Safely Buried Quotes

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.

He felt warm and familiar. He felt solid and safe. I wanted to cling to his shirt, bury my face into the warm curve of his neck, and never let go.

The internet was supposed to liberate knowledge, but in fact it buried it, first under a vast sewer of ignorance, laziness, bigotry, superstition and filth and then beneath the cloak of political surveillance. Now...cyberspace exists exclusively to promote commerce, gossip and pornography. And of course to hunt down sedition. Only paper is safe. Books are the key. A book cannot be accessed from afar, you have to hold it, you have to read it.

My dreams are going through their death flurries. I thought they were all safely buried, but sometimes they stir in their grave, making my heartstrings twinge. I mean no particular dream, you understand, but the whole radiant flock of them together—with their rainbow wings, iridescent, bright, soaring, glorious, sublime. They are dying before the steel javelins and arrows of a world of Time and Money.

I am a city of sounds. I will keep you safe. I know I am supposed to feel ugly. They all tell me that no woman should look so well-traveled, but they do not know. I am earth. I am sun and skies. I am the high road, the low road. I am every poem about skin. I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.

I'll bury you alive by her garden gate. I'll enjoy it. Every time she goes out in the morning, every time she comes home, she'll walk on your grave, and she'll know she's safe.

I want to get my invisibility sweatshirt and skullcap out of my bag and put it on. But I don't. I want to believe the red ribbon around my wrist will keep me safe always. But it won't. I want to play How Would You Rather Die? instead of figuring out how to live. But I can't. I'm over being a coward. I'm sick of being on pause, of being buried and hidden, of being petrified, in both senses of the word. I don't want to imagine meadows, I want to run through them.

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.

I reached out my hand, England's rivers turned and flowed the other way... I reached out my hand, my enemies's blood stopt in their veins... I reached out my hand; thought and memory flew out of my enemies' heads like a flock of starlings; My enemies crumpled like empty sacks. I came to them out of mists and rain; I came to them in dreams at midnight; I came to them in a flock of ravens that filled a northern sky at dawn; When they thought themselves safe I came to them in a cry that broke the silence of a winter wood... The rain made a door for me and I went through it; The stones made a throne for me and I sat upon it; Three kingdoms were given to me to be mine forever; England was given to me to be mine forever. The nameless slave wore a silver crown; The nameless slave was a king in a strange country... The weapons that my enemies raised against me are venerated in Hell as holy relics; Plans that my enemies made against me are preserved as holy texts; Blood that I shed upon ancient battlefields is scraped from the stained earth by Hell's sacristans and placed in a vessel of silver and ivory. I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance But Englishmen have despised my gift Magic shall be written upon the sky by the rain but they shall not be able to read it; Magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills but their minds shall not be able to contain it; In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it... Two magicians shall appear in England... The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me; The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction; The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache; The second shall see his dearest posession in his enemy's hand... The first shall pass his life alone, he shall be his own gaoler; The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside... I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me. The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it; The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it... The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown The nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country...

If I ever decide to give my heart to you, Dima, she’d said, holding his hand palm up, then cut it out of my chest and keep it somewhere safe, where no one else can get to it. Keep it locked somewhere, she murmured, repeating the old stories as she brushed her lips against the lines of his palm: Inside a needle, inside of an egg, which is inside of a duck, which is inside a hare, which is in an iron chest—and then bury it under our green oak tree, Dima, where no one will ever find it. Keep it safe for me, Dima, will you?

The memories of the day played in his mind, but this time, his thoughts were of his daughter and the way she'd clung to Katie, her little face buried in Katie's neck. The last time he'd seen that, he reflected, was when Carly had been alive.

Love is a festering wound; a scab I compulsively must dig at deeper than the grave which calls me Heaven bound, for each day the Reaper comes to bury me safe and sound. Madly for it, I die...

The person I think I am is terrified of the person I really am, terrified of what others would think of that person. What would they do to me if they knew the person I really was? Better to be safe! Better to hide the real person, starve the real person, bury the real person!

I can't die until the government finds a safe place to bury my liver

What did they do to you, to make you withdraw so far into yourself? (Sin doesn’t answer.) You’ve left me again, haven’t you? I can always tell. Your eyes turn dull, cold. Very well, I shall leave you in peace. But know this: One day I am going to find the heart you have buried away from the world. (Callie) And what would you do with it if you found it? (Sin) I would hold it safe and keep it from the hurt that has shriveled it. (Callie)

And they beat. The women for having known them and no more, no more; the children for having been them but never again. They killed a boss so often and so completely they had to bring him back to life to pulp him one more time. Tasting hot mealcake among pine trees, they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only when she was dead would they be safe. The successful ones--the ones who had been there enough years to have maimed, mutilated, maybe even buried her--kept watch over the others who were still in her cock-teasing hug, caring and looking forward; remembering and looking back.

They can't change (...). But I do believe they have a beast within. In some it's buried so deep they'll never feel it; in others it stirs, and if a person can't give it a safe voice it warps and rots and breaks out in evil ways. They may not be able to change, but they still can be the beast of their own nightmares. It's our blessing that we can exorcise those demons. Sometimes it's our curse.

I drag the body out into the snowdrifts, as far away from our shack as I can muster. I put her in a thicket of trees, where the green seems to still have a voice in the branches, and try not to think about the beasts that’ll soon be gathering. There’s no way of burying her; the ground is a solid rock of ice beneath us. I kneel beside her and want desperately to weep. My throat tightens and my head aches. Everything hurts inside. But I have no way of releasing it. I’m locked up and hard as stone. “I’m sorry, Mamma,” I whisper to the shell in front of me. I take her hand. It could belong to a glass doll. There’s no life there anymore. So I gather rocks, one by one, and set them over her, trying my best to protect her from the birds, the beasts, keep her safe as much as I can now. I pile the dark stones gently on her stomach, her arms, and over her face, until she becomes one with the mountain. I stand and study my work, feeling like the rocks are on me instead, then I leave the body for the forest and ice.

I want you in my arms. I want you in my bed. I want to bury myself deep inside you and feel you shatter beneath me, again and again. I want you daily, nightly, repeatedly, constantly, forever. And when I know it’s safe to take you, you’d best be ready. If you’re not, you’d better run and hide, because it will take a legion of angels and demons to keep me off of you.

I have the Sight, I should have seen it all, but some things are too dark to forsee. These are hard times, and England is a country of sorrows. No mother can be sure that she will not bury her sons. When a country is at war, cousin against cousin, brother against brother, no boy is safe.

To be inside those canyon walls was to be cradled in the arms of the earth itself. I felt hidden out there. Safe. As if I could just slip away and be carried off to rest among Indian paintbrush and coyote willow. Left there undisturbed, untouched. Buried somewhere in the sand like pottery.

Cord softened his voice as he addressed Anne. "Thought I'd see if you want to come home with me, babe." She crossed the room in two leaps and threw herself at him. Cord kept the rifle trained on Wells, but he caught Anne with his left arm and crushed her to him. He buried his mouth and nose in her hair and breathed deeply of her. Until this moment there had been no room for any emotion but fear in Cord. Now, with Anne safe in his arms, rage seared through him. If they did not get out of here quickly, he would leave the room drenched in blood.

But in some quarters the very success of science has also led to the idea that, because we can understand the mechanisms of the universe without bringing in God, we can safely conclude that there was no God who designed and created the universe in the first place.

Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long years—” he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure—” Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.

Perhaps [the critics are right and] the drama is played out now and Jesus is safely dead and buried. Perhaps. It is ironical and entertaining to consider that at least once in the world’s history those words might have been said with complete conviction, and that was on the eve of the Resurrection.

What we cannot expect is that the people least responsible for this crisis will foot all, or even most, of the bill. Because that is a recipe for catastrophic amounts of carbon ending up in our common atmosphere. Like the call to honor our treaties and other land-sharing agreements with Indigenous peoples, climate change is once again forcing us to look at how injustices that many assumed were safely buried in the past are shaping our shared vulnerability to global climate collapse.

SPEAK TO THE CHILD WITHIN YOU: Tell the child within you, the one that has remained buried that the “adult” in you is positively safe and sound. Start treating the damaged “you” just the way you would have wished to be handled when you were a child.

One of the questions I have been asked many times since this story broke is this: Now that the facts are out there, what can we do? My answer, depressing and cynical as it may be, is always the same. Not much. Not now. And certainly not until the American public and its Congressional representatives regain control of the CIA and shred the curtain of secrecy that keeps us from discovering these crimes of state until its too late. Perhaps when the government officials who presided over these outrages are safely in their crypts, and their apologists and cheerleaders are buried woth them, future historians can finally call these men to account for the miseries they caused. Even if that's all that ever happens, it will be fitting and just, because the favorable judgment of history is ultimately what they craved.

She is walking several feet ahead, pretending I don't exist, but that's okay, I'm used to it, and what she doesn't know is that is doesn't faze me. People either see me or they don't. I wonder what it's like to walk down the street, safe and easy in your skin, and just blend right in. No one turning away, no one starring, no one waiting and expecting, wondering what stupid, crazy thing you'll do next Then I can't hold back anymore, and I take off running, and it feels good to break free from the slow, regular pace of everyone else. I break free from my mind, which is, for some reason, picturing myself as dead as the authors of the books she has collected, asleep for good this time, buried deep in the ground under layers and layers of dirt and cornfields. I can almost feel the earth closing in, the air going stale and damp, the dark pressing down on top of me, and I have to open my mouth to breath.

Never bury somethin’ deep, baby,” he murmured. “Takes twice as much courage to be who you are, say what you think, feel what you feel and let it show then it does to bury it. That shit you been holdin’ onto will destroy you. You got a safe place to get rid of it, and you do, then you get rid of it like

Tell the child within you, the one that has remained buried that the “adult” in you is positively safe and sound.

