Stab Me In The Front Quotes

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

But you, fine sir." John Miller clapped Dexter on the shoulder, a bit unsteadily. "You have problems of your own." "This is true," Dexter replied, nodding. "The women," John Miller sighed. Dexter wiped a hand over his face, and glanced down the road. "The women. Indeed, dear squire, they perplex me as well." "Ah, the fair Remy," John Miller said grandly, and I felt a flush run up my face. Lissa, in the front seat, put a hand to her mouth. "The fair Remy," Dexter repeated, "did not see me as a worthwhile risk." "Indeed." "I am, of course, a rogue. A rapscallion. A musician. I would bring her nothing but poverty, shame, and bruised shins from my flailing limbs. She is the better for our parting." John Miller pantomined stabbing himself in the heart. "Cold words, my squire." "Huffah," Dexter agreed. "Huffah," John Miller repeated, "Indeed.

That better not be what I think it is," Joe mumbled in the dark. It was. "It's not. Jeez, woman, someone's paranoid. It's my pocket light," he said, wincing. Ah, he was only human after all. It wasn't the first time she got him hard nor would it be the last time. The physical discomfort was a small price to pay to have her in his arms. "Well, then your flashlight is growing. Jeez, Eric, put a leash on that thing before it stabs me!" she teased. "But it likes you," he pouted. She giggled. "I seem to remember a certain tenth grade math class where it liked standing up in front of the entire class." He sucked in a breath. "Hey, that traumatized me!

You know what?' said Vimes aloud. 'This is going to be the world's first democratically killed dragon. One man, one stab.' Then you've got to stop them. You can't let them kill it!' said Lady Ramkin. Vimes blinked at her. Pardon?' he said. It's wounded!' Lady, that was the intention, wasn't it? Anyway, it's only stunned,' said Vimes. I mean you can't let them kill it like this,' said Lady Ramkin insistently. 'Poor thing!' What do you want to do, then?' demanded Vimes, his temper unravelling. 'Give it a strengthening dose of tar oil and a nice comfy basket in front of the stove?' It's butchery!' Suits me fine!' But it's a dragon! It's just doing what a dragon does! It never would have come here if people had left it alone!' Vimes thought: it was about to eat her, and she can still think like this. He hesitated. Perhaps that did give you the right to an opinion...

Patrick's entire front torso was covered with gruesome stab wounds. Like he'd been run through again and again with a sharp knife - and it hadn't been an accident. "Oh, love," I whispered. "What did you do to yourself?" Hot tears stung my eyes as I began to trace his scars with my fingertips, leaning in to kiss them softly, one by one. "Sui Caedere," he said. "I couldn't live without you.

She stared heavenward and shook her head after finding out she'd sent me on a long-distance trip with the son of Lust. But the detail that sent her over the edge was the fact that my father had me haunted by those demons. No matter how much I tried to explain that it was necessary for me to be able to see the spirits, she was livid. When three o'clock approached and her mood hadn't lightened, I started to worry. When my dad arrived, Patti stood by the counter with her arms crossed. He appeared as large and frightening as ever. The kind of man nobody would dare to mess with. Patti walked right up and smacked him across the face. I jolted. He blinked. She stayed right in front of him and stabbed a finger at his chest, her other hand on her hip. “How dare you do that to her? I don't care what your reasons were. Did you hear her screaming? She was terrified! Don't you ever sic those monsters on her again. Ever!

But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony - Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up - take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.

…The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and say to him: "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you are only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth it appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are just poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying, and the same agony — Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up — take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.

But every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts.

My dog, Willy, died a few years ago, but one of my great memories of him is watching him play in the front yard of our house at dusk. He was a puppy then, and in the early evenings he would contract a case of the zoomies. He ran in delighted circles around us, yipping and jumping at nothing in particular, and then after a while, he'd get tired, and he'd run over to me and lie down. And then he would do something absolutely extraordinary: He would roll over onto his back, and present his soft belly. I always marveled at the courage of that, his ability to be so absolutely vulnerable to us. He offered us the place ribs don't protect, trusting that we weren't going to bite or stab him. It's hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There's something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you know now where to punch. I know that if I’m hit where I am earnest, I will never recover.

There were usually not nearly as many sick people inside the hospital as Yossarian saw outside the hospital, and there were generally fewer people inside the hospital who were seriously sick. There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily. People knew a lot more about dying inside the hospital and made a much neater job of it. They couldn’t dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn’t keep Death out, but while she was there she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital. There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside of the hospital. They did not blow-up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian’s tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane. “I’m cold,” Snowden had whimpered. “I’m cold.” “There, there,” Yossarian had tried to comfort him. “There, there.” They didn’t take it on the lam weirdly inside a cloud the way Clevinger had done. They didn’t explode into blood and clotted matter. They didn’t drown or get struck by lightning, mangled by machinery or crushed in landslides. They didn’t get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, blugeoned to death with axes by parents or children, or die summarily by some other act of God. Nobody choked to death. People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent. There was none of that tricky now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t business so much in vogue outside the hospital, none of that now-I-am-and-now-I-ain’t. There were no famines or floods. Children didn’t suffocate in cradles or iceboxes or fall under trucks. No one was beaten to death. People didn’t stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh!, accelerating at the rate of thirty-two feet per second to land with a hideous plop! on the sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry.

