Shoulder Injury Quotes

The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.

Why", he asked. "Why did you save her?" She dragged a hand through her hair. A white bandage around her upper arm peeked through her shirt with the movement. He hadn't even been conscious for that wound. He stifled the urge to demand to see it, assess the injury himself—and tug her close against him. "Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin...," Aelin said. "She screamed Manon's name the way I screamed yours." Rowan stilled. His queen gazed at the floor, as if recalling the moment. "How can I take away somebody who means the world to someone else? Even if she's my enemy." A little shrug. "I thought you were dying. It seemed like bad luck to let her die out of spite. And..." she snorted. "Falling into a ravine seemed like a pretty shitty way to die for someone who fights that spectacularly." Rowan smiled, drinking in the sight of her: pale, grave face; the dirty clothes; the injuries. Yet her shoulders were back, chin high. "You make me proud to serve you." A jaunty slant to her lips, but silver lined her eyes. "I know.

Squirrelflight rested her tail on his shoulder, urging him to lie still until his injuries could be treated. Brambleclaw led Stormfur and Brook up to Firestar. The Clan leader's eyes stretched wide in surprise. "Stormfur...and Brook! What are you doing here?" "There'll be time to explain later," Stormfur meowed. "For now, Firestar, put us to work.

Suddenly he was in the doorway, looming over her in a determined fashion. Gone was sweet, patient Griffin. This was the Duke of Greythorne, one of the most powerful men in England. “I don’t care that you came to Dandy,” he said, his voice low, but sharp. “If you want to blame yourself for Sam’s injury, then go ahead and be a fool. And I don’t care that you could cosh my head in if you wanted. I came here to get you and if I have to, I’ll toss you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carry you all the way to Mayfair. I’m taking you home where you belong.

The weight of the world is on our shoulders, its vision is through our eyes; if we blink or look aside, or turn back to finger what Plato said or remember Napoleon and his conquests, we inflict on the world the injury of some obliquity. This is life…

Aelin's hand wavered slightly over his wound. "What's your shield made of, then?" Fenrys tried and failed to shrug. But Gavriel muttered from where he worked on the still-whimpering pirate, "Arrogance." Aelin snorted, but didn't dare take her eyes off Fenrys's injury as she said, "So you do have sense of humor, Gavriel." The Lion of Doranelle gave a wary smile over his shoulder. The rare-sighted, restrained twin to Aedion's own flashing grins. Aelin had called him Uncle Kitty-Cat all of one time before Aedion had snarled viciously enough to make her think carefully before using the term again. Gavriel, to his credit, had merely given Aelin a long-suffereing sigh that seemed to be used only when she or Fenrys were around. "That sense of humor only appears about once every century," Fenrys rasped, "so you'd better hope you Settle, or else that's the last time you'll see it.

I heard the bathroom door close and I kept my eyes screwed shut, but my heart skyrocketed into uncharted territories. I folded my arms around me and held my breath. There was the slightest movement behind me. Skin brushed against mine. A fine shiver rolled up my spine. An infinite spark transferred between us, something that couldn’t be replicated or forced. How could I’ve forgotten that when connected with Seth? My heart turned over heavily. Aiden brushed the mass of thick hair over one shoulder and his lips met the space between my neck and shoulder. His hands slid down the slick skin of my arms, cupping over my elbows and then to my wrists. Gently, slowly, he eased my arms to my sides. I bit down on my lip and my legs started trembling. But he was there. Like always, holding me up when I couldn’t stand on and letting me go when he knew I needed him to. He was more than just a shelter. AIden was my other half, my equal. And he needed no weird Apollyon connection. Aiden waited, still as a statue, patient as ever, until my muscles unlocked, one by one. Then his hands dropped to my waist and he turned me toward him. A heartbeat passed and he placed his fingers on my chin, tipping my head back. I opened my eyes, blinking the wetness off my lashes, and the air hitched in my throat. Faint, purplish bruises shadowed his jaw. There was a cut over the bridge of his nose. No doubt injuries I had given him.

The boy gestured with his chin at Dimity. “She was shot.” He sounded remarkably unconcerned for a brother with any degree of affection for his sibling.“Good lord!” Sophronia climbed in to see to her new friend’s health. The bullet had grazed Dimity’s shoulder. It had ripped her dress and left a partly burned gash behind, but didn’t look all that bad. Sophronia checked to make certain Dimity had no other injuries. Then she sat back on her heels.“Is that all? I’ve had worse scrapes from drinking tea. Why has she come over all crumpled?”Pillover rolled his eyes. “Faints at the sight of blood, our Dimity. Always has. Weak nerves,father says. It doesn’t even have to be her blood.

But then again, living is a gamble. We all wind up and deliver our pitch, and what happens after that—strike three, home run, or shoulder injury—is out of our control. We can’t go back, but we can go forward with what we’ve learned.

The weekend was a much-needed breath of fresh air; Monday always seemed to not only take that breath right back, but add a few extra pounds to my shoulders as well.

There is my father whispering in my ear, Be still still still. And yet you change everything. What was the marsh like, waiting for the storm before you came and kneeled in the water? It was nothing. Watch after you leave the water, now cold and regretful, miles from home, certain of the belt on your backside, the cold shoulder, the extra chores; watch. Watch the water heal itself of your presence--not to repair injury but to offer itself again should you care to risk another strapping [...].

While working at a sawmill, he slipped and fell against the whirring blade, which tore through his upper body at the shoulder, creating a hole so large that his internal organs were exposed—one witness claimed he could see the poor man’s beating heart—and leaving his arm attached by just a few strands of glistening sinew. The millworkers bound the injuries as best they could and carried Lindbergh home, where he lay in silent agony for three days awaiting the arrival of a doctor from St. Cloud, forty miles away. When the doctor at last reached him, he took off the arm and sewed up the gaping cavity. It was said that Lindbergh made almost no sound. Remarkably, August Lindbergh recovered and lived another thirty years. Stoicism became the Lindbergh family’s most cultivated trait.

Henry hooked his legs on the branch and flipped over gingerly, until he was hanging upside-down, grinning at Vlad. Then Henry's grin slipped. He fell to the ground several feet below with a thump, crying out as his body made impact. Vlad shimmied down the tree as fast as he could. "Henry ! Are you okay?" Henry sat up, clutching his wounded knee. He looked very much like he was going to start crying any second. A small, thin line of blood oozed from the scrape on his knee. Vlad's tiny fangs shot from his gums. Henry's eyes went wide, his injury all but forgotten. "What are those?" Vlad's small shoulders sank. He'd let his dad down. "They're my fangs." "Vlad, are you a vampire or something?" Henry's eyes were big, and Vlad was certain he saw fear in them. Not as much fear as when Henry had been falling from the tree, but close. He took a deep breath, glancing at the house. Then he sat down in front of Henry and said, "Yeah, Henry. I'm a vampire. But it's a secret. A very, very, very big secret and you can't tell anyone ever.

Having cerebral palsy basically means that because of a brain injury I got from being born too early, my brain is extra about everything: extra-tight muscles, extra sensitivity to startles like loud noises or, like now, Wilder touching my shoulder. It’s like having those bang snap fireworks that you throw on the ground explode inside you when you most want to keep your cool.

I’ve always been intimidated by gyms, have never been able to enjoy the towel-round-the-shoulder confidence of somebody who knows he can bench-press 250 pounds, or even knows what that means or how much 250 pounds weighs. I just know I don’t like lifting heavy things, especially since I had this wrist injury which stopped me playing tennis and which means that I’ve gone from being fit and thin-looking to just a feeble streak of unshouldered manhood whose only saving grace is that he doesn’t take up much space, who leaves plenty of room for others—especially now that I was several days into a quasi-hunger strike.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and jumped when I turned and found Ren’s brother standing behind me as a man. Ren got up, alert, and watched him carefully, suspicious of Kishan’s every move. Ren’s tail twitched back and forth, and a deep grumble issued from his chest. Kishan look down at Ren, who had crept even closer to keep an eye on him, and then looked back at me. He reached out his hand, and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, then bowed deeply with great aplomb. “May I ask your name?” “My name is Kelsey. Kelsey hayes.” “Kelsey. Well, I, for one, appreciate all the efforts you have made on our behalf. I apologize if I frightened you earlier. I am,” he smiled, “out of practice in conversing with young ladies. These gifts you will be offering to Durga. Would you kindly tell me more about them?” Ren growled unhappily. I nodded. “Is Kishan your given name?” “My full name is actually Sohan Kishan Rajaram, but you can call me Kishan if you like.” He smiled a dazzling white smile, which was even more brilliant due to the contrast with his dark skin. He offered an arm. “Would you please sit and talk with me, Kelsey?” There was something very charming about Kishan. I surprised myself by finding I immediately trusted and liked him. He had a quality similar to his brother. Like Ren, he had the ability to set a person completely at ease. Maybe it was their diplomatic training. Maybe it was how their mother raised them. Whatever it was made me respond positively. I smiled at him. “I’d love to.” He tucked my arm under his and walked with me over to the fire. Ren growled again, and Kishan shot a smirk in his direction. I noticed him wince when he sat, so I offered him some aspirin. “Shouldn’t we be getting you two to a doctor? I really think you might need stitches and Ren-“ “Thank you, but no. You don’t need to worry about our minor pains.” “I wouldn’t exactly call your wounds minor, Kishan.” “The curse helps us to heal quickly. You’ll see. We’ll both recover swiftly enough on our own. Still, it was nice to have such a lovely young woman tending to my injuries.” Ren stood in front of us and looked like he was a tiger suffering from apoplexy. I admonished, “Ren, be civil.” Kishan smiled widely and waited for me to get comfortable. Then he scooted closer to me and rested his arm on the log behind my shoulders. Ren stepped right between us, nudged his brother roughly aside with his furry head, creating a wider space, and maneuvered his body into the middle. He dropped heavily to the ground and rested his head in my lap. Kishan frowned, but I started talking, sharing the story of what Ren and I had been through. I told him about meeting Ren at the circus and about how he tricked me to get me to India. I talked about Phet, the Cave of Kanheri, and finding the prophecy, and I told him that we were on our way to Hampi. As I lost myself in our story, I stroked Ren’s head. He shut his eyes and purred, and then he fell asleep. I talked for almost an hour, barely registering Kishan’s raised eyebrow and thoughtful expression as he watched the two of us together. I didn’t even notice when he’d changed back into a tiger.

When the memory became too faint, too abstract, it would transform itself into an old rotator cuff injury, a pain so thin yet so sharp that he could trace the line of it all the way across his shoulder blade and down his back.

And then he saw the tears begin to slide down her bruised face. “How badly are you hurt?” He should have checked her chart on the way in, but he'd wanted to get out of sight as quickly as possible. “Nothing interesting,” she said, sounding faintly disgruntled. “Just a sprained ankle and some bruises. It's my heart.” “Your heart?” he echoed, panicked. “Do you have internal injuries...?” “It's broken,” she said, soft, plaintive, the tears still sliding down her face. He muttered a curse. It was just the drugs talking, but he could feel his own heart twist inside. She lay in the middle of the wide hospital bed, but she was looking very small, and he simply climbed up beside her, pulling her into his arms with exquisite care, not wanting to hurt her any more. She let out a small sound, and for a moment he thought it was a cry of pain, but then she moved closer, putting her face against his shoulder, and he could feel her crying. “I missed you,” she said, her voice muffled. “I know.” He held her gently—she suddenly felt fragile, and he'd almost been too late.

He seemed every bit as riled and menacing as the bull had a few minutes ago. But Phoebe wasn't about to let him make his injury worse out of pure male stubbornness. "Forgive me if I'm being tyrannical," she said in her most soothing tone. "I tend to do that when I'm concerned about someone. It's your decision, naturally. But I wish you would indulge me in this, if only to spare me from worrying over you every step of the way home." The mulish set of his jaw eased. "I manage other people," he informed her. "People don't manage me." "I'm not managing you." "You're trying," he said darkly. An irrepressible grin spread across her face. "Is it working?" Slowly Mr. Ravenel's head lifted. He didn't reply, only gave her a strange, long look that spurred her heartbeat until she was light-headed from the force of its pounding. No man had ever stared at her like this. Not even her husband, for whom she'd always been close and attainable, her presence woven securely into the fabric of his days. Since childhood, she'd always been Henry's safe harbor. But whatever it was this man wanted from her, it wasn't safety. "You should humor my daughter's wishes, Ravenel," Sebastian advised from behind her. "The last time I tried to refuse her something, she launched into a screaming fit that lasted at least an hour." The comment broke the trance. "Father," Phoebe protested with a laugh, twisting to glance at him over her shoulder. "I was two years old!" "It made a lasting impression.