They kill. To feel safe. It almost never worked.

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.

You, it’s about bedroom eyes. Fuckin’ great hair. Long legs. A tight, sweet pussy that gets so fuckin’ wet, swear to Christ, every time I have it, don’t know whether to bury my face or my dick in it. Your perfume on my sheets. The way you look at me when I tuck you in bed, like I gave you diamonds, something precious, something you wanna keep safe, something you want forever. Woman like you could get diamonds just crookin’ her finger, so a woman like you shouldn’t find a man tuckin’ you in bed precious. But you do. It’s also about you tellin’ me you won’t take it there with me but, I kiss you, you ignite. Some men like a game. Others like a challenge.” His smile got wider. “You found a man who likes a challenge.

Buried in the minds of those of us who are lucky is a childhood landscape, a place of magic and imagination, a safe place. It is foundational, and we will return to it in memory and dreams throughout our lives.

What's left? Romance. Love's counterfeit free of charge to all. Fall into my arms and the world with its sorrows will shrink up into a tinsel ball. This is the favorite antidote to the cold robot life of faraway perils and nearby apathy. Apathy. From the Greek A Pathos. Want of feeling. But, don't we know, only find the right boy, only find the right girl, and the feeling will be yours. My colleagues tell me I need just such a remedy. Buried up to my neck in pink foam nothing can hurt me now. Safe to feel. All I can feel is you darling.

He was standing so close to her, all six feet plus inches of masculine strength. So solid and safe. Her valiant protector. It seemed only natural to seek the safe enclosure of his embrace. She ran into his arms, burying her head against the hard wall of his chest. He smelled ... wonderful. Warm. Of leather and pine needles and strength. Savoring the distinctly masculine scents, she closed her eyes. Only then did the tears start to fall.

Precisely when we should be shouldering the historic task of investing this rich, safe, and healthy existence with meaning, we’ve buried utopia instead. There’s no new dream to replace it because we can’t imagine a better world than the one we’ve got. In fact, most people in wealthy countries believe children will actually be worse off than their parents.19 But the real crisis of our times, of my generation, is not that we don’t have it good, or even that we might be worse off later on. No, the real crisis is that we can’t come up with anything better.

It was only then that I glanced back and saw Dad, still standing at the checkpoint, watching me walk away, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumping, his mouth slackened. I waved and he stepped forward, as if to follow, and I was reminded of the moment, years before, when power lines had covered the station wagon, with Mother inside it, and Dad had stood next to her, exposed. He was still holding that posture when I turned the corner. That image of my father will always stay with me: that look on his face, of love and fear and loss. I knew why he was afraid. He’d let it slip my last night on Buck’s Peak, the same night he’d said he wouldn’t come to see me graduate. “If you’re in America,” he’d whispered, “we can come for you. Wherever you are. I’ve got a thousand gallons of fuel buried in the field. I can fetch you when The End comes, bring you home, make you safe. But if you cross the ocean…

The major goal of the Cold War mind control programs was to create dissociative symptoms and disorders, including full multiple personality disorder. The Manchurian Candidate is fact, not fiction, and was created by the CIA in the 1950’s under BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE mind control programs. Experiments with LSD, sensory deprivation, electro-convulsive treatment, brain electrode implants and hypnosis were designed to create amnesia, depersonalization, changes in identity and altered states of consciousness. (p. iii) “Denial of the reality of multiple personality by these doctors [See page 114 for names] in the mind control network, who are also on the FMSF [False Memory Syndrome Foundation] Scientific and Professional Advisory Board, could be disinformation. The disinformation could be amplified by attacks on specialists in multiple personality as CIA conspiracy lunatics” (P.10) “If clinical multiple personality is buried and forgotten, then the Manchurian Candidate Programs will be safe from public scrutiny. (p.141)

On the fifth day I knew Kaidan would have made it home. I held my breath and called him. I listened to every charming word of his voice mail, then hung up. That evening I sat on my bed and called again. This time I left a message. “Hi, Kai, um, Kaidan. It's me. Anna. I'm just trying to see if you made it home safely. I'm sure you probably did. Just checking. You can call me anytime. If you want. Anyway. Okay, bye.” I hung up and buried my shamed face into a pillow. Now I was leaving messages after he'd made it clear he wanted zero to do with me? Next thing I knew I'd be frequenting his shows to give him psycho stares from the back, and then doing late-night drive-bys to see what girl he was bringing home. The thought of him with another girl made me writhe in discomfort and curl up in the fetal position. Day six was our first day of back-to-school shopping. We still had a month before school began, but the state issued a tax-free day, so stores were having big sales. I eyed all the teensy skirts and fashionable shirts dangling on mannequins. I tried to imagine Kaidan's reaction if I came dressed like that to one of his shows, some guy other than Jay on my arm. Ugly stalker thoughts. I was full of them. Two weeks passed, and I was still tripping over chairs to grab the phone every time it rang, like now. This time it was Jay.

Takes twice as much courage to be who you are, say what you think, feel what you feel and let it show then it does to bury it. That shit you been holdin’ onto will destroy you. You got a safe place to get rid of it, and you do, then you get rid of it like you just did. Yeah?

Nowhere can a secret keep Always secret, dark and deep, Half so well as in the past, Buried deep to last, to last. Keep it in your own dark heart. Otherwise the rumors start. After many years have buried Secrets over which you worried, No confidant can then betray All the words you didn't say. Only you can then exhume Secrets safe within the tomb Of memory, of memory, Within the tomb of memory. -The Book of Counted Sorrows

His entire body shuddered with pleasure. He caught her hips in his hands, surged forward to to bury himself deep inside of her. A safe haven. His world was changed forever. He no longer walked the earth utterly alone. He would never be alone again. Antonietta changed his world. Brought him light in his unrelenting darkness.

I hold on to the nape of Morpheus’s neck, burying my face in his jacket. Nikki and Chessie burrow into my hair. I inhale Morpheus’s scent. It’s the only thing I recognize, the only thing that’s safe. He carries me back to the well-lit room and sets me gently on the table. I can’t stop trembling. My throat aches from holding back sobs.

Does anyone ever want to leave their home? The fresh fruit that drops from their backyard? The neighbors who wiped their snot? Does anyone ever want to believe they won't come back? To the dog that sniffs their heel, to the bed that holds the echo of their body? Is there relief in pretending it is temporary, that one day it will be safe? That I will once again wave to the kind school bus driver; that I'll hold Carline's baby before he grows, having never known me? They have no palm trees in New York City, no leaves to shade me, to brush against my cheeks like my mother's hands. There is no one over there, alive or buried, who held me as a child, who cradled me close, who fed me from their table, who wiped my knees when I fell & scraped them. Here, despite the bad & ugly, is my home. & now I wish that I could stay. Does anyone ever want to leave the place they love?

Bones buried with bones, keeping the secrets held between them safe.

To date, treasure-hunters have followed up clue after clue, including a dagger-marked tree, to no avail. If there is a fortune buried in Handcart Gulch, it is still safely hidden

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

Nere, there’s a chance I will see you again,” Cam says, his dark eyes intent. “If you ever need help, get word to me through the smugglers. I’ll come.” I can only nod, afraid to trust my voice. I must look miserable, though, because moments later, he hugs me. I bury my face in his shoulder, his arms tighten around me, and finally I feel safe. “No matter what happens, I’ll always love you,” he whispers in my ear. I close my eyes. Do I love him back? I just know Cam is more important to me than any friend I’ve ever had. I open my eyes and raise my face to him, and then he kisses me. I realize I’ve been waiting forever for this. Cam’s lips are soft and he smells like salt water and fresh sea air. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back.

You've spent most of your life in hiding.' said Dr. Strayer. 'Your secret lair is the only place you feel truly safe. When you were a child it was your room where you'd hide so you didn't have to interact with your parents. In college it was the rare-books room; once you married Amanda, it was your basement book room. You bury yourself in these places, Peter. You avoid life there.

Last night, at a press conference, the City Council reminded everyone that the Dog Park is there for our community enjoyment and use, and so it is important that no one enter, look at, or think about the Dog Park. They are adding a new advanced camera system to keep an eye on the great black walls of the Dog Park at all times, and if anyone is caught trying to enter it, they will be forced to enter it, and will never be heard from again. If you see hooded figures in the Dog Park, no you didn’t. The hooded figures are perfectly safe, and should not be approached at any costs. The City Council ended the conference by devouring a raw potato in quick, small bites of their sharp teeth and rough tongues. No follow-up questions were asked, although there were a few follow-up screams. We have also received word via encrypted radio pulses about the opening of a new store: Lenny’s Bargain House of Gardenwares and Machine Parts, which until recently was that abandoned warehouse the government was using for the highly classified and completely secret tests I was telling you about last week. Lenny’s will serve as a helpful new source for all needs involving landscaping and lawn-decorating materials and also as a way for the government to unload all the machines and failed tests and dangerous substances that otherwise would be wasted on things like “safe disposal” or “burying in a concrete tomb until the sun goes out.” Get out to Lenny’s for their big grand opening sale. Find eight government secrets and get a free kidnapping and personality reassignment so that you’ll forget you found them!

Eminent, eminent people, one and all, members of the Society for the Prevention of Fantasy, advocators of the banishment of Halloween and Guy Fawkes, killers of bats, burners of books, bearers of torches; good clean citizens, every one, who had waited until the rough men had come up and buried the Martians and cleansed the cities and built the towns and repaired the highways and made everything safe. And then, with everything well on its way to Safety, the Spoil-Funs, the people with mercurochrome for blood and iodine-colored eyes, came now to set up their Moral Climates and dole out goodness to everyone.