Slowly the lights of the torches in front of Merry flicked and went out, and he was walking in a darkness; and he thought: ‘This is a tunnel leading to a tomb; there we shall stay forever.’ But suddenly into his dream there fell a living voice. ‘Well, Merry! Thank goodness I have found you!’ He looked up and the mist before his eyes cleared a little. There was Pippin! They were face to face in a narrow lane, but for themselves it was empty. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Where is the king?’ He said. ‘And Eowyn?’ Then he stumbled and sat down on a doorstep and began to weep again. ‘They must have gone up into the Citadel,’ said Pippin. ‘I think you must have fallen asleep on your feet and taken the wrong turning. When we found out you were not with them, Gandalf sent me to look for you. Poor old Merry! How glad I am to see you again! But you are worn out, and I won’t bother you with any talk. But tell me, are you hurt, or wounded?’ ‘No,’ said Merry. ‘Well, no, I don’t think so. But I can’t use my right arm, Pippin, not since I stabbed him. And my sword burned away like a piece of wood.’ Pippin’s face was anxious. ‘Well, you had better come with me as quick as you can,’ he said. ‘I wish I could carry you. You aren’t fit to walk any further. They shouldn’t have let you walk at all; but you must forgive them. So many dreadful things have happened in the City, Merry, that one poor hobbit coming in from battle is easily overlooked.’ ‘It’s not always a misfortune being overlooked,’ said Merry. ‘I was overlooked just now by—no, no, I can’t speak of it. Help me, Pippin! It’s all going dark again, and my arm is so cold.’ ‘Lean on me, Merry lad!” said Pippin. ‘Come now. Foot by foot. It’s not far.’ ‘Are you going to bury me?’ said Merry. ‘No, indeed!’ said Pippin, trying to sound cheerful, though his heart was wrung with fear and pity. ‘No, we are going to the Houses of Healing.

That one look is like a knife stabbing straight through my heart. A heart that only beats when I’m in close proximity to the beauty sitting in front of me, now.

The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and to say to him: “Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up—take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.

I need to ask, are you afraid of spiders?" Nicholas blinked, suddenly caught off guard, "Yes, I'm afraid of spiders." "Were you always?" "What are you, a psychiatrist?" Pritam took a breath. He could feel Laine's eyes on him, appraising his line of questioning. "Is it possible that the trauma of losing your best friend as a child and the trauma of losing your wife as an adult and the trauma of seeing Laine's husband take his life in front of you just recently..." Pritam shrugged and raised his palms, "You see where I'm going?" Nicholas looked at Laine. She watched back. Her gray eyes missed nothing. "Sure," agreed Nicholas, standing. "And my sister's nuts, too, and we both like imagining that little white dogs are big nasty spiders because our daddy died and we never got enough cuddles." "Your father died?" asked Laine. "When?" "Who cares?" Pritam sighed. "You must see this from our point of - " "I'd love to!" snapped Nicholas. "I'd love to see it from your point of view, because mine is not that much fun! It's insane! It's insane that I see dead people, Pritam! It's insane that this," he flicked out the sardonyx necklace,"stopped me from kidnapping a little girl!" "That's what you believe," Pritam said carefully. "That's what I fucking believe!" Nicholas stabbed his finger through the air at the dead bird talisman lying slack on the coffee table.

Oh! My friend! My cup of poison! Now I don’t remember world anymore as you are my world! Then I will become unconscious as the first drop of poison, Will be kissing my mind, Oh! Now I can sing songs of Happiness, My heart is getting stabbed with arrows! Now I am hopeless without desire, And now I have no remembrance of past pain, Oh friend! You are not poison, You are God’s nectar for me! Now my heart will stop beating, SO know more pain, Now I shall leave! But the illusion of nature, My lover suddenly comes in front of me crying, But I have decided that I shall become one with earth! The world will not stop if I die! NO one really loved me in reality, It was illusion that contains possession, Now my heart is tired and my soul is at peace, No more cries, I leave body breathless, It is a bitter truth that, Man comes crying goes crying!

Hope you got your things together.’” I sang, stabbing a pillow with my spear. Feathers exploded into the air. “‘Hope you are quite prepared to die!’” I spun in a dazzling whirl of lights, landed a killer back-kick on a phantom Shade, and simultaneously punched the magazine rack. “‘Looks like we’re in for nasty weather!’” I took a swan dive at a short, imaginary Shade, lunged up at a taller one— —and froze. Barrons stood inside the front door, dripping cool-world elegance. I hadn’t heard him come in over the music. He was leaning, shoulder against the wall, arms folded, watching me. “‘One eye is taken for an eye . . .’” I trailed off, deflating. I didn’t need a mirror to know how stupid I looked. I regarded him sourly for a moment, then moved for the sound dock to turn it off. When I heard a choked sound behind me I spun, and shot him a hostile glare. He wore his usual expression of arrogance and boredom. I resumed my path for the sound dock, and heard it again. This time when I turned back, the corners of his mouth were twitching. I stared at him until they stopped. I’d reached the sound dock, and just turned it off, when he exploded. I whirled. “I didn’t look that funny,” I snapped. His shoulders shook. “Oh, come on! Stop it!” He cleared his throat and stopped laughing. Then his gaze took a quick dart upward, fixed on my blazing MacHalo, and he lost it again. I don’t know, maybe it was the brackets sticking out from the sides. Or maybe I should have gotten a black bike helmet, not a hot pink one. I unfastened it and yanked it off my head. I stomped over to the door, flipped the interior lights back on, slammed him in the chest with my brilliant invention, and stomped upstairs. “You’d better have stopped laughing by the time I come back down,” I shouted over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure he even heard me, he was laughing so hard.