What I saw of military life left me humbled. As long as I’d been alive, I’d never encountered the kind of fortitude and loyalty that I found in those rooms. One day in San Antonio, Texas, I noticed a minor commotion in the hallway of the military hospital I was visiting. Nurses shuffled urgently in and out of the room I was about to enter. “He won’t stay in bed,” I heard someone whisper. Inside, I found a broad-shouldered young man from rural Texas who had multiple injuries and whose body had been severely burned. He was in clear agony, tearing off the bedsheets and trying to slide his feet to the floor. It took us all a minute to understand what he was doing. Despite his pain, he was trying to stand up and salute the wife of his commander in chief.

Many young athletes joined the gangs instead of aspiring to gold medals in the Olympics. You could easily discern the kind of sport they did by their body shape and injuries. Well-built with a broken nose - a boxer. Broad shoulders with torn ears - a wrestler. Enormous muscles with little to no brain - a bodybuilder. Short with broad shoulders and a quadratic head - a weightlifter.

I would be pleased to participate in this conversation to a greater degree," he drawled, "except that you have not seen fit to share with me any of the details of your life." "It was not an oversight on my part." He clucked disapprovingly. "So hostile." Her eyes bugged out. "You abducted me-" Coerced," he reminded her. "Do you want me to hit you?" "I wouldn't mind it," he said mildly. "And besides, now that you're here, was it really so very terrible that I browbeat you into coming? You like my family, don't you?" "Yes,but-" "And they treat you fairly, right?" "Yes,but-" "Then what," he asked, his tone most supercilious, "is the problem?" Sophie almost lost her temper. She almost jumped to her feet and grabbed his shoulders and shook and shook and shook, but at the last moment she realized that that was exactly what he wanted her to do.And so instead she merely sniffed and said, "If you cannot recognize the problem, there is no way that I could explain it to you." He laughed,damn the man. "My goodness," he said, "that was an expert sidestep." She picked up her book and opened it. "I'm reading." "Trying,at least," he murmured. She flipped a page, even though she hadn't read that last two paragraphs. She was really just trying to make a show of ignoring him, and besides, she could always go back and read them later, after he left. "Your book is upside down," he pointed out. Sophie gasped and looked down. "It is not!" He smiled slyly. "But you still had to look to be sure, didn't you?" She stood up and announced, "I'm going inside." He stood immediately. "And leave the splendid spring air?" "And leave you," she retorted, even though his gesture of respect was not lost on her. Gentleman did not ordinarily stand for mere servants. "Pity," he murmured. "I was having such fun." Sophie wondered how much injury he'd sustain if she threw the book at him. Probably not enough to make up for the loss to her dignity.

No fainting in the middle of the road,” said a voice close to my ear as a heavy arm landed across my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. I looked up to see Mal’s familiar face, a smile in his bright blue eyes as he fell into step beside me. “C’mon,” he said. “One foot in front of the other. You know how it’s done.” “You’re interfering with my plan.” “Oh really?” “Yes. Faint, get trampled, grievous injuries all around.” “That sounds like a brilliant plan.” “Ah, but if I’m horribly maimed, I won’t be able to cross the Fold.” Mal nodded slowly. “I see. I can shove you under a cart if that would help.” “I’ll think about it,” I grumbled, but I felt my mood lifting all the same. Despite my best efforts, Mal still had that effect on me. And I wasn’t the only one. A pretty blond girl strolled by and waved, throwing Mal a flirtatious glance over her shoulder. “Hey,

Did they always pass out after shifting back to human? It didn't seem very efficient. Or had he been hurt? Leaning to the side, she inspected the bronzed perfection spread over the quilt. her mouth went dry as she tried to concentrate on searching him for injuries. She'd never seen a man so magnificently...proportioned. A broad, chiseled chest. Powerful shoulders. Washboard abs. Long, muscular legs. And a huge... Yeah. Magnificently proportioned.

Why,” he asked. “Why did you save her?” She dragged a hand through her hair. A white bandage around her upper arm peeked through her shirt with the movement. He hadn’t even been conscious for that wound. He stifled the urge to demand to see it, assess the injury himself—and tug her close against him. “Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin … ,” Aelin said. “She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours.” Rowan stilled. His queen gazed at the floor, as if recalling the moment. “How can I take away somebody who means the world to someone else? Even if she’s my enemy.” A little shrug. “I thought you were dying. It seemed like bad luck to let her die out of spite. And …” she snorted. “Falling into a ravine seemed like a pretty shitty way to die for someone who fights that spectacularly.” Rowan smiled, drinking in the sight of her: the pale, grave face; the dirty clothes; the injuries. Yet her shoulders were back, chin high. “You make me proud to serve you.” A jaunty slant to her lips, but silver lined her eyes. “I know.

A lean heron of a fellow darted ahead of the others, and Lan danced the forms. Time like cool honey. The graylark sang, and the lean man shrieked as Cutting the Clouds removed his right hand at the wrist, and Lan flowed to one side so the rest could not all come at him together, flowed from form to form. Soft Rain at Sunset laid open a fat man’s face, took his left eye, and a ginger-haired young splinter drew a gash across Lan’s ribs with Black Pebbles on Snow. Only in stories did one man face six without injury. The Rose Unfolds sliced down a bald man’s left arm, and ginger-hair nicked the corner of Lan’s eye. Only in stories did one man face six and survive. He had known that from the start. Duty was a mountain, death a feather, and his duty was to Bukama, who had carried an infant on his back. For this moment he lived, though, so he fought, kicking ginger-hair in the head, dancing his way toward death, danced and took wounds, bled and danced the razor’s edge of life. Time like cool honey, flowing from form to form, and there could only be one ending. Thought was distant. Death was a feather. Dandelion in the Wind slashed open the now one-eyed fat man’s throat—he had barely paused when his face was ruined—a fork-bearded fellow with shoulders like a blacksmith gasped in surprise as Kissing the Adder put Lan’s steel through his heart. And suddenly Lan realized that he alone stood, with six men sprawled across the width of the stableyard. The ginger-haired youth thrashed his heels on the ground one last time, and then only Lan of the seven still breathed. He shook blood from his blade, bent to wipe the last drops off on the blacksmith’s too-fine coat, sheathed his sword as formally as if he were in the training yard under Bukama’s eye.

What if conscious experience is managed by each module? Lose a module to injury or stroke, and the consciousness that accompanies that module is gone, too. Remember: patients with hemi-neglect aren’t conscious of one-half of space because the module that processes that information is no longer working. Or, if the modules responsible for locating oneself in space are not being integrated properly, conscious experience is deeply affected, and one ends up with the feeling that someone else is there just over your shoulder. Or, take people with Urbach-Wiethe disease, which leads to deterioration of the amygdalae: they no longer experience the emotion of fear. One

But I am a paladin,” Cordelia cried. “It’s awful, I loathe it— don’t imagine that I feel anything other than hated for this thing that binds me to Lilith. But they fear me because of it. They dare not touch me—” “Oh?” snarled James. “They dare not touch you? That’s not what it bloody looked like.” “The demon at Chiswick House—it was about to tell me something about Belial, before you shot it.” “Listen to yourself, Cordelia!” James shouted. “You are without Cortana! You cannot even lift a weapon! Do you know what it means to me, that you cannot protect yourself? Do you understand that I am terrified, every moment of every day and night, for your safety?” Cordelia stood speechless. She had no idea what to say. She blinked, and felt something hot against her cheek. She put her hand up quickly—surely she was not crying?— and it came away scarlet. “You’re bleeding,” James said. He closed the distance between them in two strides. He caught her chin and lifted it, his thumb stroking across her cheekbone. “Just a scratch,” he breathed. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Daisy, tell me—” “No. I’m fine. I promise you,” she said, her voice wavering as his intent golden eyes spilled over her, searching for signs of injury. “It’s nothing.” “It’s the furthest thing from nothing,” James rasped. “By the Angel, when I realized you’d gone out, at night, weaponless—” “What were you even doing at the house? I thought you were staying at the Institute.” “I came to get something for Jesse,” James said. “I took him shopping, with Anna—he needed clothes, but we forgot cuff links—” “He did need clothes,” Cordelia agreed. “Nothing he had fit.” “Oh, no,” said James. “We are not chatting. When I came in, I saw your dress in the hall, and Effie told me she’d caught a glimpse of you leaving. Not getting in a carriage, just wandering off toward Shepherd Market—” “So you Tracked me?” “I had no choice. And then I saw you—you had gone to where your father died,” he said after a moment. “I thought—I was afraid—” “That I wanted to die too?” Cordelia whispered. It had not occurred to her that he might think that. “James. I may be foolish, but I am not self-destructive.” “And I thought, had I made you as miserable as that? I have made so many mistakes, but none were calculated to hurt you. And then I saw what you were doing, and I thought, yes, she does want to die. She wants to die and this is how she’s chosen to do it.” He was breathing hard, almost gasping, and she realized how much of his fury was despair. “James,” she said. “It was a foolish thing to do, but at no moment did I want to die—” He caught at her shoulders. “You cannot hurt yourself, Daisy. You must not. Hate me, hit me, do anything you want to me. Cut up my suits and set fire to my books. Tear my heart into pieces, scatter them across England. But do not harm yourself—” He pulled her toward him, suddenly, pressing his lips to her hair, her cheek. She caught him by the arms, her fingers digging into his sleeves, holding him to her. “I swear to the Angel,” he said, in a muffled voice, “if you die, I will die, and I will haunt you. I will give you no peace—” He kissed her mouth. Perhaps it had been meant to be a quick kiss, but she could not help herself: she kissed back. And it was like breathing air after being trapped underground for weeks, like coming into sunlight after darkness.

Let’s get some sleep,” he whispered. “Before dawn we’ll see what we can gather up.” His eyes rested on her forehead, on the new bruises and gashes from the Juggernaut blast. “You look awful,” he said. Camille narrowed her eyes to slits. She grabbed the lamp from his hands. “Thank you very much.” “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, following her as she climbed the narrow stairwell. “You look just as whipped,” she said over her shoulder. Camille already felt like a load of dung-her head throbbed, her limbs ached, and the rope marks around her wrists burned. She didn’t need to be told she looked dreadful, too. “The bruises, Camille. Your injuries look awful, not you,” he said. She walked down the hallway in self-conscious silence.

Fiske tried to unbuckle his armor vest, wincing at it with his arm half lifted over the fire. “Here.” I reached for him. He turned, giving me his side, and I took his wrist and set his forearm up onto my shoulder to hold it up. I pulled at the clasps gently, prying the side of the armor vest open and ducking down to lift up his tunic at the side, over his ribs. He pulled in tight breaths as it came into view - a wide spread of dark blood beneath the skin. I lifted my hand to feel the bones with my fingertips and his head tilted back, his eyes pinching closed. I’d spent a month nursing an injury just like this in Aurvanger. “They’re broken.” He laughed, surprising me. “I know.” I straightened, looking up at him. I hadn’t really seen him smile before. The side of his face pulled, revealing a dimple at the corner of his mouth, and I looked away, feeling my cheeks flush. I set his arm back down, unclasping the other side of the vest and helping him work it off with my eyes on the ground.

And new physical problems are arising almost daily. I'm getting problems from a painful trapped nerve in my shoulder, where my rucksack strap has been pinching it, and I can't straighten my arm above shoulder level - soon I will be limping like Richard III. By now my back is covered with eczema, the result of a perpetually sodden shirt and rucksack pressed against it day after day in this heat. In one place my pack has rubbed a painful hole in my skin through the eczema; carrying my rucksack was unpleasant before, but now it is purgatory. This eczema must be partly due to eating bad food for so long - I never had this problem at home. I'm expecting my teeth and hair to start falling out before long, and I've got more or less a permanent acid indigestion from eating so much junk. Week after week I've lived on lukewarm Coca-Cola, stale buns and doughnuts, slurps, green bananas, powdered milk and far too many cigarettes. With all the rubbishy food and sugar soft drinks I've been consuming, I'll see the east coast through a hypoglycaemic haze.

