950’s Elvis Presley rock-n-roll classic: You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog Cryin’ all the time You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog Cryin’ all the time Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit And you ain’t no friend of mine. By the time he started singing the next verse, the old woman had turned and stomped off in frustration, angrily plowing a path through the now-smiling crowd of Somalis to make her escape. Watching her go, Bubba raised his voice to send her off with rousing rendition of the final verse: Well they said you was high-classed Well, that was just a lie Ya know they said you was high-classed Well, that was just a lie Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit And you ain’t no friend of mine.

Well get a furious weapon. Look how the springs are whirling round and you with your hat askew, without time to catch your breath and decide that THIS is the hour. Lying like an immobile amoeba, gigantic, out of season, and idiotically waiting for instigation. You know this can’t be. Leave the washing up and take a look around.

My elbow ached, and my fingers were numb around the toy’s base when I finally deposited it on my side table. My other hand continued circling my clit—after a week of nightly self-love sessions, the last things I needed were raw, chafed ladybits. That and a bout of carpal tunnel syndrome, and I’d be the spokeswoman for crimes against orgasms. I laughed out loud at the prospect of telling Patrick I couldn’t sit down or operate a screwdriver because I tweaked my wrist and elbow after an hour of furious orgasm hunting. I could see him narrowing his eyes at me while he crossed his arms over his chest. He’d lift an eyebrow, letting the tension rise between us and waiting for me to explain myself.

Really, Gareth, His Grace was not unkind to me. He gave me a huge amount of money —" "I don't care what he gave you, you traveled three thousand miles to get here, and what does he damn well do? Pays you off like some — some creditor or something!  You, who ought to be treated as a member of our family, not a piece of unwanted baggage!  I cannot forgive him, Juliet. Do not ask it of me!" "I'm not asking it of you, but surely you can swallow your pride just for one night, if only for the sake of your niece." He stared at her, furious. "Er ... daughter," she corrected, lamely. Through his teeth he gritted, "We are not staying at de Montforte House or Blackheath Castle or any of Lucien's other estates, and I'll hear no more about it!"  He made a fist and pressed it to his forehead, trying to keep his temper under control even as Perry made a noise of impatient disgust and Charlotte's endless screaming threatened to drown out all thought, all sanity. Perry chose the wrong moment to be sarcastic. "Well done, my friend. You have just succeeded in showing your unsuspecting bride that there is indeed another side to you. Were you beginning to think your new lord was all syrupy sweetness, Lady Gareth?" Gareth's patience broke, and with a snarl, he went for his sword. Juliet grabbed his arm just in time. "Stop it, the both of you!  Really, Lord Brookhampton — must you antagonize him so?" Perry touched a forefinger to his chest. "Me?" "Yes, you!  The two of you are acting like a pair of brawling schoolboys!"  She pushed Gareth's hand away from its sword hilt and faced him with flashing eyes. "Charlotte and I have had enough. Either take us to de Montforte House or wash your hands of us, but I'm not going to stand here watching you two bicker while she screams London down around our ears!" Gareth stared at her in shock. And Perry, raising his brows at this sudden display of fire, merely reached into his coat and pulled out his purse.  He tossed it casually to Gareth. "Here," he said. "There's enough in there to buy yourselves room and board somewhere for a week, by which time maybe you'll have come to your senses. Consider it my wedding present."  He mounted his horse and touched his hat to Juliet. "Good day, Lady Gareth."  He gave Gareth a look of mocking contempt. "I wish the two of you many hours of marital bliss." And then, to Juliet's dismay, he turned and trotted off, leaving her standing on the pavement with a screaming baby and a husband who — it was growing alarmingly clear — was ill-equipped to take care of either of them.  

I have another problem.” Caleb’s grin was at once endearing and obnoxious. “You’re naked in my bed, and you don’t own a stitch of clothing in the world,” he agreed. “You needn’t look so pleased about it!” Lily snapped, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. She was very careful not to let the covers slip away from her breasts. “Not only that,” Caleb went on, as though she hadn’t spoken, “but the whole fort is talking about us. Speculating on what’s going on right here in this room.” Lily flushed. Now that she could see things in better perspective she was furious with herself for giving in to Caleb the night of the fire. If she’d gone to Mrs. Tibbet and asked for a place to stay, she could have avoided this problem. She let her forehead rest on her upraised knees. “I’m just like my mother,” she despaired. Caleb made her lift her head. “No,” he said softly. “She gave up, and you don’t have the first idea how to do that. I don’t mind telling you that sometimes I wish you did.” He paused. “You’re still going to move onto your land, aren’t you?” Lily swallowed. “Yes,” she said, because Caleb was right. She didn’t know how to give up on her dream. She’d had to struggle for everything all her life, and she’d never learned to walk away from something she wanted. The major rose from the bed, gazing distractedly toward the window. Lily knew he wasn’t seeing the fluttering lace curtains, which needed washing, or the blue of the sky. Presently he spoke, his voice hoarse and so low that she had to strain to hear it. “I guess there’s no point in talking about it anymore, then. I’ll see what I can do about getting you some clothes.” Caleb’s loving had affected Lily like a dose of opium, but now she was fully awake, and having to stay in bed was like being held prisoner. “Mrs. Tibbet may still have some of Sandra’s things around,” she suggested. Caleb didn’t so much as glance in her direction. “Right,” he answered, crossing the room and pulling open the door. “Caleb, wait!” Lily cried. “You can’t just walk out and leave me here like this—I need to know how soon I can expect you back!” He let his head rest against the doorjamb for a moment, and his shoulders, always so straight and strong, looked slightly stooped to Lily. “Half an hour,” he said, and then he was gone, closing the door quietly behind him. Lily