She saw her old enemy’s shoulders relax, and she watched him push his hat to the back of his head. “Let’s go home, Scout. It’s been a long day. Open the door for me.” She stepped aside to let him pass. She followed him to the car and watched him get laboriously into the front seat. As she welcomed him silently to the human race, the stab of discovery made her tremble a little.

This is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing. Kat and Kropp and Müller have experienced it already, when they have hit someone; it happens to many, in hand-to-hand fighting especially— But every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts.

But all of that is mostly invisible to me, an enchanting landscape painted on a see-through curtain in front of a stage where scenes of unspeakable horror play out. I can go for weeks without even seeing the beach, kept busy by emergency calls: fights, stabbings, shootings, burglaries, robberies, rapes, drunks, domestics, suicides. I spend more time in run-down housing projects and trailer parks than I do admiring sunsets. But they don’t pay me to enjoy the view

They [the dying in hospitals] did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian's tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane. […] They didn't take it out on the lam weirdly inside a cloud the way Clevinger had done. They didn't explode into blood and clotted matter. They didn't drown or get struck by lightning, mangled by machinery or crushed in landslides. They didn't get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children, or die summarily by some other act of God. Nobody choked to death. People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent. There was none of that tricky now-you-see-me-now-you-don't business so much in vogue outside the hospital, none of that now-I-am-and-now-I-ain't. There were no famines or floods. Children didn't suffocate in cradles or iceboxes or fall under trucks. No one was beaten to death. People didn't stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh! accelerating at the rate of thirty-two feet per second to land with hideous plop! on the sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hair strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry

Saturday evening, on a quiet lazy afternoon, I went to watch a bullfight in Las Ventas, one of Madrid's most famous bullrings. I went there out of curiosity. I had long been haunted by the image of the matador with its custom made torero suit, embroidered with golden threads, looking spectacular in his "suit of light" or traje de luces as they call it in Spain. I was curious to see the dance of death unfold in front of me, to test my humanity in the midst of blood and gold, and to see in which state my soul will come out of the arena, whether it will be shaken and stirred, furious and angry, or a little bit aware of the life embedded in every death. Being an avid fan of Hemingway, and a proponent of his famous sentence "About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after,” I went there willingly to test myself. I had heard atrocities about bullfighting yet I had this immense desire to be part of what I partially had an inclination to call a bloody piece of cultural experience. As I sat there, in front of the empty arena, I felt a grandiose feeling of belonging to something bigger than anything I experienced during my stay in Spain. Few minutes and I'll be witnessing a painting being carefully drawn in front of me, few minutes and I will be part of an art form deeply entrenched in the Spanish cultural heritage: the art of defying death. But to sit there, and to watch the bull enter the arena… To watch one bull surrounded by a matador and his six assistants. To watch the matador confronting the bull with the capote, performing a series of passes, just before the picador on a horse stabs the bull's neck, weakening the neck muscles and leading to the animal's first loss of blood... Starting a game with only one side having decided fully to engage in while making sure all the odds will be in the favor of him being a predetermined winner. It was this moment precisely that made me feel part of something immoral. The unfair rules of the game. The indifferent bull being begged to react, being pushed to the edge of fury. The bull, tired and peaceful. The bull, being teased relentlessly. The bull being pushed to a game he isn't interested in. And the matador getting credits for an unfair game he set. As I left the arena, people looked at me with mocking eyes. Yes, I went to watch a bull fight and yes the play of colors is marvelous. The matador’s costume is breathtaking and to be sitting in an arena fills your lungs with the sands of time. But to see the amount of claps the spill of blood is getting was beyond what I can endure. To hear the amount of claps injustice brings is astonishing. You understand a lot about human nature, about the wars taking place every day, about poverty and starvation. You understand a lot about racial discrimination and abuse (verbal and physical), sex trafficking, and everything that stirs the wounds of this world wide open. You understand a lot about humans’ thirst for injustice and violence as a way to empower hidden insecurities. Replace the bull and replace the matador. And the arena will still be there. And you'll hear the claps. You've been hearing them ever since you opened your eyes.

This is textbook Bad Idea. We're driving with a stranger, no one knows where we are, and we have no way of getting in touch with anyone. This is exactly how people become statistics." "Exactly?" I asked, thinking of all the bizarre twists and turns that had led us to this place. Ben ceded the point with a sideways shrug. "Maybe not exactly. But still..." He let it go, and the cab eventually stopped at the edge of a remote, forested area. Sage got out and paid. "Everybody out!" Ben looked at me, one eyebrow raised. He was leaving the choice to me. I gave his knee a quick squeeze before I opened the door and we piled out of the car. Sage waited for the cab to drive away, then ducked onto a forest path, clearly assuming we'd follow. The path through the thick foliage was stunning in the moonlight, and I automatically released my camera from its bag. "I wish you wouldn't," Sage said without turning around. "You know I'm not one for visitors." "I'll refrain from selling the pictures to Travel and Leisure, then," I said, already snapping away. "Besides, I need something to take my mind off my feet." My shoes were still on the beach, where I'd kicked them off to dance. "Hey, I offered to carry you," Sage offered. "No, thank you." I suppose I should have been able to move swiftly and silently without my shoes, but I only managed to stab myself on something with every other footfall, giving me a sideways, hopping gait. Every few minutes Sage would hold out his arms, offering to carry me again. I grimaced and denied him each time. After what felt like about ten miles, even the photos weren't distracting enough. "How much farther?" I asked. "We're here." There was nothing in front of us but more trees. "Wow," Ben said, and I followed his eyes upward to see that several of the tree trunks were actually stilts supporting a beautifully hidden wood-and-glass cabin, set high among the branches. I was immediately charmed. "You live in a tree house," I said. I aimed my camera the façade, answering Sage's objection before he even said it. "For me, not for Architectural Digest." "Thank you," Sage said.