What the hell are you doing here?” Brad glared meanly. “Nice to see you, too, Jack,” he said. “You don’t belong here,” Jack said too loudly. “You left her. You’re done with her.” “Hey,” he said, bristling. “I never stopped caring about Brie. Never will. I’m going to see her.” “I don’t think so,” Jack said. “She’s in no shape to have to deal with you right now.” “You’re not in charge of the guest list, Jack. That’s up to Brie.” “Come on,” Mike said sternly. “Let’s not do this here.” “Ask him if he wants to take it outside,” Jack snapped back. “Yeah, I’ll—” “Whoa,” Mike said yet again, widening the space between the two men. “This isn’t happening here!” Brad moved closer, pushing up against Mike, but lowered his voice cautiously. “I know you’re angry, Jack. In general and at me. I don’t blame you. But if you get tough with me, it’s going to be worse for Brie. And this officer is just going to hook you up.” Jack ground his teeth, pushing up against the other side of Mike. Mike was having some trouble holding them apart. “I really want to hit someone,” Jack said through clenched teeth. “Right now, you’d do as well as anyone. You walked out on your marriage. You left her while she was building a case against that son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what you did to her?” Oh, boy, Mike thought. It was going to happen between these two any second, right in the hospital hallway. Mike was a good six feet and pretty strong, but Brad and Jack were both taller, broader, angrier and not a shoulder injury between them. Mike was going to get hammered when they lost it and started pummeling each other. “Yeah,” Brad said. “Yeah, I do! And I want her to know that I still care about what happens to her. We’re divorced, but we have history. A lot of it good history. If I can do anything now…” “Hey!” Mike said to the cop. “Hey! Come on!” The police officer finally got in it, putting himself between Brad and Jack along with Mike. “All right, gentlemen,” the cop said. “I have my orders. No scuffling outside Ms. Sheridan’s door. If you want to talk this over calmly, I’d like you to move down the hall.” Oh, that was not a good suggestion, Mike thought. If they moved down the hall, they wouldn’t be talking. Mike cautiously backed Jack up a few steps. “Take a breath,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to do this.” Jack glowered at Mike. “You sure about that?” “Back

And after they had made love, she became more than everything for him. Like that other source of domestic strife, Saeeda Bai too made hungry where most she satisfied. Part of it was simply the delicious skill with which she made love. But even more than that it was her nakhra, the art of pretended hurt or disaffection that she had learned from her mother and other courtesans in the early days in Tarbuz ka Bazaar. Saeeda Bai practised this with such curious restraint that it became infinitely more believable. One tear, one remark that implied—perhaps, only perhaps implied— that something he had said or done had caused her injury—and Maan's heart would go out to her. No matter what the cost to himself, he would protect her from the cruel, censorious world. For minutes at a time he would lean over her shoulder and kiss her neck, glancing every few moments at her face in the hope of seeing her mood lift. And when it did, and he saw that same bright, sad smile that had so captivated him when she sang at Holi at Prem Nivas, he would be seized by a frenzy of sexual desire. Saeeda Bsi seemed to know this, and graced him with a smile only when she herself was in the mood to satisfy him.

For I want you to know, Sancho, that injuries inflicted by the tools one happens to be holding are not offenses; this is expressly stated in the law of dueling: if the cobbler hits another with the last he holds in his hand, although it really is made of wood, it cannot be said that the one he struck has been clubbed. I say this so that you will not think, although we have been cudgeled in this dispute, that we have been offended, because the weapons those men were carrying, the ones they used to hit us, were simply their staffs, and none of them, if I remember correctly, had a rapier, a sword, or a poniard.” “They didn’t give me a chance,” Sancho responded, “to look at them so carefully, because as soon I put my hand on my sword they made the sign of the cross on my shoulders with their pinewood, so that they took the sight from my eyes and the strength from my feet, knocking me down where I’m lying now, where it doesn’t hurt at all to think about whether the beating they gave me with their staffs was an offense or not, unlike the pain of the beating, which will make as much of an impression on my memory as it has on my back.” “Even so, I want you to know, brother Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “that there is no memory that time does not erase, no pain not ended by death.

I hurt my hip, too.” “Let me see.” She made a face and yelped when her cheek protested even that slight movement. “You don’t need to see my hip. It’s fine.” “If the skin’s broken, it’ll need cleaning, too,” he said, unbuckling her belt. “Stop that.” “Think of me as your doctor,” he said, as he unsnapped and then unzipped her jeans. “My doctor doesn’t usually undress me,” she snapped. “And my patients already come undressed.” He laughed. “Life your hips,” he said. “Up!” he ordered, when she hesitated. She put her one good hand on his shoulder to brace herself and lifted her hips as he pulled her torn jeans down. To her surprise, her bikini underwear was shredded, and the skin underneath was bloody. “Uh-oh.” She was still staring at the injury on her hip when she felt him pulling off her boots. She started to protest, saw the warning look in his eyes, and shut her mouth. He pulled her jeans off, leaving her legs bare above her white boot socks. “Was that really necessary?” “You’re decent,” he said, straightening the tails of her Western shirt over her shredded bikini underwear. “I can put your boots back on if you like.” Bay shook her head and laughed. “Just get the first-aid kit, and let me take care of myself.” He grimaced. “If I’m not mistaken, you packed the first-aid kit in your saddlebags.” Bay winced. “You’re right.” She stared down the canyon as far as she could see. There was no sign of her horse. “How long do you think it’ll take him to stop running?” “He won’t have gone far. But I need to set up camp before it gets dark. And I’m not hunting for your horse in the dark, for the same reason I’m not hunting for your brother in the dark.” “Where am I supposed to sleep? My bedroll and tent are with my horse.” “You should have thought of that before you started that little striptease of yours.” “You’re the one who shouted and scared me half to death. I was only trying to cool off.” “And heating me up in the process!” “I can’t help it if you have a vivid imagination.” “It didn’t take much to imagine to see your breasts,” he shot back. “You opened your blouse right up and bent over and flapped your shirt like you were waving a red flag at a bull” “I was getting some air!” “You slid your butt around that saddle like you were sitting right on my lap.” “That’s ridiculous!” “Then you lifted your arms to hold your hair up and those perfect little breasts of yours—” “That’s enough,” she interrupted. “You’re crazy if you think—” “You mean you weren’t inviting me to kiss my way around those wispy curls at your nape?” “I most certainly was not!” “Could’ve fooled me.” She searched for the worst insult she could think of to sling at him. “You—you—Bullying Blackthorne!” “Damned contentious Creed!

Through the buzzing in her ears, she heard new sounds from outside, shouting and cursing. All of a sudden the carriage door was wrenched open and someone vaulted inside. Evie squirmed to see who it was. Her remaining breath was expelled in a faint sob as she saw a familiar glitter of dark golden hair. It was Sebastian as she had never seen him before, no longer detached and self-possessed, but in the grip of bone-shaking rage. His eyes were pale and reptilian as his murderous gaze fastened on Eustace, whose breath began to rattle nervously behind the pudgy ladder of his chin. “Give her to me,” Sebastian said, his voice hoarse with fury. “Now, you pile of gutter sludge, or I’ll rip your throat out.” Seeming to realize that Sebastian was eager to carry out the threat, Eustace released his chokehold on Evie. She scrambled toward Sebastian and took in desperate pulls of air. He caught her with a low murmur, his hold gentle but secure. “Easy, love. You’re safe now.” She felt the tremors of rage that ran in continuous thrills through his body. Sebastian sent a lethal glance to Eustace, who was trying to gather his jellylike mass into the far end of the seat. “The next time I see you,” Sebastian said viciously, “no matter what the circumstances, I’m going to kill you. No law, nor weapon, nor God Himself will be able to stop it from happening. So if you value your life, don’t let your path cross mine again.” Leaving Eustace in a quivering heap of speechless fear, Sebastian hauled Evie from the vehicle. She clung to him, still trying to regain her breath as she glanced apprehensively around the scene. It appeared that Cam had been alerted to the fracas, and was keeping her two uncles at bay. Brook was on the ground, while Peregrine was staggering backward from some kind of assault, his beefy countenance turning ruddy from enraged surprise. Swaying as her feet touched the ground, Evie turned her face into her husband’s shoulder. Sebastian was literally steaming, the chilly air striking off his flushed skin and turning his breath into puffs of white. He subjected her to a brief but thorough inspection, his hands running lightly over her, his gaze searching her pale face. His voice was astonishingly tender. “Are you hurt, Evie? Look up at me, love. Yes. Sweetheart… did they do you any injury?” “N-no.” Evie stared at him dazedly. “My uncle Peregrine,” she whispered, “he’s very p-powerful—” “I’ll handle him,” he assured her, and called out to Cam. “Rohan! Come fetch her.” The young man obeyed instantly, approaching Evie with long, fluid strides. He spoke to her with a few foreign-sounding words, his voice soothing her overwrought nerves. She hesitated before going with him, casting a worried glance at Sebastian. “It’s all right,” he said without looking at her, his icy gaze locked on Peregrine’s bullish form. “Go.

St. Lawrence River May 1705 Temperature 48 degrees The dancing began. Along with ancient percussion instruments that crackled and rattled, rasped and banged, the St. Francis Indians had French bells, whose clear chimes rang, and even a bugle, whose notes trumpeted across the river and over the trees. “Mercy Carter!” exclaimed an English voice. “Joanna Kellogg! This is wonderful! I am so glad to see you!” An English boy flung his arms around the girls, embracing them joyfully, whirling them in circles. Half his head was plucked and shiny bald, while long dark hair hung loose and tangled from the other half. His skin was very tan and his eyes twinkling black. He wore no shirt, jacket or cape: he was Indian enough to ignore the cold that had settled in once the sun went down. “Ebenezer Sheldon,” cried Mercy. “I haven’t seen you since the march.” He had been one of the first to receive an Indian name, when the snow thawed and the prisoners had had to wade through slush up to their ankles. Tannhahorens had changed Mercy’s moccasins now and then, hanging the wet pair on his shoulder to dry. But Ebenezer’s feet had frozen and he had lost some of his toes. He hadn’t complained; in fact, he had not mentioned it. When his master discovered the injury, Ebenezer was surrounded by Indians who admired his silence. The name Frozen Leg was an honor. In English, the name sounded crippled. But in an Indian tongue, it sounded strong. The boys in Deerfield who were not named John had been named Ebenezer. That wouldn’t happen in an Indian village. Each person must have a name exactly right for him; something that happened or that was; that reflected or appeared.

In silence Peter and I make our way back to my room. We turn left, and a group of people stands at the other end of the hallway. It is the longest of the corridors we will travel through, but that distance shrinks when I see him. Held at either arm by a Dauntless traitor, a gun aimed at the back of his skull. Tobias, blood trailing down the side of his face and marking his white shirt with red; Tobias, fellow Divergent, standing in the mouth of this furnace in which I will burn. Peter’s hands clamp around my shoulders, holding me in place. “Tobias,” I say, and it sounds like a gasp. The Dauntless traitor with the gun presses Tobias toward me. Peter tries to push me forward too, but my feet remain planted. I came here so that no one else would die. I came here to protect as many people as I could. And I care more about Tobias’s safety than anyone else’s. So why am I here, if he’s here? What’s the point? “What did you do?” I mumble. He is just a few feet away from me now, but not close enough to hear me. As he passes me he stretches out his hand. He wraps it around my palm and squeezes. Squeezes, then lets go. His eyes are bloodshot; he is pale. “What did you do?” This time the question tears from my throat like a growl. I throw myself toward him, struggling against Peter’s grip, though his hands chafe. “What did you do?” I scream. “You die, I die too.” Tobias looks over his shoulder at me. “I asked you not to do this. You made your decision. These are the repercussions.” He disappears around the corner. The last I see of him and the Dauntless traitors leading him is the gleam of the gun barrel and blood on the back of his earlobe from an injury I didn’t see before. All the life goes out of me as soon as he’s gone. I stop struggling and let Peter’s hands push me toward my cell.