Why?” His question was almost buried by my heavy breathing. I think I understood the question now. I could only hope I had the right answer. If there was one. “Because I want to trust, be trusted. I want someone I can count on, someone who can count on me. I want somewhere safe. I want a home. But that can only happen if I’m with you.” “I’m never going to be like other men, Grant.” I wasn’t sure what he meant until I turned enough to see his expression. The knowledge in his eyes spoke of those places he looked into. The windows or portals he disappeared into when he followed the light. “I can give you what I have, but I can never give you everything.” It wasn’t Morgan didn’t want to, he couldn’t. I could see that too. He could never give me all of himself because he didn’t control everything he had. Could I live with that?

He lay and thought oh Joe Joe this is no place for you. This was no war for you. This thing wasn’t any of your business. What do you care about making the world safe for democracy? All you wanted to do Joe was to live. You were born and raised in the good healthy country of Colorado and you had no more to do with Germany or England or France or even with Washington D.C. than you had to do with the man in the moon. Yet here you are and it was none of your affair. Here you are Joe and you’re hurt worse than you think. You’re hurt bad. Maybe it would be a lot better if you were dead and buried on the hill across the river from Shale City. Maybe there are more things wrong with you than you suspect Joe. Oh why the hell did you ever get into this mess anyhow? Because it wasn’t your fight Joe. You never really knew what the fight was all about.

Tightly. So tightly that I feel like he's the one thing holding me together and so it's safe to collapse. I bury my face against his firm chest, feel his biceps tightening around my back. It feels so good to have him holding me again.

And they beat. The women for having known them and no more, no more; the children for having been them but never again. They killed a boss so often and so completely they had to bring him back to life to pulp him one more time. Tasting hot mealcake among pine trees, they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only when she was dead would they be safe. The successful ones—the ones who had been there enough years to have maimed, mutilated, maybe even buried her—kept watch over the others who were still in her cock-teasing hug, caring and looking forward, remembering and looking back.

FOR THE VOICELESS by El Niño Salvaje I speak for the ones who cannot speak, for the voiceless. I raise my voice and wave my arms and shout for the ones you do not see, perhaps cannot see, for the invisible. For the poor, the powerless, the disenfranchised; for the victims of this so-called “war on drugs,” for the eighty thousand murdered by the narcos, by the police, by the military, by the government, by the purchasers of drugs and the sellers of guns, by the investors in gleaming towers who have parlayed their “new money” into hotels, resorts, shopping malls, and suburban developments. I speak for the tortured, burned, and flayed by the narcos, beaten and raped by the soldiers, electrocuted and half-drowned by the police. I speak for the orphans, twenty thousand of them, for the children who have lost both or one parent, whose lives will never be the same. I speak for the dead children, shot in crossfires, murdered alongside their parents, ripped from their mothers’ wombs. I speak for the people enslaved, forced to labor on the narcos’ ranches, forced to fight. I speak for the mass of others ground down by an economic system that cares more for profit than for people. I speak for the people who tried to tell the truth, who tried to tell the story, who tried to show you what you have been doing and what you have done. But you silenced them and blinded them so that they could not tell you, could not show you. I speak for them, but I speak to you—the rich, the powerful, the politicians, the comandantes, the generals. I speak to Los Pinos and the Chamber of Deputies, I speak to the White House and Congress, I speak to AFI and the DEA, I speak to the bankers, and the ranchers and the oil barons and the capitalists and the narco drug lords and I say— You are the same. You are all the cartel. And you are guilty. You are guilty of murder, you are guilty of torture, you are guilty of rape, of kidnapping, of slavery, of oppression, but mostly I say that you are guilty of indifference. You do not see the people that you grind under your heel. You do not see their pain, you do not hear their cries, they are voiceless and invisible to you and they are the victims of this war that you perpetuate to keep yourselves above them. This is not a war on drugs. This is a war on the poor. This is a war on the poor and the powerless, the voiceless and the invisible, that you would just as soon be swept from your streets like the trash that blows around your ankles and soils your shoes. Congratulations. You’ve done it. You’ve performed a cleansing. A limpieza. The country is safe now for your shopping malls and suburban tracts, the invisible are safely out of sight, the voiceless silent as they should be. I speak these last words, and now you will kill me for it. I only ask that you bury me in the fosa común—the common grave—with the faceless and the nameless, without a headstone. I would rather be with them than you. And I am voiceless now, and invisible.

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut? Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes? Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

I flew directly into my cage, asking him to lock me inside. Because the beautiful lie was far more desirable than the awful truth. The cage was warm and safe. No harm could find me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my head in his steel chest and holding my breath to prevent the next sob.

I had to hide. I couldn’t let him take me to the police station, but I also couldn’t dial 911 to get them help. Maybe if I waited it out, they’d get better on their own? I dashed toward the storage tubs on the other side of the garage, squeezing past the front of Mom’s car. One, maybe two steps more, and I would have jumped inside the closest tub and buried myself under a pile of blankets. The garage door rolled open first. Not all the way—just enough that I could see the snow on the driveway, and grass, and the bottom half of a dark uniform. I squinted, holding a hand up to the blinding blanket of white light that seemed to settle over my vision. My head started pounding, a thousand times worse than before. The man in the dark uniform knelt down in the snow, his eyes hidden by sunglasses. I hadn’t seen him before, but I certainly hadn’t met all the police officers at my dad’s station. This one looked older. Harder, I remembered thinking. He waved me forward again, saying, “We’re here to help you. Please come outside.” I took a tentative step, then another. This man is a police officer, I told myself. Mom and Dad are sick, and they need help. His navy uniform looked darker the closer I got, like it was drenched straight through with rain. “My parents…” The officer didn’t let me finish. “Come out here, honey. You’re safe now.” It wasn’t until my bare toes brushed up against the snow, and the man had wrapped my long hair around his fist and yanked me through the opening, that I even realized his uniform was black.

This false solution is last for a reason. Doing without is the final resting place of many who have tried the first six false solutions. It is where people go who have given up hoping for relationship. It is a place of quiet despair. When doing the same, the opposite, too much, nothing, for others, and to yourself fall through, you are left looking at yourself, alone, in a mirror. The very isolation of the dilemma is a judgment on you. It judges in several ways, telling you things like: You aren’t meant for safe people. You don’t qualify. You’ve been asking for too much. You can’t get it right. You are too damaged to have relationships. You aren’t spiritual enough. Typically, people who are trying this last false solution don’t make a big fuss about things. They get their lives in order. They bury themselves in work, service, or other worthwhile venues. And they try not to think about what they’re doing without. The disconnected part of the soul isn’t a very rude or demanding entity. It tends to die quietly, gradually withering away like a starving infant. After a period of time, you may no longer even be able to feel the pain of isolation. At that point, less pain but more damage is occurring. If you are in this position, part of you is still alive. You’re reading this book—even if you’re weary, cynical, and with no hope. But you are taking a step.

In September 1957 the Ethics Committee of the AFL-CIO charged that Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa had used “their official union positions for personal profit.” The AFL-CIO further charged that Hoffa “had associated with, sponsored, and promoted the interests of notorious labor racketeers.” The response of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was to elect Jimmy Hoffa, while under indictment in two federal jurisdictions, to his first term as president. In those tight-reined days, the president was elected not by the rank and file, but by handpicked delegates to the International Convention held every five years. And just to be on the safe side, there were no secret ballots. In his acceptance speech Jimmy Hoffa said, “Let us bury our differences.” How

She was responding to him with parts of herself that had been buried so long she had forgotten they existed. In his office that morning, when he shook her hand, she had suddenly felt a warmth of affection, of nostalgia, of gratitude even—and again in the lobby—he had somehow made her feel safe. It was his friendliness that was so unsettling. She had grown used to unfriendly people.

Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe, safe for today! Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. The future is today. There is no tomorrow. The day of man's salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of 'day-tight compartments.

The day before I stepped down as secretary, I sent a message to every man and woman wearing the American military uniform because I knew I could not speak to or about them at my farewell ceremony without breaking down. I repeated my now-familiar words: “Your countrymen owe you their freedom and their security. They sleep safely at night and pursue their dreams during the day because you stand the watch and protect them.… You are the best America has to offer. My admiration and affection for you is without limit, and I will think about you and your families and pray for you every day for the rest of my life. God bless you.” I am eligible to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. I have asked to be buried in Section 60, where so many of the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan have been laid to rest. The greatest honor possible would be to rest among my heroes for all eternity.

I watched them from my window. They came with bulldozers and dug up the graves, one after the other. They burnt the corpses, and now everyone is afraid to touch them.” Then he said, “But, thanks be to God, my son is here.” “He’s safe?” I asked. “Yes. He’s in his room. The air conditioner has been on the whole time.” Then after a pause he added, “But it’s been three days now. I am doing my best but he’s beginning to smell. I must find a way to bury him soon.