Adele took her place in front of the audience and began to sing. "Miss Eyre, perhaps you can tell me what he's saying?" Mrs. Fairfax said. "The only other person in the house who speaks French is the master, and he hates to translate anymore." Jane glanced at Mr. Rochester, but he stared straight ahead. Jane listened to the song. "The first few lines are about a famous dancer ... in a club ... She wore flowers in her hair and a dress that ... oh." Adele sang in detail about how much the dress covered. Or didn't cover. Jane blushed and glanced at Mr. Rochester, searching for a reaction to the scandalous lyrics. But he just listened. Not scandalized. "So, yes, the dancer wore a dress," Jane continued, with slightly less detail. "And she was in love with a ... dealer. Of cards. And at night, they ... oh my." Adele sang of a very special hug. Jane's cheeks flamed. "Perhaps Mr. Rochester should translate." She turned to Mr. Rochester, who coughed. He waved his hand. "Please continue, Miss Eyre. You're doing such a fine job." Now Adele sang of the woman's roving eye, and another man visiting while her lover was away. "They continued to love each other," Jane said quickly, maybe a bit desperately. In the last verse, the boyfriend found out about her infidelity, and stabbed the dancer and her other lover. "That escalated quickly," said Helen. She also spoke French, but no one had asked her to translate. "And they both lived happily ever after," Jane blurted. She was going to have to teach Adele some new songs.

Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? . . . Take twenty years of my life, comrade . . . for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.

Derrick flies through the portal first. “Look at you,” he says, stopping to study me. “Alive. Unscathed. Good. If you hadn’t been, I would have lopped his fingers off.” Kiaran moves to stand beside me. “I would have pulled off your wings.” “Ignore him, pixie.” Aithinne strides into the room, her long coat billowing behind her. “I should have figured he’d be sullen and moody.” Kiaran’s emotionless gaze flickers to her. “Phiuthair.” “Bhràthair.” She stops and studies him. “You look like hell. I suppose you haven’t fed in a few days, if the lack of gifts is any indication.” “Don’t.” Kiaran’s voice dips in warning. “I’m wonderful, by the way,” she continues, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Do you like my coat? Don’t I look lovely? Aren’t I the best sister for standing here, still willing to talk to you after you’ve ignored me for months, you stubborn bastard?” “Well, this is fun,” Derrick says. “I’m really feeling the love in this room. It’s beautiful. Aileana, isn’t it beautiful?” “You’re here because Kam wanted your help. Not because I did.” “Damn it, MacKay—” “You might not have wanted me,” Aithinne says, ignoring my attempts to stand between them, “but look how quickly I came. Because I still care about you. Though god only knows why, since you’re such an obstinate pain in my arse.” “I love it when Aithinne curses at people.” Derrick says to me. “I say we let them fight it out. A round of fisticuffs. No killing. I’ll go and find refreshments.” “Oh, for god’s sake,” Sorcha says from behind us. “If you’re all going to squabble, I’d prefer to be back in my prison. That wasn’t torture. This is torture.” Derrick peeks through my hair. “What’s that murderous arsehole doing here?” Sorcha blinks at him. “What did you just call me?” “You heard me, pointy-toothed hag.” “Sorcha can find the Book,” I interrupt. “And we need her blood to get there. It was her or Lonnrach.” “So given a choice between murderous arseholes you chose the one who killed you.” Derrick’s laugh is dry. “That’s interesting.” “I chose the one who was conveniently chained up, rather than the one in hiding.” Derrick doesn’t look convinced. “And we’re just supposed to believe she’s helping out of the goodness of that black hunk of rock in her chest that she calls a heart?” “I’m standing right here,” Sorcha says sharply. “Wish you weren’t,” Derrick sings. Then, to me: “Let me give you some advice, friend. If you’re going to take her along, make her go first. That way you don’t have to worry about her shoving a blade into your back.” “Sweet little pixie,” Sorcha says. “If there’s one thing you should have learned, it’s that I’m perfectly willing to stab her in the front.” She turns on her heel and heads toward the great hall, the fabric of her brocade dress sweeping across the ground like a cloak. “If you’re coming, the door is this way

The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and to say to him: "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lives in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of you hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours , and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony --- Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just ike Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up --- take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.

The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and to say to him: "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lives in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony --- Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just ike Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up --- take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.