This is ridiculous. You’re bleeding. Don’t lie to me, I can smell it. You’re hurt. You need a medmage.” “I’m not hurt that badly.” His lips wrinkled, showing his teeth. “How badly do you have to be hurt?” “There is a right-to-life exemption, which permits us to leave the scene if our injuries are life threatening. We’d have to provide paperwork from a hospital, or a qualified medmage, showing that we had to get treatment or we would’ve died. My injuries are not life threatening.” “Paperwork is not a problem.” “Yes, but I won’t lie.” “How do you know your injuries aren’t life threatening? You’re covered in the fluid from its guts. How do you know it’s not poisonous?” “If it’s poisonous, we’ll deal with it when I feel sick.” “Fine. I’ll stay here with this thing, and you will drive yourself to the hospital.” “No.” He hit me with an alpha stare. I opened my eyes as wide as I could. “Why, of course, Your Majesty. What was I thinking? I will go and do this right away, just please don’t look at me.” “Kate, get in the car.” “Maybe you should growl dramatically. I don’t think I’m intimidated enough.” “I will put you in the car.” “No, you won’t. First, it took both of us to kill that thing, and if it reinvents itself again, it will take both of us again. I’m not leaving you alone with it. Second, if you try to physically carry me to the car, I will resist and bleed more. Third, you can possibly stuff me in the car against my will, but you can’t make me drive.” He snarled. “Argh! Why don’t you ever do anything I ask you to?” “Because you don’t ask. You tell me.” We glared at each other. “I’m not going to the hospital because of a shallow cut.” And possibly a strained shoulder, a few gashes to my legs, and a bruised right side. “It could be worse. I could’ve hit a brick wall instead of a nice, fragile old fence . . .” He held up his hand. “I’m going to get a medkit out of the car.

I opened the door with a smile on my face that soon melted when I saw his messy appearance. The doorframe held him up as he leaned all of his weight against it. Expressionless, bloodshot eyes stared back at me as he lifted his hand and ran it roughly down his unshaved face. His hair was disheveled and there was blood on the front of his shirt. Panic rose up as I took him in. I rushed to him and ran my fingers down his body, as I checked for injuries. “You’re bleeding! Oh my God, Devin! What happened? Are you OK?” “It’s not my blood,” he slurred. I took a better look at his gorgeous face. His unfocused eyes attempted to meet mine and it was then that the smell of liquor reached me. “You’re drunk?” “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He attempted to move toward me and almost fell over. I wrapped my arms around him and helped him into my apartment. Once we made it to the couch I let him collapse onto the cushion before I went straight to work on his clothes. I removed his blood-stained shirt first and threw it to the side. Quickly checked him over again just to be sure that he wasn’t injured somewhere. His skin felt cold and clammy against my fingertips. His knuckles were busted open, so I went to the bathroom and got a wet towel and the first aid kit. I cleaned his fingers then wrapped them up. I felt fingers in my hair and looked up to see a very drunk Devin staring back at me. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered as his heavy head fell against the back of my couch again. Shaking my head, I dropped onto my knees on the floor and removed his boots. Once I was done getting Devin out of his shoes, I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a blanket for him. When I got back to the couch, he was standing there looking back at me in all his tattooed, muscled glory. He was still leaning a bit to the side when his eyes locked on mine. “Come here,” he rasped. He looked as if he was about to crumble and I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or if something was really breaking him down. “Are you OK, baby?” I asked. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I love it when you call me baby.” I went to him and he groaned as I softly ran my hands up his chest and put my arms around his neck. On my tiptoes, I softly kissed the line of his neck and his chin. “Tell me what happened, Devin.” When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at me differently. The calm and collected Devin was gone and an anxiety-ridden shell of a man stood before me. His shoulders felt tense beneath my fingers and his eyes held a crazed demeanor. “I need you, Lilly.” He captured my face softly in his hands as he slurred the words. “Please tell me what happened?” “Make it go away, baby,” he whispered as he leaned in and started to kiss me. I let him as I melted against his body. He collapsed against the couch once more, but this time he took me with him. Not once did he break our kiss, and soon, I felt his velvet tongue against mine. I kissed him back and let my fingers play in the hair at the back of his neck. He broke the kiss and started down the side of my neck. “I need you, Lilly,” he repeated against my skin. “I’m here.” I bit at my bottom lip to stop myself from moaning. “Please, just make it all go away,” he drunkenly begged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but tell me what to do to make it better. I want to make it better, Devin.” I stopped him and stared into his eyes as I waited for his response. “Don’t leave me,” he said desperately. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it better.” I wanted to cry. He looked so hurt and afraid. It was strange to see such a strong, confident man so lost and unsure. He flipped me onto my back on the couch and crawled on top of me. His movements were less calculated—slower than usual. “I want you. I need to be inside you,” he said aggressively.

Hundreds of men crowded the yard, and not a one among them was whole. They covered the ground thick as maggots on a week old carcass, the dirt itself hardly anywhere visible. No one could move without all feeling it and thus rising together in a hellish contortion of agony. Everywhere men moaned, shouting for water and praying for God to end their suffering. They screamed and groaned in an unending litany, calling for mothers and wives and fathers and sisters. The predominant color was blue, though nauseations of red intruded throughout. Men lay half naked, piled on top of one another in scenes to pitiful to imagine. Bloodied heads rested on shoulders and laps, broken feet upon arms. Tired hands held in torn guts and torsos twisted every which way. Dirty shirts dressed the bleeding bodies and not enough material existed in all the world to sop up the spilled blood. A boy clad in gray, perhaps the only rebel among them, lay quietly in one corner, raised arm rigid with a finger extended, as if pointing to the heavens. His face was a singular portrait of contentment among the misery. Broken bones, dirty white and soiled with the passing of hours since injury, were everywhere abundant. All manner of devices splinted the damaged and battered limbs: muskets, branches, bayonets, lengths of wood or iron from barns and carts. One individual had bone splinted with bone: the dried femur of a horse was lashed to his busted shin. A blind man, his eyes subtracted by the minié ball that had enfiladed him, moaned over and over “I’m kilt, I’m kilt! Oh Gawd, I’m kilt!” Others lay limp, in shock. These last were mostly quiet, their color unnaturally pale. It was agonizingly humid in the still air of the yard. The stink of blood mixed with human waste produced a potent and offensive odor not unlike that of a hog farm in the high heat of a South Carolina summer. Swarms of fat, green blowflies everywhere harassed the soldiers to the point of insanity, biting at their wounds. Their steady buzz was a noise straight out of hell itself, a distress to the ears.

How bad,' he asked, his voice hoarse. 'How bad was your injury,' Rhys said mildly, 'or how badly did we have our asses kicked?' Cassian blinked again. Slowly. As if whatever sedative he'd been given still held sway. 'To answer the second question,' Rhys went on, Mor and Azriel backing away a step or two as something sharpened in my mate's voice, 'we managed. Keir took heavy hits, but... we won. Barely. To answer the first...' Rhys bared his teeth. 'Don't you ever pull that kind of shit again.' The glaze wore off Cassian's eyes as he heard the challenge, the anger, and tried to sit up. He hissed, scowling down at the red, angry slice down his chest. 'Your guts were hanging out, you stupid prick,' Rhys snapped. 'Az held them in for you.' Indeed, the Shadowsinger's hands were caked in blood- Cassian's blood. And his face... cold with- anger. 'I'm a soldier,' Cassian said flatly. 'It's part of the job.' 'I gave you an order to wait,' Rhys growled. 'You ignored it.' I glanced to Mor, to Azriel- a silent question of whether we should remain. They were too busy watching Rhys and Cassian to notice. 'The line was breaking,' Cassian retorted. 'Your order was bullshit.' Rhys braced his hands on either side of Cassian's legs and snarled in his face, 'I am your High Lord. You don't get to disregard orders you don't like.' Cassian sat up this time, swearing at the pain lingering in his body. 'Don't you pull rank because you're pissed off-' 'You and your damned theatrics on the battlefield nearly got you killed.' And even as Rhys spat the words- that was panic, again, in his eyes. His voice. 'I'm not pissed. I'm furious.' 'So you're allowed to be mad about our choices to protect you- and we're not allowed to be furious with you for your self-sacrificing bullshit?' Rhys just stared at him. Cassian stared right back. 'You could have died,' was all Rhys said, his voice raw. 'So could you.' Another beat of silence- and in its wake, the anger shifted. Rhys said quietly, 'Even after Hybern... I can't stomach it.' Seeing him hurt. Any of us hurt. And the way Rhys spoke, the way Cassian leaned forward, wincing again, and gripped Rhys's shoulder.... I strode out of the tent. Left them to talk. Azriel and Mor followed behind me.

What did you do?” I mumble. He is just a few feet away from me now, but not close enough to hear me. As he passes me he stretches out his hand. He wraps it around my palm and squeezes. Squeezes, then lets go. His eyes are bloodshot; he is pale. “What did you do?” This time the question tears from my throat like a growl. I throw myself toward him, struggling against Peter’s grip, though his hands chafe. “What did you do?” I scream. “You die, I die too.” Tobias looks over his shoulder at me. “I asked you not to do this. You made your decision. These are the repercussions.” He disappears around the corner. The last I see of him and the Dauntless traitors leading him is the gleam of the gun barrel and blood on the back of his earlobe from an injury I didn’t see before. All the life goes out of me as soon as he’s gone. I stop struggling and let Peter’s hands push me toward my cell. I slump to the ground as soon as I walk in, waiting for the door to slide shut to signify Peter’s departure, but it doesn’t. “Why did he come here?” Peter says. I glance at him. “Because he’s an idiot.” “Well, yeah.” I rest my head against the wall. “Did he think he could rescue you?” Peter snorts a little. “Sounds like a Stiff-born thing to do.” “I don’t think so,” I say. If Tobias intended to rescue me, he would have brought others. He would not have burst into Erudite headquarters alone. Tears well up in my eyes, and I don’t try to blink them away. Instead I stare through them and watch my surroundings smear together. A few days ago I would never have cried in front of Peter, but I don’t care anymore. He is the least of all my enemies. “I think he came to die with me,” I say. I clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob. If I can keep breathing, I can stop crying. I didn’t need or want him to die with me. I wanted to keep him safe. What an idiot, I think, but my heart isn’t in it. “That’s ridiculous,” he says. “That doesn’t make any sense. He’s eighteen; he’ll find another girlfriend once you’re dead. And he’s stupid if he doesn’t know that.” Tears run down my cheeks, hot at first and then cold. I close my eyes. “If you think that’s what it’s about…” I swallow another sob “…you’re the stupid one.” “Yeah. Whatever.” His shoes squeak as he turns away. About to leave. “Wait!” I look up at his blurry silhouette, unable to make out his face. “What will they do to him? The same thing they’re doing to me?” “I don’t know.” “Can you find out?” I wipe my cheeks with the heels of my hands, frustrated. “Can you at least find out if he’s all right?” He says, “Why would I do that? Why would I do anything for you?” A moment later I hear the door slide shut.

Miraculously, thirty minutes later I found Marlboro Man’s brother’s house. As I pulled up, I saw Marlboro Man’s familiar white pickup parked next to a very large, imposing semi. He and his brother were sitting inside the cab. Looking up and smiling, Marlboro Man motioned for me to join them. I waved, getting out of my car and obnoxiously taking my purse with me. To add insult to injury, I pressed the button on my keyless entry to lock my doors and turn on my car alarm, not realizing how out of place the dreadful chirp! chirp! must have sounded amidst all the bucolic silence. As I made my way toward the monster truck to meet my new love’s only brother, I reflected that not only had I never in my life been inside the cab of a semi, but also I wasn’t sure I’d ever been within a hundred feet of one. My armpits were suddenly clammy and moist, my body trembling nervously at the prospect of not only meeting Tim but also climbing into a vehicle nine times the size of my Toyota Camry, which, at the time, was the largest car I’d ever owned. I was nervous. What would I do in there? Marlboro Man opened the passenger door, and I grabbed the large handlebar on the side of the cab, hoisting myself up onto the spiked metal steps of the semi. “Come on in,” he said as he ushered me into the cab. Tim was in the driver’s seat. “Ree, this is my brother, Tim.” Tim was handsome. Rugged. Slightly dusty, as if he’d just finished working. I could see a slight resemblance to Marlboro Man, a familiar twinkle in his eye. Tim extended his hand, leaving the other on the steering wheel of what I would learn was a brand-spanking-new cattle truck, just hours old. “So, how do you like this vehicle?” Tim asked, smiling widely. He looked like a kid in a candy shop. “It’s nice,” I replied, looking around the cab. There were lots of gauges. Lots of controls. I wanted to crawl into the back and see what the sleeping quarters were like, and whether there was a TV. Or a Jacuzzi. “Want to take it for a spin?” Tim asked. I wanted to appear capable, strong, prepared for anything. “Sure!” I responded, shrugging my shoulders. I got ready to take the wheel. Marlboro Man chuckled, and Tim remained in his seat, saying, “Oh, maybe you’d better not. You might break a fingernail.” I looked down at my fresh manicure. It was nice of him to notice. “Plus,” he continued, “I don’t think you’d be able to shift gears.” Was he making fun of me? My armpits were drenched. Thank God I’d work black that night. After ten more minutes of slightly uncomfortable small talk, Marlboro Man saved my by announcing, “Well, I think we’ll head out, Slim.” “Okay, Slim,” Tim replied. “Nice meeting you, Ree.” He flashed his nice, familiar smile. He was definitely cute. He was definitely Marlboro Man’s brother. But he was nothing like the real thing.