I breathed your name into the air, I etched your name into me I felt my anger swelling, I swam into its sea I held your name inside my heart but it got buried in my fear It tore the wiring of my brain, I did my best to keep it clear So dear, no matter how we part I hold you sweetly in my head And if I do not miss a part of you, a part of me is dead If I can't love you as a lover, I will love you as a friend And I will lay a bed before you, keep you safe until the end

She shut her eyes against the realisation rising within her like a tidal wave. It would sweep away everything in its path once she admitted it. Consume her entirely. The thought was enough for her to straighten and wipe away her tears. 'I can't accept this.' 'It was made for you,' he smiled softly. She couldn't bear that smile, his kindness and joy, as she corrected. 'I will not accept it.' She placed the orb back in its box and handed it to him. 'Return it.' His eyes shuttered. 'It's a gift, not a fucking wedding ring.' She stiffened. 'No, I'll look to Eris for that.' He went still. 'Say that again.' She made her face cold, the only shield she had against him. 'Rhys says Eris wants me for his bride. He'll do anything we want in exchange for my hand.' The Siphons atop Cassian's hands flickered. 'You aren't considering saying yes.' She said nothing. Let him believe the worst. He snarled. 'I see. I get a little too close and you shove me away again. Back to where it's safe. Better to marry a viper like Eris than be with me.' 'I am not with you,' she snapped. 'I am fucking you.' 'The only thing fit for a bastard-born brute, right?' 'I didn't say that.' 'You don't need to. You've said it a thousand times before.' 'Then why did you bother to cut in at the ball?' 'Because I was fucking jealous!' he roared, wings splaying. 'You looked like a queen, and it was painfully obvious that you should be with a princeling like Eris and not a low-born nothing like me! Because I couldn't stand the sight of it, right down to my gods-damned bones! But go ahead, Nesta. Go ahead and fucking marry him and good fucking luck to you!' 'Eris is the brute,' she shot back. 'He is a brute and a piece of shit. And I would marry him because I am just like him!' The words echoed through the room. His pained face gutted her. 'I deserve Eris.' Her voice cracked. Cassian panted, his eyes still lit with fury- and now with shock. Nesta said hoarsely. 'You are good, Cassian. And you are brave, and brilliant, and kind. I could kill anyone who has ever made you feel less than that- less than what you are. And I know I'm a part of that group, and I hate it.' Her eyes burned, but she fought past it. 'You are everything I have never been, and will never be good enough for. Your friends know it, and I have carried it around with me all this time- that I do not deserve you. The fury slid from his face. Nesta didn't stop the tears that flowed, or the words that tumbled out. 'I didn't deserve you before the war, or afterward, and I certainly don't now.' She let out a low, broken laugh. 'Why do you think I shoved you away? Why do you think I wouldn't speak to you?' She put a hand on her aching chest. 'After my father died, after I failed in so many ways- denying myself of you...' She sobbed. 'It was my punishment. Don't you understand that?' She could barely see him through her tears. 'From the moment I met you, I wanted you more than reason From the moment I saw you in my house, you were all I could think about. And it terrified me. No one had ever held such power over me. And I am still terrified that if I let myself have you... it will be taken away. Someone will take it away, and if you're dead...' She buried her face in her hands. 'It doesn't matter,' she whispered. 'I do not deserve you, and I never, ever will.' Utter silence filled the room. Such silence that she wondered if he'd left, and lowered her hands to see if he was there. Cassian stood before her. Tears streaming down his beautiful, perfect face. She didn't balk from it, letting him see her like this: her most raw, most base self. He'd always seen all of her, anyway. He opened his mouth and tried to speak. Had to swallow and try again. Nesta saw all the words in his eyes, though. The same ones she knew lay in her own.

Everyone has secret. Like the oyster with its grain of sand, we bury it deep within, coating it with opalescent layers, as if that could heal our mortal wound. Some of us devote our entire lives to keeping our secret hidden, safe from those who might pry it from us, hoarding it like the pearl, only to discover that it escapes us when we least expect it. revealed by a flash of fear in our eyes when caught unawares, by a sudden pain, a rage or hatred, or an all-consuming shame.

The depth of pain endemic to racial hostility requires full disclosure for complete healing. The church should become the place where the fullness of suffering is expressed in a safe environment. Liturgy, worship, leadership, small groups and other aspects of church life should provide the safe place where the fullness of suffering can be set free. Stories of suffering can never be buried when lament is an important and central aspect of the church’s worship life. Lamentations

The nations of the earth through the centuries of time have waged war to gain territory. I think ours is the only nation on the face of the earth which has not claimed territory gained out of conflict. I have stood in the American Military Cemetery in Suresnes, France, where are buried some who died in the First World War. Among those was my eldest brother. It is a quiet and hallowed place, a remembrance of great sacrifice 'to make the world safe for democracy.' No territory was claimed by America as recompense for the sacrifices of those buried there. I have stood in reverence in the beautiful American military cemetery on the outskirts of Manila in the Philippines. There marble crosses and the Star of David stand in perfect symmetry marking the burial places of some 17,000 Americans who lost their lives in the Second World War. Surrounding that sacred ground are marble colonnades on which are incised the names of another 35,000 who were lost in the battles of the Pacific during that terrible conflict. After so great a sacrifice there was victory, but there was never a claim for territory except for some small islands over which we have had guardianship. I have been up and down South Korea from the 38th parallel in the North to Pusan in the South, and I have seen the ridges and the valleys where Americans fought and died, not to save their own land but to preserve freedom for people who were strangers to them but whom they acknowledged to be brothers under the fatherhood of God. Not an inch of territory was sought for nor added to the area of the United States out of that conflict. I have been from one end of South Vietnam to the other in the days of war. More than 55,000 Americans died in the sultry, suffocating heat of that strange and foreign place fighting in the cause of human liberty without ambition for territory. In no instance--not in the First World War or the Second, not in the Korean War or in Vietnam--did our nation seize and hold territory for itself as a prize of war.

His breath fell in a warm, even rhythm on the curve of her cheek. “Some people think of the bee as a sacred insect,” he said. “It’s a symbol of reincarnation.” “I don’t believe in reincarnation,” she muttered. There was a smile in his voice. “What a surprise. At the very least, the bees’ presence in your home is a sign of good things to come.” Her voice was buried in the fine wool of his coat. “Wh-what does it mean if there are thousands of bees in one’s home?” He shifted her higher in his arms, his lips curving gently against the cold rim of her ear. “Probably that we’ll have plenty of honey for teatime. We’re going through the doorway now. In a moment I’m going to set you on your feet.” Amelia kept her face against him, her fingertips digging into the layers of his clothes. “Are they following?” “No. They want to stay near the hive. Their main concern is to protect the queen from predators.” “She has nothing to fear from me!” Laughter rustled in his throat. With extreme care, he lowered Amelia’s feet to the floor. Keeping one arm around her, he reached with the other to close the door. “There. We’re out of the room. You’re safe.” His hand passed over her hair. “You can open your eyes now.” Clutching the lapels of his coat, Amelia stood and waited for a feeling of relief that didn’t come. Her heart was racing too hard, too fast. Her chest ached from the strain of her breathing. Her lashes lifted, but all she could see was a shower of sparks. “Amelia … easy. You’re all right.” His hands chased the shivers that ran up and down her back. “Slow down, sweetheart.” She couldn’t. Her lungs were about to burst. No matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t get enough air. Bees … the sound of buzzing was still in her ears. She heard his voice as if from a great distance, and she felt his arms go around her again as she sank into layers of gray softness. After what could have been a minute or an hour, pleasant sensations filtered through the haze. A tender pressure moved over her forehead. The gentle brushes touched her eyelids, slid to her cheeks. Strong arms held her against a comfortingly hard surface, while a clean, salt-edged scent filled her nostrils. Her lashes fluttered, and she turned into the warmth with confused pleasure. “There you are,” came a low murmur. Opening her eyes, Amelia saw Cam Rohan’s face above her. They were on the hallway floor—he was holding her in his lap. As if the situation weren’t mortifying enough, the front of her bodice was gaping, and her corset was unhooked. Only her crumpled chemise was left to cover her chest. Amelia stiffened. Until that moment she had never known there was a feeling beyond embarrassment, that made one wish one could crumble into a pile of ashes. “My … my dress…” “You weren’t breathing well. I thought it best to loosen your corset.” “I’ve never fainted before,” she said groggily, struggling to sit up. “You were frightened.” His hand came to the center of her chest, gently pressing her back down. “Rest another minute.” His gaze moved over her wan features. “I think we can conclude you’re not fond of bees.

What do you do when your greatest accomplishments lead you straight down the path of an even greater fear? Instead of summoning his faith and standing firm to see the deliverance of his God, Elijah retreats. And in his escape from his geographical surroundings, he begins to back down from the boldness that has characterized his whole ministry up to this point. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. (1 Kings 19:3–5) Now I’m confused. Verse 3 says he was running for his life. Yet verse 4 says he asked God to kill him. Which one is it? Are you looking for life support, Elijah? Or shall God send the angels of euthanasia? One of these things is not like the other. The more I studied this text, though, and considered the context of Elijah’s despair and compared it to similar feelings I’ve experienced under much less duress, the more I got it. Although the text says Elijah ran for his life—and I’m sure that’s how it appeared—it seems like something deeper is going on. In fact, I’m not sure Elijah was running for his life at all, at least not in the sense we would use that phrase. I believe Elijah was actually running from his life. You see, it had been a long, lonely three years for Elijah. Did he survive the drought? Undoubtedly. And through him God won the battle with a unanimous decision. But winning can be as exhausting as losing. Sometimes the pressure of success can drain you at an even deeper level than the frustration of failure. Elijah knows Queen Jezebel doesn’t have the power to call on her gods and end his life. If she had, he’d have been buried beside his bull back on the mountain. So it’s safe to assume that his greatest fear at this point isn’t dying. His greatest fear is living—and having to fight yet another agonizing battle. Jezebel’s threat is ultimately impotent, yes. But that doesn’t make it ineffective. Because fear often finds its power, not in our actual situation, but in what we tell ourselves about our situation.