You choose this moment to act like the Abnegation?” His voice fills the room and makes fear prickle in my chest. His anger seems too sudden. Too strange. “All that time you spent insisting that you were too selfish for them, and now, when your life is on the line, you’ve got to be a hero? What’s wrong with you?” “What’s wrong with you? People died. They walked right off the edge of a building! And I can stop it from happening again!” “You’re too important to just…die.” He shakes his head. He won’t even look at me--his eyes keep shifting across my face, to the wall behind me or the ceiling above me, to everything but me. I am too stunned to be angry. “I’m not important. Everyone will do just fine without me,” I say. “Who cares about everyone? What about me?” He lowers his head into his hand, covering his eyes. His fingers are trembling. Then he crosses the room in two long strides and touches his lips to mine. Their gentle pressure erases the past few months, and I am the girl who sat on the rocks next to the chasm, with river spray on her ankles, and kissed him for the first time. I am the girl who grabbed his hand in the hallway just because I wanted to. I pull back, my hand on his chest to keep him away. The problem is, I am also the girl who shot Will and lied about it, and chose between Hector and Marlene, and now a thousand other things besides. And I can’t erase those things. “You would be fine.” I don’t look at him. I stare at his T-shirt between my fingers and the black ink curling around his neck, but I don’t look at his face. “Not at first. But you would move on, and do what you have to.” He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against him. “That’s a lie,” he says, before he kisses me again. This is wrong. It’s wrong to forget who I have become, and to let him kiss me when I know what I’m about to do. But I want to. Oh, I want to. I stand on my tiptoes and wrap my arms around him. I press one hand between his shoulder blades and curl the other one around the back of his neck. I can feel his breaths against my palm, his body expanding and contracting, and I know he’s strong, steady, unstoppable. All things I need to be, but I am not, I am not. He walks backward, pulling me with him so I stumble. I stumble right out of my shoes. He sits on the edge of the bed and I stand in front of him, and we’re finally eye to eye. He touches my face, covering my cheeks with his hands, sliding his fingertips down my neck, fitting his fingers to the slight curve of my hips. I can’t stop. I fit my mouth to his, and he tastes like water and smells like fresh air. I drag my hand from his neck to the small of his back, and put it under his shirt. He kisses me harder. I knew he was strong; I didn’t know how strong until I felt it myself, the muscles in his back tightening beneath my fingers. Stop, I tell myself. Suddenly it’s as if we’re in a hurry, his fingertips brushing my side under my shirt, my hands clutching at him, struggling closer but there is no closer. I have never longed for someone this way, or this much. He pulls back just enough to look into my eyes, his eyelids lowered. “Promise me,” he whispers, “that you won’t go. For me. Do this one thing for me.” Could I do that? Could I stay here, fix things with him, let someone else die in my place? Looking up at him, I believe for a moment that I could. And then I see Will. The crease between his eyebrows. The empty, simulation-bound eyes. The slumped body. Do this one thing for me. Tobias’s dark eyes plead with me. But if I don’t go to Erudite, who will? Tobias? It’s the kind of thing he would do. I feel a stab of pain in my chest as I lie to him. “Okay.” “Promise,” he says, frowning. The pain becomes an ache, spreads everywhere--all mixed together, guilt and terror and longing. “I promise.

I know you prefer the other wedding dress but didn’t wear it, because you want it to stay ours. I know you hate that we’re dancing in front of a crowd right now. I know you’re hoping a storm will interrupt the ceremony, so it can all be over.” He leaned in even farther. “I know you have nightmares every night, and it kills me—kills me—that I’m not there to hold you through them, the way I was before. So, instead I send whatever I can. Your favorite foods. Your favorite flowers. I know you’ve killed dozens of people who should have rotted in our prisons long ago, and I know why you do it. To keep the beast within at bay. To funnel your anger and skills into something that maybe looks sort of like good.” Her breath hiked. How could he know that? He must have felt her jolt of surprise, because he pressed his forehead to hers. “I know that, because you and me, we are the same shade, Hearteater. I knew it the day you stabbed me through the chest while our lips were still locked. I knew it when you looked at me with such hatred, such fury, but never fear . . . not even knowing who I was, and what I had done.” His lips brushed across her cheek. She wasn’t sure she was breathing. “I knew it when you gave up your life for mine, because for you . . . only for you . . . I would do the same.

The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither the Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For Childhood is short—a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day— And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen

That’s the thing. “Why should I have my guns taken off me? I’ve done nothing wrong.” Look, I agree with you. If you’re a responsible gun owner and you don’t fuck around with them, then you should be allowed your guns. You really should. But that’s not how society works. We have to play to the 1% that are such fuckwits they ruin it for the rest of us. We have to walk as slow as our slowest person to keep society fucking moving, right? I take drugs like a fucking champion, right? [Audience cheering] We should all be allowed to take fucking drugs, but we can’t, can we? Because Sarah took drugs and she stabbed her fucking kids. Oh! “Oh, thanks, Sarah. You fucked it up for everyone.” Right? Everyone should be allowed to drive their car as fast as they can do it, right? But we can’t because Jonathan got drunk and ran over a family. “Thanks, Jonathan! Now I have to drive at 30, you fucking idiot!” See, that’s the thing. “Why should I have my guns taken off me, I’m responsible, just because that guy’s crazy?” Who’s to say you’re not crazy? That’s the thing about crazy people. They don’t know they’re crazy. That’s what makes them crazy. The only thing you know for sure on this Earth is, “I think, therefore I am.” You know that you exist. Anything past that is open to interpretation, right? You know you exist and that’s it. Right now, I think I’m in Boston talking to 1,200 people. That’s what I think I’m doing, but there is a good to fair chance that I’m in a mental home, standing in front of a white wall, going, [Slurring speech] “I hate guns. I hate guns. I hate guns.” [Audience applauding]