Elizabeth’s breakfast had cured Ian’s hunger, in fact, the idea of ever eating again made his stomach churn as he started for the barn to check on Mayhem’s injury. He was partway there when he saw her off to the left, sitting on the hillside amid the bluebells, her arms wrapped around her knees, her forehead resting atop them. Even with her hair shining like newly minted gold in the sun, she looked like a picture of heartbreaking dejection. He started to turn away and leave her to moody privacy; then, with a sigh of irritation, he changed his mind and started down the hill toward her. A few yards away he realized her shoulders were shaking with sobs, and he frowned in surprise. Obviously there was no point in pretending the meal had been good, so he injected a note of amusement into his voice and said, “I applaud your ingenuity-shooting me yesterday would have been too quick.” Elizabeth started violently at the sound of his voice. Snapping her head up, she stared off to the left, keeping her tear-streaked face averted from him. “Did you want something?” “Dessert?” Ian suggested wryly, leaning slightly forward, trying to see her face. He thought he saw a morose smile touch her lips, and he added, “I thought we could whip up a batch of cream and put it on the biscuit. Afterward we can take whatever is left, mix it with the leftover eggs, and use it to patch the roof.” A teary chuckle escaped her, and she drew a shaky breath but still refused to look at him as she said, “I’m surprised you’re being so pleasant about it.” “There’s no sense crying over burnt bacon.” “I wasn’t crying over that,” she said, feeling sheepish and bewildered. A snowy handkerchief appeared before her face, and Elizabeth accepted it, dabbing at her wet cheeks. “Then why were you crying?” She gazed straight ahead, her eyes focused on the surrounding hills splashed with bluebells and hawthorn, the handkerchief clenched in her hand. “I was crying for my own ineptitude, and for my inability to control my life,” she admitted. The word “ineptitude” startled Ian, and it occurred to him that for the shallow little flirt he supposed her to be she had an exceptionally fine vocabulary. She glanced up at him then, and Ian found himself gazing into a pair of green eyes the amazing color of wet leaves. With tears still sparkling on her long russet lashes, her long hair tied back in a girlish bow, her full breasts thrusting against the bodice of her gown, she was a picture of alluring innocence and intoxicating sensuality. Ian jerked his gaze from her breasts and said abruptly, “I’m going to cut some wood so we’ll have it for a fire tonight. Afterward I’m going to do some fishing for our supper. I trust you’ll find a way to amuse yourself in the meantime.” Startled by his sudden brusqueness, Elizabeth nodded and stood up, dimly aware that he did not offer his hand to assist her.

Poor Frank!” said he. “I could yet be easy about everything if it were not for the injury I have done him. Poor Frank!” The doctor advanced a few paces from off the rug, and taking his hand out of his pocket, he laid it gently on the squire’s shoulder. “Frank will do very well yet,” said the he. “It is not absolutely necessary that a man should have fourteen thousand pounds a year to be happy.” “My father left me the property entire, and I should leave it entire to my son; — but you don’t understand this.

In October of 1991, on the day I met Steve, it was only by chance that I stopped at his wildlife park at all. I had been sleeping in the backseat of a car on the way back from a barbecue at a friend of a friend’s house. Up front, Lori’s friend knew I was interested in zoos. When he saw a sign for this one, he debated with himself whether he should wake me. Even when he did, I wasn’t sure if this reptile park was going to be much more than a few snakes in little glass tanks. So it was only by chance that I was on that highway at all, and only chance that I stopped. And it was only by chance that Steve conducted the croc show that day. Some days, Wes did the show. Chance. Fate. Destiny. These were words I lived by. I believed my life had been shaped for a special purpose. But with Steve’s death my faith was tested. Was it pure chance that Steve, a man who cheated mortality almost every single day of his adult life, died in such a bizarre accident? During the decade and a half that I knew him, I don’t think a week went by when he didn’t get a bite, blow, or injury of some kind. His knee and shoulder plagued him from years of jumping crocs. As Steve erected a fence at our Brigalow Belt conservation property, a big fence-post driver he was using slipped and landed directly on his head, compressing the fifth disk in his neck. Even injured, he still managed to push on--at the zoo, filming, and doing heavy construction. He went at work like a bull at a gate. He climbed trees with orangutans. He traversed the most remote deserts and the most impossible mountains. He packed his life chock-a-block full with risks of all kinds. “I get called an adrenaline junkie every other minute,” Steve said. “I’m just fine with that.” One crowded hour of glorious life is worth more than an age without a name. I had no regrets for Steve’s glorious life, and I know he couldn’t have lived any other way.

What’s wrong, Mom?” Anna asked. Mom looked like she’d been crying, but she said, “Nothing, sweetie.” “Who is Dad talking to?” I asked. I knew she’d protect us from whatever was happening, so I went straight for facts. If I gathered enough facts I could figure it out on my own. “Some friends of his from work.” “Uncle Jack?” I asked. Jack wasn’t an uncle but we called him that. He was my dad’s foreman in the roofing business. “No, honey. From the Army. His old work.” It was September 11, 2001, and the call he’d made was to his commanding officer in the Reserve. I’d figure that out later. And I’d learn that he’d done ROTC through college, then served with the Fifth Special Forces Group in Desert Storm. I’d learn that his shoulder injury had come from shrapnel embedded in his rotator cuff. I’d learn, just from watching him, from listening to him talk to his buddies, about Ranger School. Jump school. The Ranger Battalions. The Scroll. The Creed. That Rangers lead the way. But I didn’t know any of that then. I knew my dad as a roofer. A fisherman. A lover of Pearl Jam and Giants baseball. He was the guy who launched me over the waves on the beach, and who bench-pressed Anna because it made her giggle in a way that nothing else did. He was my mom’s best friend, with some additional elements like kissing that seemed pretty gross because, you know, I was six. But I learned something new about him that morning. I learned that when bad things happened, my dad stepped forward first. I learned he was a hero. A real one. And that I wanted to be like him

Luca appeared from around the front of the villa. Smiling slightly, he crossed the garden in a few long strides and sat next to her on the bench. He seemed completely healed, both from the wound on his shoulder and th scrapes he’d gotten at Palazzo Dubois. The last remaining evidence of the fight, a bruise on his jawbone, had turned from purple to brownish yellow. Cass reached up to touch it. She still couldn’t believe they’d infiltrated Joseph Dubois’s home, stolen the Book of the Eternal Rose, and escaped with only a few minor injuries to show for it. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” she said. A gust of wind sent a bouquet of fallen leaves spinning through the air. Luca wrapped his hand around hers, and their fingers naturally twined together. “I promised I would, Cass.” Her lips curled upward. Luca had only just started calling her Cass, but she liked it. it made her think that he had finally relaxed around her, that the person he was being was his true self.

When this happens in our bodies, this force dissipation (as it’s called) leaks out via the path of least resistance—typically via joints like knees, elbows, and shoulders, and/or the spine, any or all of which will give out at some point. Joint injuries are almost always the result of this kind of energy leak.

The hanging technique 1.     Approach and strike to the opponent’s kidney and wrap your other forearm around his neck. 2.     Pivot your hips back and bend your knees, joining your hands and locking them together. 3.     Roll your opponent on to his back, to the opposite hip, lifting his feet off the ground. In this position it is very hard for your opponent to escape. 4.     Look at his heels and wait for them to drop. When they drop, he has probably fainted. Note: This is a favorite skilled technique. While there are easier, more effective, and less risky techniques, I wanted to use this technique to stress the importance of a quick reaction. Many times, this hold can end on the ground, or be accompanied by a knife threat. However, anything less conclusive would make it easier to escape. Keep in mind that if your opponent is grabbing you with one hand while holding a weapon with the other, he cannot strangle you, and you should concentrate your efforts on preventing injury before thinking of escaping the hold. Release from neck hold from the rear 1.     First move both hands towards the opponent’s eyes in an attempt to poke them. 2.     Land your hands on the opponent’s wrists, pulling them down as you gain your breath. If the grip is too forceful to pull down, use your hands to attach the attacker's hands to your chest and lean your head backward to release the pressure on your neck. 3.     Pivot your body and your chin to the direction of the opponent’s hands, easing your head out. 4. Push with both shoulders, making room for your head to exit. 5.     Let go of your right hand and use it to grab the attacker’s elbow before standing up. That would surely keep him down. Hold the opponent at the wrist and elbow and kick to his face. 6.     You can kick his coccyx bone or the groin according to his position.

Swaying as her feet touched the ground, Evie turned her face into her husband's shoulder. Sebastian was literally steaming, the chilly air striking off his flushed skin and turning his breath into puffs of white. He subjected her to a brief but thorough inspection, his hands running lightly over her, his gaze searching her pale face. His voice was astonishingly tender. "Are you hurt, Evie? Look up at me, love. Yes. Sweetheart... did they do you any injury?" "N-no." Evie stared at him dazedly.

Come home with me, Blue.”  Apparently, half a second is too long to hesitate because Ryan continues. “And let me make this perfectly clear, even if you say no, I will throw you over my shoulder and take you with me. But I’m working with a knee injury here and would rather you come on your own free will.

Box squat. The box squat helps you become familiar with proper squat mechanics while simultaneously providing a degree of safety and structural support in the bottom position. This version of the box squat is used to teach proper hip action in the squat, teaching you how to sit back and load your hips while keeping tension in the hips. To perform this exercise, stand in front of a sturdy box or chair with feet shoulder-width apart or slightly wider (see figure 7.8a). Lower to touch your buttocks and upper hamstrings to the top of the box without actually sitting on the box, keeping your weight on your heels and keeping full control of your body (see figure 7.8b). Inhale as you descend and exhale as you stand up. When done correctly, you will properly engage your hips and make your squat less of a knee-dominant movement. KEY PRINCIPLES Do not collapse on the box; it is only a focal point to reach for. Use the paradoxical breathing technique (inhale as you descend and exhale as you stand). As you become comfortable with the movement and feel your spinal stability improve, you can switch to anatomical breathing (exhale as you descend and inhale as you stand up). Maintaining a neutral spine (slightly arched lower back) along with creased hips is the key to both performance and injury prevention.

Why, no. You don’t look heavy. If ye won’t walk, I shall pick you up and sling ye over my shoulder. Do ye want me to do that?’ He took a step towards me, and I hastily retreated. I hadn’t the slightest doubt he would do it, injury or no.

Does it hurt?” “Yes.” “Where?” The only injury I can see is his shoulder, but what if there’s a cut somewhere else? Or worse, a gunshot? He leans in and kisses me, soft and tender. My thoughts short-circuit as I’m taken in by him. He pulls back, and I’m still stunned. “Feels better now,” he says with a slow smirk. I want to hit his chest and talk some sense into him.

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The following injuries need senior review or referral : * Wounds with involvement of deep structures , e.g. tendons . * Wounds in cosmetically sensitive areas , e.g. face . * Wounds in functionally sensitive areas , e.g. hands , genitals . * Wounds with loss of skin tissue . * displaced fractures . * Unstable fractures . * Open fractures . * Fractures with skin tenting or associated dislocation . * Dislocation of major joints , i.e. hip , knee , ankle , shoulder , elbow . * Injuries with neurovascular compromise .