There are people who know where they want to be, and also have a roadmap in their mind, about how to get there. But something stops them! They either keep waiting for better circumstances, or simply lack the courage to give up the comfort of a secure life. For them, the pursuit of their purpose is a risky proposition. Often, those are the same people that die with the weight of regrets. Those are the people who feel unfulfilled or unworthy at the end of their journey. They bury their dreams for the sake of a safe life, without ever venturing into the world of possibilities. But the truth is that if you risk nothing for the pursuit of your passion, you risk more. An even deeper reality is that there’s never a perfect time; the most ideal and opportune time is the time when YOU choose to begin your journey. Find courage to take the first step today. Your age, your pace, or your handicap doesn’t matter. Nothing is insurmountable if you have passion and persistence – your heart knows this. You simply have to convince your mind to play along. Find your moments of courage – the times when you feel strong, able, and energized. Tap those moments to launch yourself; the world beckons!

The person who experiences disruption of bonding recoils and withdraws emotionally. He does not experience his need, the hunger for love. Instead, he buries his needs deep inside, so he can no longer be hurt. This withdrawal is called defensive devaluation. Defensive devaluation is a protective device that makes love bad, trust unimportant, and people “no darn good” anyway. People who have been deeply hurt in their relationships will often devalue love so it doesn’t hurt so much. And they often become resigned to never loving again. People who are unbonded do funny things in relationships: They don’t look for safe people: there’s no hunger. They don’t recognize safe people: no one is safe. They don’t reach out to safe people: why get hurt again? Although unbonded people often have friends and families, their isolation is deep and can cause many serious problems. A person who cannot bond may suffer from addictions, depression, emptiness, excessive caretaking, fear of being treated like an object, fears of closeness, feelings of guilt, feelings of unreality, idealism, lack of joy, loss of meaning, negative bonds, outbursts of anger, panic, shallow relationships, or thought problems such as confusion, distorted thinking, and irrational fears.

Now, sitting opposite him, she still saw the handsome young man she had fallen in love with. The self-assured, optimistic artist no one had ever tried to kill, with his simple, almost childlike way of looking at things that enabled him to follow a steady path, safe from life’s cruelties. It allowed him to believe that turning the page, burying the past, or talking to a psychiatrist for months about your mother’s desire to eat you, would help her to overcome her fears, to live in a world of green meadows and blue skies sustained by simply willing it to be so. This belief that happiness was a choice struck her as so naïve as to be almost insulting.

Many people have a moment, after they have kids, when they begin to understand and empathize with their own parents, when suddenly all the difficult moments make sense. The discipline was all about keeping you safe, about teaching you life lessons. I saw those terrible years that had culminated in my packing up the blue and maroon Samsonite and leaving my parents’ house as newly galling. An aberration. How could they send me out into the world? How could they have done what they did? I had spent years apologizing for my behavior to my parents. I lamented the trouble I had caused, the revolt I stirred. I had been a terrible child, I admitted. The drugs, the rebellion, the sneaking out, the violence. Over and over I had apologized and taken what I believed to be my share of the blame. But when I became a parent myself, I understood, finally, the source of my anger. They themselves had never apologized. Not really. On the few occasions over the years when I suggested that they had kicked us out, they always maintained that we had moved out of our own accord after refusing to follow the rules. I didn’t challenge this framing until I gave birth to my own daughter. There, in my hospital bed at Samitivej, holding my newborn baby with her giant blue eyes and her punk-rock hair, I thought, “No. You were the adults. I was the child. Fuck you.

He smiled, and some of the knots in my stomach loosened. He would keep my secret. Devon hesitated, then reached over and put his hand on top of mine. His skin was warm, as though the sun had soaked into his body. I breathed in, and the crisp, clean scent of him filled my nose, the one that made me want to bury my face in his neck and inhale the essence of him over and over again. But I forced myself to exhale and step back, putting some distance between us, even though our hands were still touching. “Look,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. “You’re a nice guy, a great guy. But I’m going to . . . be here for a while. You’re an important member of the Family, and I’m your bodyguard, so it’s my job to protect you, and we’re going to have to work together. But I don’t think there should be anything . . . else.” “Because of your mom, right?” he asked in a low voice. “Because you blame me for her death?” I sucked in a breath, so rattled that I couldn’t even pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. First, my magic, and now this. Somehow, Devon knew all my secrets. “How do you know about my mom?” I croaked out. “I remember everything about that day in the park,” he said. “Including the girl with the blue eyes who helped save me.” I didn’t say anything. I could barely even hear him over the roar of my own heartbeat in my ears. “It took me a while to figure out why you seemed so familiar. When I realized you reminded me of the girl in the park, I knew it had to be you. Mom would never have brought you here otherwise. Plus, there are several photos of your mother in the library. You look just like her. I know what happened to her. I’m sorry that she died because of me—so sorry.” His green gaze locked with mine, that old, familiar guilt flaring to life in his eyes and punching me in the gut. And once again, I found myself wanting to comfort him. “I don’t blame you for her death,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault. It was all the Draconis.” “Do you really mean that?” he whispered. “I do.” Devon closed the distance between us and stared down at me. I let myself look into his eyes for another heartbeat. Then I pulled my hand out from under his and stepped away. Hurt flashed in his gaze before he could hide it. I wanted to stop. I wanted to tell him that I felt this thing, this attraction, this heat between us just as much as he did. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck, pull his lips down to mine, and lose myself in him. But I couldn’t. Not when I was planning on leaving the mansion, the Family, and him, the second I thought it was safe. I already cared about Devon way too much. And Felix and Oscar and even Claudia. I didn’t need to fall any farther down that rabbit hole, especially where Devon was concerned, because I knew exactly where I would end up—with my heart broken.

So much is kept off limits these days. There are things we don't speak of, things we not only don't remember but carefully forget, places we do not stray into, memories we bury or reshape. That is the way we all live nowadays: driving a long a road between hallucination and amnesia. As long as you are moving, you are OK -- you have negotiated safe passage, for the moment. It is only when you come to a stop like this, in a black night in the middle of nowhere, that things wobble a bit and you wonder about the purpose of roads. You sit in the dark, frightened at the life you've led and things you've led undone. You can only hope that in the long run it won't matter, but that in itself is no consolation at all.

After two weeks came the first letter from Alexander. Tatiasha, Can there be anything harder than this? Missing you is a physical aching that grips me early in the morning and does not leave me, not even as I draw my last waking breath. My solace in these waning empty summer days is the knowledge that you’re safe, and alive, and healthy, and that the worst that you have to go through is serfdom for four well-meaning old women. The wood piles I’ve left are the lightest in the front. The heaviest ones are for the winter. Use them last, and if you need help carrying them, God help me, ask Vova. Don’t hurt yourself. And don’t fill the water pails all the way to the top. They’re too heavy. Getting back was rough, and as soon as I came back, I was sent right out to the Neva, where for six days we planned our attack and then made a move in boats across the river and were completely crushed in two hours. We didn’t stand a chance. The Germans bombed the boats with the Vanyushas, their version of my rocket launcher, the boats all sank. We were left with a thousand fewer men and were no closer to crossing the river. We’re now looking at other places we can cross. I’m fine, except for the fact that it’s rained here for ten days straight and I’ve been hip deep in mud for all that time. There is nowhere to sleep, except in the mud. We put our trench coats down and hope it stops raining soon. All black and wet, I almost felt sorry for myself until I thought of you during the blockade. I’ve decided to do that from now on. Every time I think I have it so tough, I’m going to think of you burying your sister in Lake Ladoga. I wish you had been given a lighter cross than Leningrad to carry through your life. Things are going to be relatively quiet here for the next few weeks, until we regroup. Yesterday a bomb fell in the commandant’s bunker. The commandant wasn’t there at the time. Yet the anxiety doesn’t go away. When is it going to come again? I play cards and soccer. And I smoke. And I think of you. I sent you money. Go to Molotov at the end of August. Don’t forget to eat well, my warm bun, my midnight sun, and kiss your hand for me, right in the palm and then press it against your heart. Alexander Tatiana read Alexander’s letter a hundred times, memorizing every word. She slept with her face on the letter, which renewed her strength.

I know were all intelligent people, but intelligence is a curious thing in the dreamstate: can't live with it. can't live without it. It's like an icepick in a balloon store. We have to push it into a cork or things are gonna start poppin'. That's the real point of all spirituality and religion and philosophy: they are the safe corks into which we can bury the sharp points of our minds. This self-inflicted dulling of the wit is how we constantly cast our own sleep spell. No one else is doing it to us. There is no magic behind our delusion except the magic we conjure with our own emotional energy. If we stop weaving our enchantment. we start waking up. and that is the last thing we want to happen. even though it may be our stated intent. Whatever we might say, we don't want things to start poppin

Latins aes alienum, another’s brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other’s brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter

The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. PROVERBS 18:10 NKJV When you are confused about the future, go to your Jehovah-raah, your caring shepherd. When you are anxious about provision, talk to Jehovah-jireh, the Lord who provides. Are your challenges too great? Seek the help of Jehovah-shalom, the Lord is peace. Is your body sick? Are your emotions weak? Jehovah-rophe, the Lord who heals you, will see you now. Do you feel like a soldier stranded behind enemy lines? Take refuge in Jehovah-nissi, the Lord my banner. Meditating on the names of God reminds you of the character of God. Take these names and bury them in your heart. God is the shepherd who guides, the Lord who provides, the voice who brings peace in the storm, the physician who heals the sick, and the banner that guides the soldier. The Great House of God

I go straight toward the last place where I felt safe: Tobias’s small apartment. The second I reach the door, I feel calmer. The door is not completely closed. I nudge it open with my foot. He isn’t there, but I don’t leave. I sit on his bed and gather the quilt in my arms, burying my face in the fabric and taking deep breaths of it through my nose. The smell it used to have is almost gone, it’s been so long since he slept on it. The door opens and Tobias slips in. My arms go limp, and the quilt falls into my lap. How will I explain my presence here? I’m supposed to be angry with him. He doesn’t scowl, but his mouth is so tense that I know he’s angry with me. “Don’t be an idiot,” he says. “An idiot?” “You were lying. You said you wouldn’t go to Erudite, and you were lying, and going to Erudite would make you an idiot. So don’t.” I set the blanket down and get up. “Don’t try to make this simple,” I say. “It’s not. You know as well as I do that this is the right thing to do.” “You choose this moment to act like the Abnegation?” His voice fills the room and makes fear prickle in my chest. His anger seems too sudden. Too strange. “All that time you spent insisting that you were too selfish for them, and now, when your life is on the line, you’ve got to be a hero? What’s wrong with you?” “What’s wrong with you? People died. They walked right off the edge of a building! And I can stop it from happening again!” “You’re too important to just…die.” He shakes his head. He won’t even look at me--his eyes keep shifting across my face, to the wall behind me or the ceiling above me, to everything but me. I am too stunned to be angry. “I’m not important. Everyone will do just fine without me,” I say. “Who cares about everyone? What about me?” He lowers his head into his hand, covering his eyes. His fingers are trembling. Then he crosses the room in two long strides and touches his lips to mine. Their gentle pressure erases the past few months, and I am the girl who sat on the rocks next to the chasm, with river spray on her ankles, and kissed him for the first time. I am the girl who grabbed his hand in the hallway just because I wanted to.