In what is one of the most bizarre and ecologically damaging episodes of the Great Leap Forward, the country was mobilised in an all-out war against the birds. Banging on drums, clashing pots or beating gongs, a giant din was raised to keep the sparrows flying till they were so exhausted that they simply dropped from the sky. Eggs were broken and nestlings destroyed; the birds were also shot out of the air. Timing was of the essence, as the entire country was made to march in lockstep in the battle against the enemy, making sure that the sparrows had nowhere to escape. In cities people took to the roofs, while in the countryside farmers dispersed to the hillsides and climbed trees in the forests, all at the same hour to ensure complete victory. Soviet expert Mikhail Klochko witnessed the beginning of the campaign in Beijing. He was awakened in the early morning by the bloodcurdling screams of a woman running to and fro on the roof of a building next to his hotel. A drum started beating, as the woman frantically waved a large sheet tied to a bamboo pole. For three days the entire hotel was mobilised in the campaign to do away with sparrows, from bellboys and maids to the official interpreters. Children came out with slings, shooting at any kind of winged creature.77 Accidents happened as people fell from roofs, poles and ladders. In Nanjing, Li Haodong climbed on the roof of a school building to get at a sparrow’s nest, only to lose his footing and tumble down three floors. Local cadre He Delin, furiously waving a sheet to scare the birds, tripped and fell from a rooftop, breaking his back. Guns were deployed to shoot at birds, also resulting in accidents. In Nanjing some 330 kilos of gunpowder were used in a mere two days, indicating the extent of the campaign. But the real victim was the environment, as guns were taken to any kind of feathered creature. The extent of damage was exacerbated by the indiscriminate use of farm poison: in Nanjing, bait killed wolves, rabbits, snakes, lambs, chicken, ducks, dogs and pigeons, some in large quantities.

You love each other no matter how insane the other person makes you. It's matching the insanities that makes a marriage work. For example, I'm not allowed to purchase curtains or furniture without measuring first. And he can never find anything. Ever. My favorite is the time he only looked in one of his jeans pockets for his keys. After about an hour I made him check his pockets again. Both pockets. And there they were. When I asked him why he didn't check both pockets the first time, he said he always only puts them in one pocket so why look in the other. Once he caught me at Trader Joe's shaking a bottle of calcium tablets near my ear telling the man behind the counter, “They don't sound small.” And that confirmed all his suspicions that I was insane. And when I ask him for help with the crossword and he doesn't know the answer I get furious and call him a dummy.

Where is it?” “Where is what?” Aldar asks, frowning as he steps forward. I’ve learned in the few hours that I’ve been here that Aldar is in charge of the blue-garbed servants—of which I am one—and he doesn’t like for anyone to sit around and look bored. “What’s the problem, Nima?” “Lord va’Rin,” she pants, her hand trembling as she presses it to her chest. “He—he wants his human. He found out she wasn’t in his bed and he’s furious. I’ve never seen him so upset.

An hour after the game, I stood with Jace, Landon, and Kai in Landon’s basement, waiting for the girls to show up because fiery Imani was bound to run in here with that mouth of hers, shouting about how we shouldn’t have done that. On cue, the basement door swung open, and a furious Imani barreled down the stairs.

Why?” I choked out. “Why would they do that?” “And how?” Siobhan said. “A whole House? All at once?” Caduan shook his head, still not looking away from the corpse. “I do not know.” “Perhaps it’s weaponry,” I said. “A way to kill them all, quickly.” “I know very well that they do not need to do this to kill. No. I think whatever this was, it was a failure.” He lifted his knife, pointing to the exposed innards of the body. “Even just over the last several hours, all of this has degraded. Her body is withering away as we speak. Her own blood is poisoning her. We didn’t kill this one. I found her beyond the walls, untouched by the fires. Likely drowned in her own dissolved organs. Slowly.” His voice was calm and level, but his knuckles were white around the handle of his blade. “I do not think,” he said, “that this is what the humans wanted to happen. I think that this is a failed experiment. They weren’t trying to destroy. They were trying to create. And what we are looking at now is a Fey caught in-between. Just as Aefe was caught in-between, last night.” His eyes flicked up to mine, bright and furious. “The land itself was corrupted, there. Don’t tell me that you did not feel it as I did.