The defenders retreated, but in good order. A musket flamed and a ball shattered a marine’s collar bone, spinning him around. The soldiers screamed terrible battle-cries as they began their grim job of clearing the defenders off the parapet with quick professional close-quarter work. Gamble trod on a fallen ramrod and his boots crunched on burnt wadding. The French reached steps and began descending into the bastion. 'Bayonets!' Powell bellowed. 'I want bayonets!' 'Charge the bastards!' Gamble screamed, blinking another man's blood from his eyes. There was no drum to beat the order, but the marines and seamen surged forward. 'Tirez!' The French had been waiting, and their muskets jerked a handful of attackers backwards. Their officer, dressed in a patched brown coat, was horrified to see the savage looking men advance unperturbed by the musketry. His men were mostly conscripts and they had fired too high. Now they had only steel bayonets with which to defend themselves. 'Get in close, boys!' Powell ordered. 'A Shawnee Indian named Blue Jacket once told me that a naked woman stirs a man's blood, but a naked blade stirs his soul. So go in with the steel. Lunge! Recover! Stance!' 'Charge!' Gamble turned the order into a long, guttural yell of defiance. Those redcoats and seamen, with loaded weapons discharged them at the press of the defenders, and a man in the front rank went down with a dark hole in his forehead. Gamble saw the officer aim a pistol at him. A wounded Frenchman, half-crawling, tried to stab with his sabre-briquet, but Gamble kicked him in the head. He dashed forward, sword held low. The officer pulled the trigger, the weapon tugged the man's arm to his right, and the ball buzzed past Gamble's mangled ear as he jumped down into the gap made by the marines charge. A French corporal wearing a straw hat drove his bayonet at Gamble's belly, but he dodged to one side and rammed his bar-hilt into the man's dark eyes. 'Lunge! Recover! Stance!

He followed her into the kitchen, then stood dripping in front of the sink. Miranda brought him towels, made a pot of strong coffee, and pulled out Aunt Teeta’s latest homemade confection--bread pudding with rum sauce--which she popped into the microwave. “Great. My favorite.” Nodding approval, Etienne continued towel drying his hair. “Aunt Teeta told me you say that about every single thing she makes.” “And it’s true. They’re all my favorites.” Pausing, he shoved his wet hair back from his face and stared at her, eyes narrowed. “Hey, you okay, cher?” “Well”--Miranda drew a deep breath--“I wasn’t okay just a few minutes ago. But I think I am now.” “Ah. Is that your way of telling me I’m your hero?” Miranda couldn’t resist. “No. It’s my way of telling you that I had a nightmare, but I woke up.” “That’s cruel, cher. You just stabbed me straight in my heart.” “You’ll live.” She watched his lips quirk at the edges, his dark eyes shining with amusement.

Max spread my legs and knelt between them. The tip of his cock pressed against my hole and a shiver ran down my spine. “Oh, fuck. I’ve been thinking about this since the last time.” I had been. The thought of his dick up my ass was firmly rooted in the back of my mind no matter my task. “You mean last night?” He snorted. I lifted my head and saw his reflection; he was smiling. “I…” Max pressed his tip inside me. Yeah, I completely forgot what I was going to say. My whole body clenched up and then relaxed as he gently coaxed his length deeper. “Fuck it all to Earth, that feels amazing.” He kept pushing forward, slowly piercing me. “Yes, yes it does.” I grunted when he went deeper, spreading, filling, overpowering. Then Max leaned over me. He practically laid on me, his front pressed along my back. His hands stretched out, falling over mine and our hands twined together. Being that I was shorter it was the perfect position to hold my hands and fuck me. He softly placed kisses along my shoulder and licked my earlobe. “Elric. I love you.” Those words made me smile as wide as I could. He loved me! Max eased his cock out and then back in. His pace was completely controlled, forcing me to experience unending pleasure as his words swirled in my head. “Max,” I muttered against the blankets. Each thrust made my dick slid against the pants under my hips. I squeezed his hands harder as he humped me. His teeth grazed the back of my neck. He was breathing heavier. His movements were a bit more rushed. My cock was swelling to the brim. Between his beautiful length stabbing me and my dick rubbing along that material, I was going to blow. I could feel the tension building. My balls were tight to my body, the pressure too much. I moaned, meeting Max thrust for thrust. He groaned in my ear. Our warm bodies squirmed against each other. “Oh, yes. Please. Yes.” It felt so good. I had to come. Please, I’m so close. Almost. Almost there. Max went deep in one long, slightly painful move. The mixture sent me right over the edge. I let out a moan too low to hear as my orgasm spilled out. Even as I rutted against the pants Max held still, holding my hands and letting me ride the wave of pleasure. I was in sensation overload as cum sprayed out of my slit. Warm and sticky, I thrusted one last time and then collapsed. Max started again, slowly working his way deeper and then pulling out. Once, twice, then three times. I counted each move as I closed my eyes and savored the feeling of his body over mine. He was like a cocoon of warmth and … cock. Yeah, that sounded accurate. “Max.” He started moving faster, his length slipping in and out of my ass. “Max.” He squeezed my hands and kissed my shoulder. “Max.” He came, his body erupting behind me as he started in a fit of groans. They echoed in the room as he emptied into me. When he slowed to a stop, we both laid there a moment.