I lie flat, the damp air above me like a lid. Like earth. I wish it would rain. Better still, a thunderstorm, black clouds, lightning, ear-splitting sound. The electricity might go off. I could go down to the kitchen then, say I’m afraid, sit with Rita and Cora around the kitchen table, they would permit my fear because it’s one they share, they’d let me in. There would be candles burning, we would watch each other’s faces come and go in the flickering, in the white flashes of jagged light from outside the windows. Oh Lord, Cora would say. Oh Lord save us. The air would be clear after that, and lighter. I look up at the ceiling, the round circle of plaster flowers. Draw a circle, step into it, it will protect you. From the center was the chandelier, and from the chandelier a twisted strip of sheet was hanging down. That’s where she was swinging, just lightly, like a pendulum; the way you could swing as a child, hanging by your hands from a tree branch. She was safe then, protected altogether, by the time Cora opened the door. Sometimes I think she’s still in here, with me. I feel buried.

I lie flat, the damp air above me like a lid. Like earth. I wish it would rain. Better still, a thunderstorm, black clouds, lightning, car-splitting sound. The electricity might go off. I could go down to the kitchen then, say I'm afraid, sit with Rita and Cora around the kitchen table, they would permit my fear because it's one they share, they'd let me in. There would be candles burning, we would watch each other's faces come and go in the flickering, in the white flashes of jagged light from outside the windows. Oh Lord, Cora would say. Oh Lord save us. The air would be clear after that, and lighter. I look up at the ceiling, the round circle of plaster flowers. Draw a circle, step into it, it will protect you. From the center was the chandelier, and from the chandelier a twisted strip of sheet was hanging down. That's where she was swinging, just lightly, like a pendulum; the way you could swing as a child, hanging by your hands from a tree branch. She was safe then, protected altogether, by the time Cora opened the door. Sometimes I think she's still in here, with me. I feel buried.

Nick leaped off the horse. Still pointing the rifle at the bear, he nudged the carcass with his foot, then lowered the rifle and turned to Elizabeth. She threw herself against him. His arm tightened around her. Setting the rifle on the ground, he pulled her close. Elizabeth clung to him, still too shaken to even burst into tears. Nick had saved her. She glanced back at the carcass, still hardly believing what had just happened, then shuddered and buried her face in his shoulder. “Elizabeth, are you all right?” She nodded, but didn’t lift her face. Her body trembled. A few relieved tears squeezed through her tightly shut eyelids. Nick reached up and stroked her hair, placing several comforting kisses on her head. “I was so frightened,” she murmured into his shoulder. “Thank goodness you came.” He pressed another kiss to her head. Elizabeth sighed in relief, her body shaky. Everything had happened so fast. But she was safe in Nick’s embrace, and she didn’t want to leave anytime soon. Nick scooped Elizabeth into his arms. She gasped, flung her arms around his neck, and clung to him. “Nick, I’m too heavy,” she protested. “Lighter than those hay bales,” he teased. “You make a better fit too.

She broke off abruptly as she heard her name being called, and glanced over her shoulder, fearing that St. Vincent had discovered her escape. Her entire body stiffened in battle readiness. But there was no sign of St. Vincent, no betraying gleam of golden-amber hair. She heard the voice again, a deep sound that penetrated to her soul. “Lillian.” Her legs quivered beneath her as she saw a lean, dark-haired man coming from the front entryway. It can’t be, she thought, blinking hard to clear her vision, which must surely have been playing tricks on her. She stumbled a little as she turned to face him. “Westcliff,” she whispered, and took a few hesitant steps forward. The rest of the room seemed to vanish. Marcus’s face was pale beneath its tan, and he stared at her with searing intensity, as if he feared she might disappear. His stride quickened, and as he reached her, she was seized and caught in a biting grip. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her hard against him. “My God,” he muttered, and buried his face in her hair. “You came,” Lillian gasped, trembling all over. “You found me.” She couldn’t conceive how it was possible. He smelled of horses and sweat, and his clothes were chilled from the outside air. Feeling her shiver, Marcus drew her tightly inside his coat, murmuring endearments against her hair. “Marcus,” Lillian said thickly. “Have I gone mad? Oh, please be real. Please don’t go away—” “I’m here.” His voice was low and shaken. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.” He drew back slightly, his midnight gaze scouring her from head to toe, his hands searching urgently over her body. “My love, my own… have you been hurt?” As his fingers slid along her arm, he encountered the locked manacle. Lifting her wrist, he stared at the handcuffs blankly. He inhaled sharply, and his body began to shake with primitive fury. “G**damn it, I’ll send him to hell—” “I’m fine,” Lillian said hastily. “I haven’t been hurt.” Bringing her hand to his mouth, Marcus kissed it roughly, and kept her fingers against his cheek while his breath struck her wrist in swift repetitions. “Lillian, did he…” Reading the question in his haunted gaze, the words he couldn’t yet bring himself to voice, Lillian whispered scratchily, “No, nothing happened. There wasn’t time.” “I’m still going to kill him.” There was a deadly note in his voice that made the back of her neck crawl. Seeing the open bodice of her gown, Marcus released her long enough to pull off his coat and place it over her shoulders. He suddenly went still. “That smell… what is it?” Realizing that her skin and clothes still retained the noxious scent, Lillian hesitated before replying. “Ether,” she finally said, trying to form her trembling lips into a reassuring smile as she saw his eyes dilate into pools of black. “It wasn’t bad, actually. I’ve slept through most of the day. Other than a touch of queasiness, I’m—” An animal growl came from his throat, and he pulled her against him once more. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Lillian, my sweet love… you’re safe now. I’ll never let anything happen to you again. I swear it on my life. You’re safe.” He took her head in his hands, and his mouth slid over hers in a kiss that was brief, soft, and yet so shockingly intense that she swayed dizzily. Closing her eyes, she let herself rest against him, still fearing that none of this was real, that she would awaken to find herself with St. Vincent once more. Marcus whispered comforting words against her parted lips and cheeks, and held her with a grip that seemed gentle but could not have been broken by the combined efforts of ten men.

For a few sleepy minutes, they were silent, nested in the pillows, and then Noah said, “I heard about how you won’t kiss Adam.” She turned her face into the pillow, cheeks hot. “Well, I don’t care,” Noah said. With quiet delight, he guessed, “He smells, right?” She turned back to him. “He does not smell. Ever since I was little, every psychic I know has told me that if I kiss my true love, he’ll die.” Noah’s brow furrowed, or at least the half of it that wasn’t buried in pillow. His nose was more crooked than she’d ever noticed. “Adam’s your true love?” “No,” Blue said. She was startled by how quickly she had answered. She couldn’t stop seeing the dented side of the box he’d kicked. “I mean, I don’t know. I just don’t kiss anybody, just to be on the safe side.” Being dead made Noah more open-minded than most, so he didn’t bother with doubt. “Is it when or if?” “What do you mean?” “Like, if you kiss your true love, he’ll die,” he said, “or is it when you kiss your true love, he’ll die?” “I don’t get what the difference is.” He rubbed the side of his face on the pillow. “Mmmmsoft,” he remarked, then added, “One’s your fault. The other one, you just happen to be there when it happens. Like, when you kiss him, POW, he gets hit by a bear. Totally not your fault. You shouldn’t feel bad about that. It’s not your bear.

So you want to turn around? Give up on the chance of having him back?” Oscar took a swig of his canteen, then capped it. He held her stare. “I just want you alive.” Camille glanced toward Ira. He sat far enough away to hear just the murmur of their voices. This was her only opportunity to clean up after the messy scene in the pantry. Where to begin baffled her. The cold manner in which they were now acting made it difficult to believe Oscar had held her so lovingly, her body curled into his. She’d felt his hot breath on her shoulder as he dipped into sleep and out again to bury his nose in her hair or race her scar from the Christina with his finger. Camille had never wanted to leave that bed. “I don’t love him,” she said with little fanfare. Plain. Simple. The truth. “He’s a decent man, and things would be easier if I did love him. But I want what only you can give me, Oscar.” She couldn’t imagine feeling warm and safe and loved in Randall’s arms the way she had in Oscar’s. She didn’t know what would happen once her father returned to them or how he’d react. Right then, it didn’t matter. “Good night, then,” she said when he remained quiet. Camille turned onto her other side, away from the fire. The immediate cold lashed at her. A moment passed before she heard the scrape of his boots on the ground. His footsteps rounded the fire. Without saying a word, he lay down beside her. Oscar pulled her close to him without checking to see if Ira was watching. He kissed the crown of her head. “Good night, then.