Do you live here?” Sophie asked dryly. “No,” he said, plopping down into the chair next to her, “although my mother is constantly telling me to make myself right at home.” She could think of no witty rejoinder, so she merely “hmmphed” and stuck her nose back in her book. He plunked his feet on the small table in front. “And what are we reading today?” “That question,” she said, snapping the book shut but leaving her finger in to mark her place, “implies that I am actually reading, which I assure you I am unable to do while you are sitting here.” “My presence is that compelling, eh?” “It’s that disturbing.” “Better than dull,” he pointed out. “I like my life dull.” “If you like your life dull, then that can only mean that you do not understand the nature of excitement.” The condescension in his tone was appalling. Sophie gripped her book so hard her knuckles turned white. “I have had enough excitement in my life,” she said through gritted teeth. “I assure you.” “I would be pleased to participate in this conversation to a greater degree,” he drawled, “except that you have not seen fit to share with me any of the details of your life.” “It was not an oversight on my part.” He clucked disapprovingly. “So hostile.” Her eyes bugged out. “You abducted me—” “Coerced,” he reminded her. “Do you want me to hit you?” “I wouldn’t mind it,” he said mildly. “And besides, now that you’re here, was it really so very terrible that I browbeat you into coming? You like my family, don’t you?” “Yes, but—” “And they treat you fairly, right?” “Yes, but—” “Then what,” he asked, his tone most supercilious, “is the problem?” Sophie almost lost her temper. She almost jumped to her feet and grabbed his shoulders and shook and shook and shook, but at the last moment she realized that that was exactly what he wanted her to do. And so instead she merely sniffed and said, “If you cannot recognize the problem, there is no way that I could explain it to you.” He laughed, damn the man. “My goodness,” he said, “that was an expert sidestep.” She picked up her book and opened it. “I’m reading.” “Trying, at least,” he murmured. She flipped a page, even though she hadn’t read the last two paragraphs. She was really just trying to make a show of ignoring him, and besides, she could always go back and read them later, after he left. “Your book is upside down,” he pointed out. Sophie gasped and looked down. “It is not!” He smiled slyly. “But you still had to look to be sure, didn’t you?” She stood up and announced, “I’m going inside.” He stood immediately. “And leave the splendid spring air?” “And leave you,” she retorted, even though his gesture of respect was not lost on her. Gentlemen did not ordinarily stand for mere servants. “Pity,” he murmured. “I was having such fun.” Sophie wondered how much injury he’d sustain if she threw the book at him. Probably not enough to make up for the loss to her dignity. -Sophie & Benedict

Miss Dunlap, you see, put on quite a dramatic display after she went back to the ballroom, far more dramatic than anything that dreary production she was trying to direct could have achieved. You won’t like hearing this, but the woman actually took to the stage and told everyone the rehearsal, as well as the final production, had been canceled. Then she told everyone in the ballroom about you and Miss Plum—and that Miss Plum had been the very unattractive Miss Fremont—and that Miss Plum had obviously gone to great lengths to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, embarrassing the good folk of Tarrytown in the process by mocking their theatrical efforts.” “Oh . . . no,” Bram said. “Indeed,” Tilda agreed. “And unfortunately, it gets worse.” “Maybe you shouldn’t tell me everything all in one sitting, Tilda,” Bram said a little weakly. “Don’t be a coward, Mr. Haverstein. It’s always best to hear all the bad instead of parceling it out bit by painful bit.” Retaking his seat, he buried his face in his hands. “Very well, carry on.” “Well, you see, Miss Dunlap was clearly distraught, as well as disappointed, that you’d been discovered kissing Miss Plum. Because of that, she said some very disparaging things about Miss Plum, and before long Mr. Skukman joined her on stage.” “Oh . . . no.” “Exactly. Well, Miss Dunlap didn’t take kindly to him arguing with her, and she . . . attacked him.” Bram lifted his head. “She . . . attacked him?” Tilda nodded. “She did, but to give Mr. Skukman credit, he didn’t bat an eye as she went about the unpleasant business of pummeling him. It wasn’t harming him at all, of course, but when she started throwing things—and not just at him but at members of your staff as well—Mr. Skukman saved quite a few people from suffering injuries by picking up Miss Dunlap, tossing her over his shoulder, and carting her offstage.” “Should I ask what happened next?” “He was run out of Tarrytown by a horde of angry townswomen, and . . . to add further chaos to the evening, someone let Geoffrey out of the barn again and he chased Miss Dunlap and Miss Cooper all the way down the drive, until they were rescued by Ernie. Although . . . he was apparently in the process of creating some new gravestones for the back graveyard in case you needed some disturbing inspiration some night, and . . . there is now a rumor swirling about town that we’re up to some concerning shenanigans here at Ravenwood.” “The

hundreds of caves where I could hide. Competing in the Bestial Passage had given me the worst injuries of my life, but none of that compared to the blows to my pride and honour. I’d stupidly fallen for Skelkra, the boy who’d betrayed me, and his child grew in my womb. My horse shook his head, jerked sideways, and whinnied. When he slowed to a trot, I looked anxiously over my shoulder at the grey outline of Vilseek city, searching for Father’s fighters. Fortunately, no one had seen me steal the horse. When I saw that no one followed, I turned

Eat what you can. It’s been hours since you’ve eaten and I’ve eaten three times. When we get back, I’m going to get some of Preacher’s weights out of the storage shed for you. You should probably bulk up those arms, shoulders, chest. Give you back your advantage.” “For?” Jack was stupefied. He shook his head. “For getting through life?” he said by way of a question. “For?” Rick said again. And Jack thought, you can’t slug him. You have to keep your mouth shut and be patient, that’s what Mike said, what Mel said. So Jack talked to himself. Okay, I’m not the best person to deal with this. I never had it this bad, and sure not when I was this young. Mike, he’s been through a terrifying, life-threatening injury. Mike might be able to step in.

What Does Poor Posture Look Like? • Stiff & rigid • Slumping • Slouching • Hunched over • Rounded shoulders • Overly arched back • Stumbling • Head forward In sensitivity, we must be aware that many people suffer from poor posture because of physical disability, injury, health issues, heredity, obesity, or musculoskeletal construction. These descriptions are not meant to offend or judge people who are unable to change their posture.

Rhi stood in the doorway and watched Henry. He was a fighter. Maybe that’s why she saved him. There was also a slim chance it was because he helped the Kings. “It’s a good thing you called me,” Usaeil, Queen of the Light, said as she came to stand beside Rhi. Rhi could’ve brought Henry to Usaeil’s manor on the west coast of Ireland, but then it would reveal to one and all power she’s managed to keep hidden from them. That was something she wanted to keep to herself. So she got Henry out of the prison and to the outskirts of Dublin. From there, it was simply a matter of asking Usaeil for help. Now all Rhi had to worry about was finding out how much Henry remembered. If he recalled seeing her teleport him out, then she would need to convince him to lie for her. Although Usaeil would want to know how Henry got out of his prison and how Rhi found him. Usaeil hadn’t begun those questions yet. But they were coming. “I’m glad you agreed to help,” Rhi said. Usaeil shoved her black hair over her shoulders and adjusted the coral sheath dress she wore. “He’s aiding the Kings. Why wouldn’t I help him?” Rhi wanted to roll her eyes, but she didn’t. “We might be Light, but we also use humans as the Dark do.” “We don’t kill them.” “No, we sleep with them once and ruin them for any other mortal. We don’t hurt them at all,” she said sarcastically, giving Usaeil a cutting look. Usaeil slid her silver eyes to Rhi. “I can easily toss Henry North out on his ass.” “Do it. What do I care?” “I think you care more than you’re ready to admit. Why else would you want to help him?” Usaeil sighed. “Rhi, we all know you went through hell at Balladyn’s hands. We know it’s going to take time for you to heal, but you will heal.” Rhi wasn’t so sure. She could feel the darkness within her, coiling and shifting. She had to fight to remember what she should do, instead of what the darkness wanted her to do. “Henry is healing nicely,” Rhi said, changing the subject. Usaeil nodded slowly. “His injuries were extensive. Had you not found him when you did, the internal bleeding would’ve killed him in a few hours. By the way, how did you find him again?” This was what Rhi had been waiting for. Everyone knew she couldn’t lie without feeling tremendous pain. She sank her nails into her palms, held Usaeil’s gaze and lied. “I found him in Dublin. As I said, I don’t know how he got there.” “So very odd.” The pain was gut wrenching. It twisted her insides and squeezed her lungs so that she couldn’t breath. Pain exploded inside her head. She began to shake. It was time for Rhi to change the subject again. “You should tell Con we have him.” The queen twisted her lips. “If I do, Con will want to come here and finish healing Henry himself, or want us to bring Henry to him. I’m not in the mood for either.” “Henry will be finished healing soon. What then? You want him to remain? In a place full of Light Fae?” Thankfully, the pain began to dull enough that Rhi could breath easier. “No,” Usaeil said with a frown. “Already his appearance has sparked interest. They’re trying to get in to see him. He’s a mortal, so he’ll succumb to any Fae he encounters.” Rhi took exception to that. “He’s stronger than that.” “He’s human, Rhi. Not a single one can resist us. It’s a fact. Henry is no different.” Rhi didn’t argue, but she knew she was right. Henry was different. She’d seen it the first time she met him in Con’s office months ago. He took in the fact his friends at Dreagan were actually dragon shifters with a nod, his solemn hazel eyes seeing things anew. She bit back a grin as she recalled how he’d become a little flustered when he saw her and learned who she was. Henry’s smile was charming, sweet . . . honest. He looked at her as if she were the only woman on the realm. Even though Rhi understood that it was the fact she was Fae that intrigued him, enthralled him, she took an instant liking to the human who never backed down.

Even at a distance, he recognized Emma sprawled headlong in the street, and he broke into a run. The road was empty, so was the boardwalk. He knelt beside her and helped her sit up. “Emma . . . honey, are you okay?” Tears streaked her dusty cheeks. “I-I lost my Aunt Kenny, and”—she hiccupped a sob—“m-my mommy’s gone.” Her face crumpled. “Oh, little one . . . come here.” He gathered her to him, and she came without hesitation. He stood and wiped her tears, and checked for injuries. No broken bones. Nothing but a skinned knee that a little soapy water—and maybe a sugar stick—would fix right up. “Shh . . . it’s okay.” He smoothed the hair on the back of her head, and her little arms came around his neck. A lump rose in his throat. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Her sobs came harder. “Clara fell down too, Mr. Wyatt.” She drew back and held up the doll. “She’s all dirty. And she stinks.” Wyatt tried his best not to smile. Clara was indeed filthy. And wet. Apparently she’d gone for a swim in the same mud puddle Emma had fallen in. Only it wasn’t just mud, judging from the smell. “Here . . .” He gently chucked her beneath the chin. “Let’s see if we can find your Aunt Kenny. You want to?” The little girl nodded with a hint of uncertainty. “But I got my dress all dirty. She’s gonna be mad.” Knowing there might be some truth to that, he also knew Miss Ashford would be worried sick. “Do you remember where you were with Aunt Kenny before you got lost?” Emma shook her head. “I was talkin’ to my friend, and I looked up . . .” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “And Aunt Kenny was gone.” Wyatt knew better than to think it was McKenna Ashford who had wandered away. “We’ll find her, don’t you worry.” “Clara’s dress is dirty like mine, huh?” She held the doll right in front of his face. Wyatt paused, unable to see it clearly. Easily supporting Emma’s weight, he took Clara and did his best to wipe the dirt and mud from the doll’s dress and its once-yellow strands of hair. His efforts only made a bigger mess, but Emma’s smile said she was grateful. “She likes you.” Emma put a hand to his cheek, then frowned. “Your face is itchy.” Knowing what she meant, he laughed and rubbed his stubbled jaw. He’d bathed and shaved last night in preparation for church this morning, half hoping he might see McKenna and Emma there. But they hadn’t attended. “My face is itchy, huh?” She squeezed his cheek in response, and he made a chomping noise, pretending he was trying to bite her. She pulled her hand back, giggling. Instinctively, he hugged her close and she laid her head on his shoulder. Something deep inside gave way. This is what it would have been like if his precious little Bethany had lived. He rubbed Emma’s back, taking on fresh pain as he glimpsed a fragment of what he’d been denied by the deaths of his wife and infant daughter so many years ago. “Here, you can carry her.” Emma tried to stuff Clara into his outer vest pocket, but the doll wouldn’t fit. Wyatt tucked her inside his vest instead and positioned its scraggly yarn head to poke out over the edge, hoping it would draw a smile. Which it did.

You can be tough on civilians, on people who “don’t understand” what you’ve been through. But the battlefield isn’t the only place where people suffer. Hardship hits in a million places. And lots of people, including your neighbors, have suffered more than any soldier, and they’ve done so with none of your training, with no unit around them, with no hospital to care for them, and sometimes with no community to support them. And when those people reflect on their suffering, they often uncover a similar truth: that struggle helped them to build deep reservoirs of strength. Not all growth happens this way. But a great deal of our growth does come when we put our shoulder into what’s painful. We choose to, or have to, step beyond the margins of our past experience and do something hard and new.   Of course fear does not automatically lead to courage. Injury does not necessarily lead to insight. Hardship will not automatically make us better. Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference.

Midline stabilization is always the first thing to go when you set off on a run. For that reason, you must be careful to remember each step in the posture checklist. Make sure your midline is stable, maintain a neutral head posture, and keep your arms bent at 90 degrees with your shoulders externally rotated. Even if your mechanics are not up to par, simply maintaining the integrity of your posture will help reduce the onset of fatigue and keep injuries at bay.