Tahari. I stabbed him in front of our kids and now Heaven is mad at me.” Ros

When we are man and wife you will do as I say. You will never speak of this again!” Samuel came forward and loomed over her, his thick breath clouding the air in front of her face. “When you are mine, you will obey me.” “I will not be your wife. I refuse to marry a man who is dishonest.” “I have never been dishonest with you.” Fresh malice boiled in Eliza’s belly. “You said you would not harm Thomas if I promised to return here and marry you, did you not?” “I did.” “So why did you tell Donaldson to burn Thomas’s property after we were married? I refuse to be your wife, since you have rescinded on our agreement.” A monster unleashed before her. Samuel shoved Eliza against Father’s rows of books, their hard covers stabbing into her back just as Samuel’s eyes stabbed into her chest. “If you do not marry me, not only will his house burn, but Thomas will as well.” Eliza’s blood escaped her face and she braced herself as the room twisted around her. “You wouldn’t.” Samuel’s eyes narrowed into small black slits. “I would.” Her bones wanted to crack under the weight of his words and her voice refused to work, but somehow she found her ability to speak. “If I find that you have done anything to him after we are married I will do everything in my power to leave you, make no mistake.” Samuel relaxed his numbing grip, a wicked laugh rumbling in his chest. “You can’t leave me, Eliza. Not after everything I’ve done for you.” “I can, and I will!” Samuel roared and without warning slapped her across the face, causing her to tumble sideways. She hit Father’s chair and landed in a rough heap on the floor. He rushed to her, panic lighting his features, as if it had been someone else who had struck her. “Eliza, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Are you hurt?” A trickle of warm liquid ran down her cheek. He tried to touch her face, but she slapped his hand away. “Don’t you dare touch me.” His face drained of all color and he sputtered as he spoke, his voice quiet. “I’m so sorry, Eliza, I—” “Thomas would have never dreamed of hitting me, Samuel.” She straightened to her full height, breathing in deep heaves. “He lets me speak my mind and ask questions. He believes that what I think matters. He loves me!” Samuel lowered his brow and his tone rumbled in his chest as he shook her shoulders. “You will never speak of Thomas again. Today we will be married, and you will be mine forever and you will love me! As far as you are concerned, Thomas never existed.” The finality of his statement sluiced over her, causing her knees to buckle. She gripped the row of books behind her to steady her stance. “So be it, Samuel Martin,” she said, filling her voice with razors. “But know this, there is only one man that I will ever love—dead or alive. And it will never be you!

Higley was here.” “James Higley?” Thomas’s expression went flat. “You jest.” Nathaniel shook his head. “He was here after church services.” The memory stabbed him anew. “He was looking for Kitty. Said he had urgent business with her...”  He couldn’t bring himself to speak the rest, though Thomas must have deciphered what he did not say for he tipped his head back and released a mocking laugh that shook the walls almost as much as the continuing thunder. “If you believe that Kitty had designs on that man you are truly daft. She only ever cared for you.” “She was working for him, Thomas, can you not see?” With a grimace, Nathaniel pulled back. “’Tis not only that. I am a patriot. Higley is a Tory, a man made of the same cloth as she.” He released his grip on the chair and paced in brooding silence. Suddenly he stopped and pointed at Thomas. “You know, I should be pleased this happened. I should be pleased we discovered her treachery or I might have done something foolish.” Thomas’s expression softened only slightly. “Marrying for love is never foolish.” “Kitty is a traitor to her family, friends and to the people of this town!” “Take your share of the blame, Nathaniel. Your inability to love her despite her different political views—” “Inability to love?” Nathaniel swung the chair aside, his pulse raging. “I have loved Kitty with every pulse of my heart. I have pleaded with her to allow me to share the burdens she carried, and she would not!” He panted as if he’d run for miles. “Higley’s arrival today made everything clear. She refused to open her soul to me because she was working for the enemy, the man to whom she’d already given her heart.” Thomas yanked Nathaniel by the coat and shoved him away. “The only thing that has been made clear is the fact that you are too blinded by jealousy and fear that you cannot see what is clearly in front of you.” Nathaniel

I saw him kissing you.” The blood drained from her face and settled at her feet. The dark barn began to spin. “What?” she breathed. “I saw you at the rally. I saw you running from him.” Bile crept up her throat. Samuel continued. “I tried to get to you, but Watson was there first. I followed you . . . I saw everything.” A pitiful hurt knit his face. Oh, Dear Lord, what have I done. He came closer to her and stroked her arms. “I know you love me, Eliza. We’re meant for one another. I can only assume he’s forced himself upon you and that’s the reason you refuse me, but I don’t want you to worry. When you and I—” “You’re wrong Samuel! He’s done nothing but help and protect me.” He continued his gentleness, tracing her face with his eyes and stroking her arms. “I heard you’d been hurt—stabbed. Is that true? Did he do it because you tried to escape him?” Eliza’s nerves pricked. How much did he know? How long had he been watching them? “No . . . yes . . . no!” The words wouldn’t come quick enough. “I was hurt, very badly, but it wasn’t Thomas who did it. It was the sailors, we saw them . . .” She shook her head and waved her hands in front of her. “It’s too long to explain, but Thomas rescued me. Samuel, he saved my life!” Samuel’s eyes brimmed with emotion. “And for that, I will always be grateful.” His arms encircled her and he brushed his nose against her ear, his lips tracing along her jaw. An icy chill wriggled over her spine as she tried to push away. “Stop, Samuel! Don’t!” He stilled, then stepped away and dropped his lifeless hands at his sides. His features went slack and the muscles in his face ticked. “I care for you Samuel.” Eliza straightened, pulling the shawl back around her shoulders. “But I do not love you. I’m sorry. I don’t believe I ever really did. And how could I marry you now, knowing what you’ve done?” She lifted her chin and straightened her posture. “I love Thomas. We’re to be married.” His face twisted and flooded with red as he stepped forward. Eliza recoiled as his shoulders heaved from his heavy breathing “No. Never! You’re mine, Eliza!” His voice boomed as he spoke through his clenched teeth. He took a step closer reaching his hands toward her, a wicked desperation spinning in his gaze. “I know you are frightened to make such choices in your life. You could never come to a decision this easily. He’s forcing you to do these things. You don’t have to marry him, Eliza. You’re acting so different from the woman I know and love, and it pains me to see it. I will take you away and help you think clearly again.” “I am thinking clearly!” Eliza leaned into her words and clenched her fists, holding her arms rigid at her sides. “Samuel, I love Thomas and I am staying with him. I will be his wife! I’ll not go anywhere with you!” Samuel’s face turned to stone. “Yes. You. Will.” Eliza