It's a stupendous day for Dr. Seuss fans, with the announcement of a new, previously unpublished picture book, What Pet Should I Get? , to be released on July 28th.  When Dr. Seuss (aka Ted Geisel) passed away in 1991 he left behind pages of text and sketches for book ideas and projects he had worked on over the years but hadn't completed before his death. Where were these hidden gems, you might ask?  Locked away in a safe? Buried in the backyard? Hidden behind a secret wall in his hat closet?  No.  Like many utterly ordinary people, Seuss had a box in his office filled with a paper trail of ideas and bursts of creativity--only in this case, it was a veryspecial box of creative bits and pieces... Who knew, when his wife, Audrey Geisel, packed away that box shortly after Seuss' death, that when she opened it up over two decades later, she would discover the complete manuscript and illustrations for What Pet Should I Get? . I'm envisioning a ray of bright green and blue and red sunshine beaming down on that moment...  In point of fact, the brilliant colors of Seuss' stories came later in the evolution of his books, so color is being added to the black and white sketches of What Pet Should I Get? by Seuss' former art director, Cathy Goldsmith, who worked with him on the last book he published before his death, Oh, The Places You'll Go!   I can't even imagine the goosebumps Goldsmith must have felt to see and hold never-before-seen Seuss artwork... So while we have to wait until the sun is beating down and summer vacation is nearing an end before we can get our hands on a brand new Dr. Seuss story, can also look forward to hearing about what else was found in that treasure trove of Seussy goodness--two more stories are promised as a result of the findings.

Taking the catcher’s place, he sank to his haunches and gestured to Arthur. “Throw some easy ones to begin with,” he called, and Arthur nodded, seeming to lose his apprehensiveness. “Yes, milord!” Arthur wound up and released a relaxed, straight pitch. Squinting in determination, Lilian gripped the bat hard, stepped into the swing, and turned her hips to lend more impetus to the motion. To her disgust, she missed the ball completely. Turning around, she gave Westcliff a pointed glance. “Well, your advice certainly helped,” she muttered sarcastically. “Elbows,” came his succinct reminder, and he tossed the ball to Arthur. “Try again.” Heaving a sigh, Lillian raised the bat and faced the pitcher once more. Arthur drew his arm back, and lunged forward as he delivered another fast ball. Lillian brought the bat around with a grunt of effort, finding an unexpected ease in adjusting the swing to just the right angle, and she received a jolt of visceral delight as she felt the solid connection between the bat and the leather ball. With a loud crack the ball was catapulted high into the air, over Arthur’s head, beyond the reach of those in the back field. Shrieking in triumph, Lillian dropped the bat and ran headlong toward the first sanctuary post, rounding it and heading toward second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daisy hurtling across the field to scoop up the ball, and in nearly the same motion, throwing it to the nearest boy. Increasing her pace, her feet flying beneath her skirts, Lillian rounded third, while the ball was tossed to Arthur. Before her disbelieving eyes, she saw Westcliff standing at the last post, Castle Rock, with his hands held up in readiness to catch the ball. How could he? After showing her how to hit the ball, he was now going to tag her out? “Get out of my way!” Lillian shouted, running pellmell toward the post, determined to reach it before he caught the ball. “I’m not going to stop!” “Oh, I’ll stop you,” Westcliff assured her with a grin, standing right in front of the post. He called to the pitcher. “Throw it home, Arthur!” She would go through him, if necessary. Letting out a warlike cry, Lillian slammed full-length into him, causing him to stagger backward just as his fingers closed over the ball. Though he could have fought for balance, he chose not to, collapsing backward onto the soft earth with Lillian tumbling on top of him, burying him in a heap of skirts and wayward limbs. A cloud of fine beige dust enveloped them upon their descent. Lillian lifted herself on his chest and glared down at him. At first she thought that he had been winded, but it immediately became apparent that he was choking with laughter. “You cheated!” she accused, which only seemed to make him laugh harder. She struggled for breath, drawing in huge lungfuls of air. “You’re not supposed…to stand in front…of the post…you dirty cheater!” Gasping and snorting, Westcliff handed her the ball with the ginger reverence of someone yielding a priceless artifact to a museum curator. Lillian took the ball and hurled it aside. “I was not out,” she told him, jabbing her finger into his hard chest for emphasis. It felt as if she were poking a hearthstone. “I was safe, do you…hear me?” She heard Arthur’s amused voice as he approached them. “Actually, miss—” “Never argue with a lady, Arthur,” the earl interrupted, having managed to regain his powers of speech, and the boy grinned at him. “Yes, milord.” “Are there ladies here?” Daisy asked cheerfully, coming from the field. “I don’t see any.” Still smiling, the earl looked up at Lillian.

Eventually, two Swedish climbers and a Sherpa called Babu Chiri found Mick. By chance--by God’s grace--Babu was carrying a spare canister of oxygen. Neil and Pasang had also now descended, and met up with Mick and the others. Neil then located an emergency cache of oxygen half-buried in the snow nearby. He gave one to Alan and forced both him and Mick to their feet. Slow and tired, his mind wandering in and out of consciousness, Mick remembers little about the next few hours. It was just a haze of delirium, fatigue, and cold. Descending blue sheet ice can be lethal. Much more so than ascending it. Mick staggered on down, the debilitating effects of thin air threatening to overwhelm him. Somewhere beneath the Balcony Mick suddenly felt the ground surge beneath him. There was a rush of acceleration as the loose topping of snow--covering the blue ice--slid away under him. He began to hurtle down the sheer face on his back, and then made the all-too-easy error of trying to dig in his crampons to slow the fall. The force catapulted him into a somersault, hurtling him ever faster down the steep ice and snow face. He resigned himself to the fact that he would die. He bounced and twisted, over and over, and then slid to a halt on a small ledge. Then he heard voices. They were muffled and strange. Mick tried to shout to them but nothing came out. The climbers who were now at the col then surrounded him, clipped him in, and held him. He was shaking uncontrollably. When Mick and Neil reached us at camp two, forty-eight hours later, they were utterly shattered. Different men. Mick just sat and held his head in his hands. That said it all. That evening, as we prepared to sleep, he prodded me. I sat up and saw a smile spread across his face. “Bear, next time, let me choose where we go on holiday--all right?” I began to laugh and cry at the same time. I needed to. So much had been kept inside. The next morning, Mick, Neil, and Geoffrey left for base camp. Their attempt was over. Mick just wanted to be off this forsaken mountain--to be safe. I watched them head out into the glacier and hoped I had made the right decision to stay up at camp two without them all.

Somewhere in between are the rest of us natives, in whom such change revives long-buried anger at those faraway people who seem to govern the world: city people, educated city people who win and control while the rest of us work and lose. Snort at the proposition if you want, but that was the view I grew up with, and it still is quite prevalent, though not so open as in those days. These are the sentiments the fearful rich and the Republicans capitalize on in order to kick liberal asses in elections. The Democrats' 2006 midterm gains should not fool anyone into thinking that these feelings are not still out here in this heartland that has so rapidly become suburbanized. It is still politically profitable to cast matters as a battle between the slick people, liberals all, and the regular Joes, people who like white bread and Hamburger Helper and "normal" beer. When you are looking around you in the big cities at all those people, it's hard to understand that there are just as many out here who never will taste sushi or, in all likelihood, fly on an airplane other than when we are flown to boot camp, compliments of Uncle Sam. Only 20 percent of Americans have ever owned a passport. To the working people I grew up with, sophistication of any and all types, and especially urbanity, is suspect. Hell, those city people have never even fired a gun. Then again, who would ever trust Jerry Seinfeld or Dennis Kucinich or Hillary Clinton with a gun? At least Dick Cheney hunts, even if he ain't safe to hunt with. George W. Bush probably knows a good goose gun when he sees one. Guns are everyday tools, like Skil saws and barbecue grills. So when the left began to demonize gun owners in the 1960s, they not only were arrogant and insulting because they associated all gun owners with criminals but also were politically stupid. It made perfect sense to middle America that the gun control movement was centered in large urban areas, the home to everything against which middle America tries to protect itself—gangbangers, queer bars, dope-fiend burglars, swarthy people jabbering in strange languages. From the perspective of small and medium-size towns all over the country, antigun activists are an overwrought bunch.

I want you, Leilani. I'm so hard it hurts. But your scent entices me, lures me." He drew the sheet farther down, past her navel, along the soft swell of her stomach. "I want to taste, to savor. Here." He kissed his way to the tender flesh high inside her inner thigh. "And here." He traced a similar path to the other side. "But I want to feast... here." He drew his tongue along the center of her, and groaned at the sweet taste of her. Lani's hips started to pump harder, and he could feel a fine quivering begin along her skin. She rocked and keened, and when he plunged his tongue deeply into her, she cried out, reached down and buried her fingers in his hair. Guiding him, urging him, demanding him, release broke over her in wracking, wrenching waves. "Baxter, please... please." Her hips slowed, but her body continued to gather and jerk as the aftershocks kept twitching through her. "Now," she demanded. "I'm- I'm safe, protected, we don't need-" She broke off as he kissed his way back up the center of her torso while she continued to writhe beneath him. The way she responded to him, making herself vulnerable to him, moved him in unpredictable ways. He shifted so he was directly on top of her and pressed himself between her thighs, which she parted, wrapping them around his hips, digging her heels into his lower back as she lifted for him, and took him in. Take her, he did, sliding all the way in, groaning as she gripped him fully, so tightly, so wetly, so perfectly, it was the fulfillment of every fantasy he'd ever had. Even though his heart was drumming inside his chest, and his body was priming itself for a ferocious release, climaxing wasn't the only thing dominating his thoughts. He met her every hip thrust, echoed every groan, every growl, as they worked their every frenzied way to completion, together. He could feel her climb again as she rolled her hips beneath him, and reality continued to eclipse fantasy. "Come with me, yes," he said, claiming her mouth even as she was nodding in agreement. He pulled her into his arms and moved more deeply, as she instinctively shifted to take him more tightly inside her. They moved with a rhythm that was as old as man's creation, and uniquely and utterly their own.