One mild and ordinary work-morning in Chicago, Lew happened to find himself on a public conveyance, head and eyes inclined nowhere in particular, when he entered, all too briefly, a condition he had no memory of having sought, which he later came to think of as grace. Despite the sorry history of rapid transit in this city, the corporate neglect and high likelihood of collision, injury, and death, the weekday-morning overture blared along as usual. Men went on grooming mustaches with gray-gloved fingers. A rolled umbrella dented a bowler hat, words were exchanged. Girl amanuenses in little Leghorn straw hats and striped shirtwaists with huge shoulders that took up more room in the car than angels’ wings dreamed with contrary feelings of what awaited them on upper floors of brand-new steel-frame “skyscrapers.” The horses stepped along in their own time and space. Passengers snorted, scratched, and read the newspaper, sometimes all at once, while others imagined that they could get back to some kind of vertical sleep. Lew found himself surrounded by a luminosity new to him, not even observed in dreams, nor easily attributable to the smoke-inflected sun beginning to light Chicago. He understood that things were exactly what they were. It seemed more than he could bear. He

Oh, boy, Mike thought. It was going to happen between these two any second, right in the hospital hallway. Mike was a good six feet and pretty strong, but Brad and Jack were both taller, broader, angrier and not a shoulder injury between them. Mike was going to get hammered when they lost it and started pummeling each other. “Yeah,

One mild and ordinary work-morning in Chicago, Lew happened to find himself on a public conveyance, head and eyes inclined nowhere in particular, when he entered, all too briefly, a condition he had no memory of having sought, which he later came to think of as grace. Despite the sorry history of rapid transit in this city, the corporate neglect and high likelihood of collision, injury, and death, the weekday-morning overture blared along as usual. Men went on grooming mustaches with gray-gloved fingers. A rolled umbrella dented a bowler hat, words were exchanged. Girl amanuenses in little Leghorn straw hats and striped shirtwaists with huge shoulders that took up more room in the car than angels’ wings dreamed with contrary feelings of what awaited them on upper floors of brand-new steel-frame “skyscrapers.” The horses stepped along in their own time and space. Passengers snorted, scratched, and read the newspaper, sometimes all at once, while others imagined that they could get back to some kind of vertical sleep. Lew found himself surrounded by a luminosity new to him, not even observed in dreams, nor easily attributable to the smoke-inflected sun beginning to light Chicago. He understood that things were exactly what they were. It seemed more than he could

An axe delivers a huge amount of force to a small area of strong, very sharp metal. It is a weapon for attack rather than defence, and good at cleaving through armour. It can break enemy shields and kill a charging horse. Since they require intense training, the users are mostly highly skilled elite soldiers, often aristocrats, e.g. the Saxon huscarls. Type of fight scene: gritty, brutal, battles, attack, historical fiction, fantasy fiction, cutting through armour Typical user: tall brawny male with broad shoulders and bulging biceps, courageous, elite soldier, Viking, Saxon Mostly used in: European Dark Ages to Middle Ages Main action: cleave, hack, chop, cut, split Main motion: downwards Typical injury: severed large limbs, split skulls, cleaved torsos Strategy for lethal fight: severe the arm which holds the sword or the shield, or cleave torso from top to bottom, or cut off a leg then split the skull Disadvantages: big and heavy Watch battle axes in action Here are three connected videos about Viking and Saxon warriors with axes:

He had a satisfying wholeness about him, American good looks like a baseball player's- level shoulders, a pale shock of hair. A good mind and ethical nature: little gave him more pleasure than learning laws and governance- "It shows you the shape of your society." But what drew the deepest sliver of her self toward him, was the weakness in his chin, his slightly disoriented air, like an injury he allowed only Avis to see. Brian was the opposite of her mother. There wasn't a whiff of mystery about him: he was solid, entirely himself. Avis still cooked in those days and she invited him to her minuscule studio. She set a hibachi up on the fire escape and grilled him a marbled, crimson rib-eye, crusty with salt and pepper, its interior brilliant with juices. Some garlicky green beans with pine nuts, rich red wine, mushrooms and onions sautéed in a nut-brown butter. She'd intuited his indifference to chocolate, so dessert was a velvety vanilla bean cake with a toasted almond frosting.

She tried to avert her eyes from his bare chest. She should avert her eyes and not admire his magnificent, broad, powerful-looking chest, and focus only on his shoulder injury. She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. Shoulder, Avelina. Injury, Avelina. Breathe, Avelina. She

He held up his arms to assist her to the ground, and she hesitated. In the instant when he would have remonstrated her for her rudeness, he understood that forcing herself to move at all when there was no driver at the reins was… difficult for her. “Evie, come here.” He plucked her bodily from the carriage—he was tall enough to do that—and let her slide down his body until her feet were planted on terra firma. When he would have stepped back, she dropped her forehead to his chest. “I’m an idiot.” “If so, you’re a wonderfully fragrant idiot.” Also lithe, warm, and a surprisingly agreeable armful of woman. He kept his arms around her as he catalogued these appealing attributes and helped himself to a pleasing whiff of mock orange. “I panicked back there when the horses startled.” She sounded miserable over this admission. He took a liberty and turned her under his arm, keeping his arm across her shoulders while they walked a few paces away. “I know you took a bad fall before your come out, Eve. There’s no shame in a lingering distaste for injury. I still get irritable whenever I hear cannon firing, even if it’s just a harbor sounding its signals.” And

Come home with me, Blue. (...) And let me make this perfectly clear, even if you say no, I will throw you over my shoulder and take you with me. But I'm working with a knee injury here and would rather you come on your own free will.

Isometric contraction: Eccentric and concentric contractions fall into a broader category called isotonic contractions—where muscle length is changed by force applied. An isometric contraction occurs when force is generated without the muscle length changing. A classic example is pushing against a wall. You may not move the wall, but you can still exert a massive amount of force against it. Isometric contractions can occur at any point throughout a movement’s range of motion. If you hold the bottom position of a push-up with your chest off the ground, that is an isometric contraction that challenges your chest muscles in a fully lengthened position. Holding the top position of a push-up with your arms extended will create an isometric contraction in your shoulders and triceps as they tense up to keep your body from falling to the ground.

Even traumatic injuries like tearing a rotator cuff in your shoulder are more often preceded by a gradual breakdown of the collagen base over a period of months or years leading up to the injury.

muscle-only approach often exacerbates common muscle imbalances. For example, an exercise routine that leans on heavy pressing, rows, and lat pulldowns builds the shoulder’s internal rotation muscles while neglecting the posterior (rear) muscles. This front-biased training combined with slouching over a desk all day causes shoulder impingement and pain.

Marks … I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to find your spectacles in this wreckage.” “I have another pair at home,” she ventured. “Thank God.” Leo sat up with a quiet grunt of discomfort. “Now, if we stand on the highest pile of debris, it’s only a short distance to the surface. I’m going to hoist you up, get you out of here, and then you’re going to ride back to Ramsay House. Cam trained the horse, so you won’t need to guide him. He’ll find his way back home with no trouble.” “What are you going to do?” she asked, bewildered. He sounded rather sheepish. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to wait here until you send someone for me.” “Why?” “I have a—” He paused, searching for a word. “Splinter.” She felt indignant. “You’re going to make me ride back alone and unescorted and virtually blind, to send someone to rescue you? All because you have a splinter?” “A large one,” he volunteered. “Where is it? Your finger? Your hand? Maybe I can help to … Oh, God. ” This last as he took her hand and brought it to his shoulder. His shirt was wet with blood, and a thick shard of timber protruded from his shoulder. “That’s not a splinter,” she said in horror. “You’ve been impaled. What can I do? Shall I pull it out?” “No, it might be lodged against an artery. And I wouldn’t care to bleed out down here.” She crawled closer to him, bringing her face close to his to examine him anxiously... “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “It looks worse than it is.” But Catherine didn’t agree. If anything, it was worse than it looked... Stripping off her riding coat, she tried to lay it over his chest. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Trying to keep you warm.” Leo plucked the garment off his chest and made a scoffing sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. First, the injury isn’t that bad. Second, this tiny thing is not capable of keeping any part of me warm. Now, about my plan—” “It is obviously a significant injury,” she said, “and I do not agree to your plan. I have a better one.” “Of course you do,” he replied sardonically. “Marks, for once would you do as I ask?” “No, I’m not going to leave you here. I’m going to pile up enough debris for both of us to climb out.” “You can’t even see, damn it. And you can’t move these timbers and stones. You’re too small.” “There is no need to make derogatory remarks about my stature,” she said, lurching upward and squinting at her surroundings. Identifying the highest pile of debris, she made her way to it and hunted for nearby rocks. “I’m not being derogatory.” He sounded exasperated. “Your stature is absolutely perfect for my favorite activity. But you’re not built for hauling rocks. Blast it, Marks, you’re going to hurt yourself—” “Stay there,” Catherine said sharply, hearing him push some heavy object aside. “You’ll worsen your injury, and then it will be even more difficult to get you out. Let me do the work.” Finding a heap of ashlar blocks, she picked one up and lugged it up the pile, trying not to trip over her own skirts. “You’re not strong enough,” Leo said, sounding aggravated and out of breath. “What I lack in physical strength,” she replied, going for another block, “I make up for in determination.” “How inspiring. Could we set aside the heroic fortitude for one bloody moment and dredge up some common sense?” “I’m not going to argue with you, my lord. I need to save my breath for”—she paused to heft another block—“stacking rocks.” Somewhere amid the ordeal, Leo decided hazily that he would never underestimate Catherine Marks again. Ounce for ounce, she was the most insanely obstinate person he had ever known, dragging rocks and debris while half blind and hampered by long skirts, diligently crossing back and forth across his vision like an industrious mole. She had decided to build a mound upon which they could climb out, and nothing would stop her.

Who’s the harlot who broke your heart?” she demanded. “I haven’t been disgraced this badly by a mortal since that Psyche girl a few months back!” “Well, actually, about that…” Eros told her the truth. Aphrodite hit the roof. Literally. She blasted the ceiling to rubble with a pretty pink explosion, giving Eros the new skylight he’d always wanted. “You ungrateful little boy!” she screamed. “You were always trouble! You never listen. You mess with everyone’s feelings, even mine! I should disown you. I should take away your immortality, your bow and arrows, and give them to one of my manservants. Any mortal slave can do your job. It’s not that hard. You never apply yourself. You never follow directions. You—” Blah, blah, blah. And on and on like that for about six hours. Finally she noticed that Eros’s face was sweaty and pale, which you don’t normally see with an immortal. He was shivering under the blankets. His gaze was unfocused. “What’s wrong with you?” Aphrodite moved to the side of his bed, pulled back the covers, and saw the festering, steaming wound in his shoulder. “Oh, no! My poor baby!” Funny how a mom’s mood can change like that. She wants to strangle you, then BOOM!—a little life-threatening injury, and she’s cooing about her poor baby.

Everything about a shoulder injury is just pain, pain, and more pain. Bum shoulder?

I winced at a sharp pain in my ribs. All my injuries began to throb at once, reminding me of their presence. Jovis reached out a hand. “Are you hurt?” He brushed a clod of dirt from my shoulder with soft hands, noting the torn cloth beneath, the dried blood. “Are you?” I reached hesitant fingers to the side of his head. We checked one another over without speaking, cataloging wounds that had already begun to heal. Only the sounds of our breathing, the brush of cloth filled the small space. “Lin,” he said. I froze, as surely as though the word was his hand entering my chest, and I a construct. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted more than anything to step into his embrace but I wasn’t sure where we stood. “I love you,” Jovis blurted out into the silence. “Please don’t execute me. Not even later. Ah shit. I’m no good at this. I mean— let me start over. I’ve made a mess of things. I don’t care what you are. Whatever your father did to make you. I care about who you are. And who you are is a person that I care about.” He pursed his lips, wrinkling up his nose. “I’m not sure if—does that make sense?” I laughed in spite of myself. “It makes sense, I promise.” I lifted a hand to his cheek, wondering at the way he leaned into my touch, the feel of his warmth beneath my face.

The physics of diffuse axonal injury Given our understanding of the rotational nature of diffuse axonal injury, it is now possible for us to take what we learned about levers and rotational motion in the previous chapters and apply that knowledge here to help us understand how a punch to the chin ends up stretching and damaging axons in the brainstem and throughout the brain. The first step in this process is the punch. This punch must meet a minimum energy requirement because we will be causing structural damage to axons in the brain. This punch must also meet a minimum momentum requirement because we need to spin the whole head around to damage those axons. Considering what we know about knockout punches and how boxers train, it is relatively safe to say that meeting the minimum energy requirement is not difficult, but meeting the minimum momentum requirement is. Fast punches are important strategically, but increasing the effective mass behind your punches is what gives your punch the ability to lay your opponent out on the mat. Figure 5-2. The process of diffuse axonal injury from punch to axon stretching. Left: The punch hits your opponent. Center: The punch rotates your opponent’s head around an axis located in the neck. Right: Axons located a small distance from the axis of rotation become stretched as one end of the axon travels around the axis of rotation. This story takes us from the fist to the axon, but there is still something missing. We turn our heads left and right every day, sometimes very rapidly, so what makes a punch so special? The science is still too young to be sure, but I will speculate that the peak of the force curve (figure 5-3) is typically where the axon gets rapidly extended to its natural limit, but the tail of the force curve is where the axons are damaged. The primary reason for this speculation is the empirical knowledge that pushing off the back foot is essential for a good knockout punch. Boxers and martial artists from all styles stress the importance of this push to the success of a punch. Some strikes, such as a front-hand palm strike or a square-shouldered wing chun punch, for which a back-foot push is impossible, will still generate the same long-tail force profile in figure 5-3 by making contact before the arm is fully extended and using the muscles in the arm to apply force by continuing the extension. The same profile appears when athletes tackle each other in other contact sports. There is an initial peak force at the moment of collision, but the legs continue to push after the initial peak.

LFC’s changing room in the Olympic stadium was ‘like a sickbay’ after their final defeat by Real Madrid, he says. Mohamed Salah, back from an X-ray of his shoulder injury at a nearby hospital, sat crying; for everyone else, the hurt was merely psychological but no less piercing. ‘You’re so disappointed, you can’t stop the tears.’ They heard their triumphant opponents singing next door. Worse than that, the team of referees were loudly celebrating, too. ‘We saw a crate of beer going in and they were partying. I can’t tell you why. But they were partying.’ Krawietz

I should be dead. But I’m not human, am I?” She swiped a tear of frustration off her face. “Whatever I am makes me stronger, faster, and scary as hell when fighting. I changed, scaled the top of a moving truck, and fought a guy shooting a gun at me.” She ran her hand across her face to wipe away the tears. “I’m a mess. The mud in that ravine got in all the cracks, even my underwear. But the injuries are already almost gone, and somehow, I know all this will heal. Based on you being all pissy, I assume your meeting didn’t go well.” “It took an unanticipated turn.” His tone was odd as he continued to stare at her. “What exactly do you do that involves secrecy and the Crown?” “I can’t tell you.” Something about how he looked at her was different. Her skin tingled like it had before she’d shifted. Survival instinct flared. “Did they order you to…kill me?” It came out of her on a fatigued exhale. Her shoulders drooped. His face remained remote as if trying to wall off emotion. He neither confirmed nor denied, which might as well have been a screaming affirmative. She dropped her chin. He said nothing, so she looked up. He stared intently at her, making her almost shrink in place under the gaze of those thunderous eyes. “Is this when you tell me to leave again?” she asked. “Would you go?” “If they ordered you to kill me, wouldn’t you be forced to come after me? To hunt me down? So, what’s the point in me running unless you like the hunt?” He pushed his hand through his dark hair and stepped away from her. Frustration oozed from him. Seeing him start to lose some of his composure made him less threatening. He wasn’t the robot assassin. She wanted to run her fingers through his thick hair and down his scruff-roughened chiseled jawline to soothe him. Would her touch, if done in comfort, affect him the way she suspected his touch would destroy her? From the way he simply stared at her, she guessed yes. The silence was killing her. “What’s going on here?” “No idea.” He muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t make out. He stepped toward her and slid a finger under her chin to tilt her face upward. Their eyes met and held. “I’m sorry someone hurt you. That you had to fight for your life and went through a windshield.” In a whisper, he added, “I should’ve been there.” The grit in his voice, the despair, as if he’d let her down, packed one hell of a punch. What was she supposed to do with that? Oh dear…God. His hold on her face, how his thumb gently stroked over the skin on her jaw… How he moved in so she could feel the hard surfaces of his body, the concrete chest and abs… All of it swirled together, turning her mind to mush, which was bad when she needed to remain alert. Death… her death was on the line. But she was about to make a very bad decision to let him do whatever the hell he wanted after that declaration. “I made a promise to erase Dom’s kiss. To make you forget. I never go back on my promises.” Like his promise to help her get answers? He didn’t lower his head, but stood there, hesitant. “You’re too hurt right now.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She slid her good hand up his shoulders and neck. His muscles twitched under her touch, and his chest rose and fell more rapidly. Feeling how much just her hand on him affected him encouraged her to continue. Cradling the back of his head, she pressed her body into his. As she pulled him toward her mouth, his incredible size and power registered but didn’t intimidate. Didn’t scare her. Her mouth touched his. Warmth on warmth. Once… Twice… Three times. His lips were a lot softer than they appeared. The roughness of his facial scruff scratched her skin.

Bree?" I tried again, "Bree, babe, hey." I reached out a heavy hand, touching her shoulder but not shaking her. If she had a spine injury, that could make it worse. Her face was tilted away from me, her hair wet with blood, and she wasn't moving. She wasn't responding. Fear choked me, filling my lungs and cutting off rational thought. Was she dead? That Hummer had hit her at speed. Her whole side of the car crumpled in, trapping her arm and left leg in a mangle of metal and blood.

back between my legs, and by the time Kody crawled onto the bed in nothing but his black boxer briefs, I was a writhing mess, gripping onto Steele's head as he teased me on the edge of orgasm. Kody lay on the bed beside me, stroking his fingers through my hair, then turned my face to his in a demanding gesture. His mouth claimed mine, kissing me harder than Steele was tonguing my cunt, and I was a fucking goner. I came, moaning into Kody's kiss as my thighs tightened around Steele's head, totally forgetting about the injuries on his shoulder for a second.

A well-conditioned oarsman or oarswoman competing at the highest levels must be able to take in and consume as much as eight liters of oxygen per minute; an average male is capable of taking in roughly four to five liters at most. Pound for pound, Olympic oarsmen may take in and process as much oxygen as a thoroughbred racehorse. This extraordinary rate of oxygen intake is of only so much value, it should be noted. While 75–80 percent of the energy a rower produces in a two-thousand-meter race is aerobic energy fueled by oxygen, races always begin, and usually end, with hard sprints. These sprints require levels of energy production that far exceed the body’s capacity to produce aerobic energy, regardless of oxygen intake. Instead the body must immediately produce anaerobic energy. This, in turn, produces large quantities of lactic acid, and that acid rapidly builds up in the tissue of the muscles. The consequence is that the muscles often begin to scream in agony almost from the outset of a race and continue screaming until the very end. And it’s not only the muscles that scream. The skeletal system to which all those muscles are attached also undergoes tremendous strains and stresses. Without proper training and conditioning—and sometimes even with them—competitive rowers are apt to experience a wide variety of ills in the knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, ribs, neck, and above all the spine. These injuries and complaints range from blisters to severe tendonitis, bursitis, slipped vertebrae, rotator cuff dysfunction, and stress fractures, particularly fractures of the ribs. The common denominator in all these conditions—whether in the lungs, the muscles, or the bones—is overwhelming pain. And that is perhaps the first and most fundamental thing that all novice oarsmen must learn about competitive rowing in the upper echelons of the sport: that pain is part and parcel of the deal. It’s not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it’s a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you.

StarClan grants us safe passage,” Bluestar repeated stubbornly. “Go home!” snarled Mudclaw. Fireheart’s paws tingled as he sized up their opponents. Three strong cats against him and the unfit ThunderClan leader. They would not escape a fight without serious injury, and there was no way he could risk Bluestar’s losing a life—not when he knew that she was on the last of her nine lives, which were granted by StarClan to all Clan leaders. “We should go home,” Fireheart hissed at Bluestar. The she-cat swung her head around and stared at him in disbelief. “We’re too far from safety and this isn’t a battle we can fight,” he urged her. “But I must speak with StarClan!” meowed Bluestar. “Another time,” Fireheart insisted. Bluestar’s eyes clouded with indecision and he added, “We’d not win this battle.” He twitched with relief as Bluestar retracted her claws and let the fur on her shoulders relax. The ThunderClan leader turned back to Mudclaw and meowed, “Very well, we’ll go home. But we will return. You cannot cut us off from StarClan forever!

Evan thought about when he’d worked on Joey’s shoulder, how it had been tender to the point of intolerability. It struck him that the same law of physics applied to any injury, physical or emotional. If you babied it, it stiffened even more, spreading the pain through you. But if you yielded, if you were willing to endure the white-hot agony of making vulnerable what you sought to protect, you had a shot at releasing it.

But on January 6th for the first time, I was more afraid to work at the Capitol than my entire deployment to Iraq,” Aquilino told the committee. “In Iraq, we expected armed violence because we were in a war zone, but nothing in my experience in the Army or as a law enforcement officer prepared me for what we confronted on January 6th.” During the riot, Aquilino said, he was kicked, pushed, shoved, spit on, and sprayed with chemical irritants. Someone targeted his eyes with a laser. He was attacked with hammers, rebars, batons, police shields, rods, and a metal pole flying an American flag. Aquilino said the rioters tried to pull him into the crowd, and one of them beat him with his own baton. “I, too, was being crushed by the rioters,” Aquilino said. “I could feel myself losing oxygen and thinking to myself, ‘This is how I’m going to die, defending this entrance.’ ” Aquilino suffered injuries to both hands, his left shoulder, right calf, and right foot. His foot and shoulder wounds—a labrum tear and rotator cuff damage—required painful surgery.

Skilled orthopedic surgeons and sports medicine experts. Specialized care for shoulder, elbow, hand injuries, and sports-related injuries.

When I turned twenty-five, I sustained my first injury. One rough tackle—a brutal blow to my left shoulder—that broke more things in it than I knew were there, had me on my way to my very first surgical procedure. The next year saw my knee blowing out. One more surgery had me out for the remainder of that season. At twenty-eight, a rougher than necessary tackle not only broke three of my ribs, but punctured my right lung with one of the broken ribs. Another surgery to repair that meant more time not being able to play.

I don’t use these tools to “work out” per se; I use them for movement snacks—short, unplanned movement sessions, often only lasting a minute or two. I squeeze and bend the Flexbar as I’m reading emails or thinking through a problem. I hang from the TRX strap when my shoulders feel tight. I stretch my back against the yoga wheel after sitting for long periods. And I use the exercise bands and kettlebells randomly throughout the day to get some blood flowing. It not only gives me varied movement that I know my body needs, it keeps my mind fresh and my energy levels elevated.

We passed my street and walked up the hill to the campus. “Who’s your doctor?” “Chakravarty,” I said. “Is he good?” “How would I know?” “My shoulder separates. An old sexual injury.

There was no sign of the shoulder injury that had kept Sorreltail from her warrior ceremony for so long, and no trace of bitterness that she had waited twice as long as other apprentices to receive her warrior name. Though she was older than Leafpaw, she still had all the joyful energy of a kit.

The golfer would benefit more from doing exercises that counteract overused muscles and movement patterns: antirotation core strength exercises like planks, wrist extensions to counteract all the wrist flexion, and rotator cuff exercises to stabilize overused shoulders. Ironically, the ability to stabilize and engage core muscles will improve driving distance better than swinging a dumbbell through the air. And that can be accomplished by practicing basic movements such as the squat, hip hinge, upper body press, and upper body pull.

focus on good movement patterns rather than pursuing strength or hypertrophy. In this case, a slow movement allows an injured athlete to focus on properly contracting all of their muscle groups in a timing sequence. This is particularly effective with shoulder injuries, where various muscle compensations often occur. Likewise, if you are trying to prevent muscle strains, you may find it beneficial to utilize a slower eccentric phase such as 5120 in order to teach your body to maintain control during the movement.

Peripheral enthesitis: It occurs in about a third of patients. Common sites are: 1. Behind the heel (Achilles tendonitis), 2. The heel pad (plantar fasciitis) and 3. The tibial tuberosity. Lesions tend to be painful, especially in the morning. There may be related inflammation of the tendon or ligament insertion. Peripheral arthritis: It also happens in about 33% of patients. Joint affliction is normally asymmetric, involving the hips, shoulder girdle (acromioclavicular,