You’re still holding my arm.” “I know.” So this was it, she thought, and struggled to keep her voice. “Should I ask you to let go?” “I wouldn’t bother.” She drew a deep, steadying breath. “All right. What do you want, Roman?” “To get this out of the way, for both of us.” He rose. Her step backward was instinctive, and much more surprising to her than to him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” “Neither do I.” With his free hand, he gathered up her hair. It was soft, as he’d known it would be. Thick and full and so soft that his fingers dived in and were lost. “But I’d rather regret something I did than something I didn’t do.” “I’d rather not regret at all.” “Too late.” He heard her suck in her breath as he yanked her against him. “One way or the other, we’ll both have plenty to regret.” He was deliberately rough. He knew how to be gentle, though he rarely put the knowledge into practice. With her, he could have been. Perhaps because he knew that, he shoved aside any desire for tenderness. He wanted to frighten her, to make certain that when he let her go she would run, run away from him, because he wanted so badly for her to run to him. Buried deep in his mind was the hope that he could make her afraid enough, repelled enough, to send him packing. If she did, she would be safe from him, and he from her. He thought he could accomplish it quickly. Then, suddenly, it was impossible to think at all. She tasted like heaven. He’d never believed in heaven, but the flavor was on her lips, pure and sweet and promising. Her hand had gone to his chest in an automatic defensive movement. Yet she wasn’t fighting him, as he’d been certain she would. She met his hard, almost brutal kiss with passion laced with trust. His mind emptied. It was a terrifying experience for a man who kept his thoughts under such stringent control. Then it filled with her, her scent, her touch, her taste. He broke away-for his sake now, not for hers. He was and had always been a survivor. His breath came fast and raw. One hand was still tangled in her hair, and his other was clamped tight on her arm. He couldn’t let go. No matter how he chided himself to release her, to step back and walk away, he couldn’t move. Staring at her, he saw his own reflection in her eyes. He cursed her-it was a lack quick denial-before he crushed his mouth to hers again. It wasn’t heaven he was heading for, he told himself. It was hell.

In the early hours of the morning she turned her swollen face toward Mike and opened her eyes—or tried to. One was partially shut because of the swelling. He scooted closer. “Brie,” he whispered. “It’s me, Brie. I’m here.” She put her hands over her face and cried out. “No! No!” He took gentle hold of her wrists. “Brie! It’s me. It’s Mike. It’s okay.” But he couldn’t pull her hands away from her face. “Please,” she whimpered pitifully. “I don’t want you to see this….” “Honey, I saw you already,” he said. “I’ve been sitting here for hours. Let it go,” he said. “It’s okay.” She let him slowly pull her hands away from her battered face. “Why? Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here!” “Jack wanted me to help him understand what was happening with the investigation. But I wanted to be here. Brie, I wanted to be here for you.” He brushed her brow gently. “You’re going to be okay.” “He… He got my gun….” “The police know, honey. You didn’t do anything wrong.” “He’s so dangerous. I tried to get him—that’s why he did this. I was going to put him away for life.” Mike’s jaw pulsed, but he kept his voice soft. “It’s okay, Brie. It’s over now.” “Did they find him?” she asked. “Did they pick him up?” Oh, how he wished she wouldn’t ask that. “Not yet.” “Do you know why he didn’t kill me?” she asked, a tear running out of her swollen eye and down over the bridge of her purple nose. He tenderly wiped it away. “He said he didn’t want me to die. He wanted me to try to get him again, and watch him walk again. He wore a condom.” “Aw, honey…” “I’m going to get him, Mike.” “Please… Don’t think about that now. I’ll get the nurse. Get you another sedative.” He put the light on and the nurse came immediately. “Brie needs something to help her go back to sleep.” “Sure,” the nurse said. “I’m just going to wake up again,” she said. “And I’m just going to think the same things.” “Try to rest,” he said, leaning over to kiss her brow. “I’ll be right here. And there’s an officer outside your door. You’re completely safe.” “Mike,” she whispered. She held his hand for a long moment. “Did Jack ask you to come?” “No,” he said, gently touching her brow. “But when I found out what happened, I had to come,” he whispered. “I had to.” After having a sedative administered into the IV, she gently closed her eyes again. Her hand slipped out of his and he sat back in his chair. Then, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands, he silently wept. *

Then he took my arm, in a much softer grip than the one he’d used on our first date when he’d kept me from biting the dust. “No, c’mon,” he said, pulling me closer to him and securing his arms around my waist. I died a thousand deaths as he whispered softly, “What’s wrong?” What could I possibly say? Oh, nothing, it’s just that I’ve been slowly breaking up with my boyfriend from California and I uninvited him to my brother’s wedding last week and I thought everything was fine and then he called last night after I got home from cooking you that Linguine and Clam Sauce you loved so much and he said he was flying here today and I told him not to because there really wasn’t anything else we could possibly talk about and I thought he understood and while I was driving out here just now he called me and it just so happens he’s at the airport right now but I decided not to go because I didn’t want to have a big emotional drama (you mean like the one you’re playing out in Marlboro Man’s kitchen right now?) and I’m finding myself vacillating between sadness over the end of our four-year relationship, regret over not going to see him in person, and confusion over how to feel about my upcoming move to Chicago. And where that will leave you and me, you big hunk of burning love. “I ran over my dog today!” I blubbered and collapsed into another heap of impossible-to-corral tears. Marlboro Man was embracing me tightly now, knowing full well that his arms were the only offering he had for me at that moment. My face was buried in his neck and I continued to laugh, belting out an occasional “I’m sorry” between my sobs, hoping in vain that the laughter would eventually prevail. I wanted to continue, to tell him about J, to give him the complete story behind my unexpected outburst. But “I ran over my dog” was all I could muster. It was the easiest thing to explain. Marlboro Man could understand that, wrap his brain around it. But the uninvited surfer newly-ex-boyfriend dangling at the airport? It was a little more information than I had the strength to share that night. He continued holding me in his kitchen until my chest stopped heaving and the wellspring of snot began to dry. I opened my eyes and found I was in a different country altogether, The Land of His Embrace. It was a peaceful, restful, safe place. Marlboro Man gave me one last comforting hug before our bodies finally separated, and he casually leaned against the counter. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better,” he said, “I’ve run over so many damn dogs out here, I can’t even begin to count them.” It was a much-needed--if unlikely--moment of perspective for me.

Chapter 1 Death on the Doorstep LIVY HINGE’S AUNT lay dying in the back yard, which Aunt Neala thought was darned inconvenient. “Nebula!” she called, hoping her weakened voice would reach the barn where that lazy cat was no doubt taking a nap. If Neala had the energy to get up and tap her foot she would. If only that wretched elf hadn’t attacked her, she’d have made her delivery by now. Instead she lay dying. She willed her heart to take its time spreading the poison. Her heart, being just as stubborn as its owner, ignored her and raced on. A cat with a swirling orange pattern on its back ran straight to Neala and nuzzled her face. “Nebula!” She was relieved the cat had overcome its tendency to do the exact opposite of whatever was most wanted of it. Reaching into her bag, Neala pulled out a delicate leaf made of silver. She fought to keep one eye cracked open to make sure the cat knew what to do. The cat took the leaf in its teeth and ran back toward the barn. It was important that Neala stay alive long enough for the cat to hide the leaf. The moment Neala gave up the ghost, the cat would vanish from this world and return to her master. Satisfied, Neala turned her aching head toward the farmhouse where her brother’s family was nestled securely inside. Smoke curled carelessly from the old chimney in blissful ignorance of the peril that lay just beyond the yard. The shimmershield Neala had created around the property was the only thing keeping her dear ones safe. A sheet hung limply from a branch of the tree that stood sentinel in the back of the house. It was Halloween and the sheet was meant to be a ghost, but without the wind it only managed to look like old laundry. Neala’s eyes followed the sturdy branch to Livy’s bedroom window. She knew what her failure to deliver the leaf meant. The elves would try again. This time, they would choose someone young enough to be at the peak of their day dreaming powers. A druid of the Hinge bloodline, about Livy’s age. Poor Livy, who had no idea what she was. Well, that would change soon enough. Neala could do nothing about that now. Her willful eyes finally closed. In the wake of her last breath a storm rose up, bringing with it frightful wind and lightning. The sheet tore free from the branch and flew away. The kitchen door banged open. Livy Hinge, who had been told to secure the barn against the storm, found her lifeless aunt at the edge of the yard. ☐☐☐ A year later, Livy still couldn’t think about Aunt Neala without feeling the memories bite at her, as though they only wanted to be left alone. Thankfully, Livy wasn’t concerned about her aunt at the moment. Right now, Rudus Brutemel was going to get what was coming to him. Hugh, Livy’s twin, sat next to her on the bus. His nose was buried in a spelling book. The bus lurched dangerously close to their stop. If they waited any longer, they’d miss their chance. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Rudus was watching. Opening her backpack, she made a show of removing a bologna sandwich with thick slices of soft homemade bread. Hugh studied the book like it was the last thing he might ever see. Livy nudged him. He tore his eyes from his book and delivered his lines as though he were reading them. “Hey, can I have some? I’m starving.” At least he could make his stomach growl on demand.