Something’s happened to you, my love. That odious man has treated you wrongly, I have no doubt, and filled your mind with his vile rhetoric. I’m so sorry, Eliza. You must get away from here and back to your home where you can recover and begin to think properly again. I’m ready to take you away this instant.” Eliza shook her head and tried to answer but he stopped her with his finger on her lips. His eyes narrowed and his wounded tone carried fire. “I saw him kissing you.” The blood drained from her face and settled at her feet. The dark barn began to spin. “What?” she breathed. “I saw you at the rally. I saw you running from him.” Bile crept up her throat. Samuel continued. “I tried to get to you, but Watson was there first. I followed you . . . I saw everything.” A pitiful hurt knit his face. Oh, Dear Lord, what have I done. He came closer to her and stroked her arms. “I know you love me, Eliza. We’re meant for one another. I can only assume he’s forced himself upon you and that’s the reason you refuse me, but I don’t want you to worry. When you and I—” “You’re wrong Samuel! He’s done nothing but help and protect me.” He continued his gentleness, tracing her face with his eyes and stroking her arms. “I heard you’d been hurt—stabbed. Is that true? Did he do it because you tried to escape him?” Eliza’s nerves pricked. How much did he know? How long had he been watching them? “No . . . yes . . . no!” The words wouldn’t come quick enough. “I was hurt, very badly, but it wasn’t Thomas who did it. It was the sailors, we saw them . . .” She shook her head and waved her hands in front of her. “It’s too long to explain, but Thomas rescued me. Samuel, he saved my life!” Samuel’s eyes brimmed with emotion. “And for that, I will always be grateful.” His arms encircled her and he brushed his nose against her ear, his lips tracing along her jaw. An icy chill wriggled over her spine as she tried to push away. “Stop, Samuel! Don’t!” He stilled, then stepped away and dropped his lifeless hands at his sides. His features went slack and the muscles in his face ticked. “I care for you Samuel.” Eliza straightened, pulling the shawl back around her shoulders. “But I do not love you. I’m sorry. I don’t believe I ever really did. And how could I marry you now, knowing what you’ve done?” She lifted her chin and straightened her posture. “I love Thomas. We’re to be married.” His face twisted and flooded with red as he stepped forward. Eliza recoiled as his shoulders heaved from his heavy breathing “No. Never! You’re mine, Eliza!” His voice boomed as he spoke through his clenched teeth. He took a step closer reaching his hands toward her, a wicked desperation spinning in his gaze. “I know you are frightened to make such choices in your life. You could never come to a decision this easily. He’s forcing you to do these things. You don’t have to marry him, Eliza. You’re acting so different from the woman I know and love, and it pains me to see it. I will take you away and help you think clearly again.” “I am thinking clearly!” Eliza leaned into her words and clenched her fists, holding her arms rigid at her sides. “Samuel, I love Thomas and I am staying with him. I will be his wife! I’ll not go anywhere with you!” Samuel’s face turned to stone. “Yes. You. Will.” Eliza

I love the way David put it in Psalm 23, verse 5: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (NKJV). God will not only avenge you and make your wrongs right, but He will also bless you in front of your enemies. He could promote you anywhere, but He’ll promote you in front of those trying to make you look bad. He’ll give you favor, honor, and recognition. One day those who stabbed you in the back will watch you receive the credit you deserve. Knowing that God prepares the table for us in the presence of our enemies keeps me from being discouraged when people talk unfavorably of me. You see, I know God just sent the angels to the grocery store. If somebody lies about you, no big deal. You can see Gabriel setting the table. Your critics can see the meal on God’s table, but they aren’t invited to the party. They’ll have to watch you enjoy what God has prepared for you. They will watch as you are promoted. Be ready. If you’ve done the right thing and overlooked offenses and negative words and blessed your enemies, then know God’s table is set. Your dinner is ready. It’s just a matter of time before you’re seated at the table. Your enemies may try to spoil the party by stealing your joy. They’ll plant doubts, but shake them off. The dinner bell will ring for you at any moment. Those hindering you, trying to bring you down, will see you stepping to a new level. They will see God’s favor and goodness enter your life in a greater way.

You choose this moment to act like the Abnegation?” His voice fills the room and makes fear prickle in my chest. His anger seems too sudden. Too strange. “All that time you spent insisting that you were too selfish for them, and now, when your life is on the line, you’ve got to be a hero? What’s wrong with you?” “What’s wrong with you? People died. They walked right off the edge of a building! And I can stop it from happening again!” “You’re too important to just…die.” He shakes his head. He won’t even look at me--his eyes keep shifting across my face, to the wall behind me or the ceiling above me, to everything but me. I am too stunned to be angry. “I’m not important. Everyone will do just fine without me,” I say. “Who cares about everyone? What about me?” He lowers his head into his hand, covering his eyes. His fingers are trembling. Then he crosses the room in two long strides and touches his lips to mine. Their gentle pressure erases the past few months, and I am the girl who sat on the rocks next to the chasm, with river spray on her ankles, and kissed him for the first time. I am the girl who grabbed his hand in the hallway just because I wanted to. I pull back, my hand on his chest to keep him away. The problem is, I am also the girl who shot Will and lied about it, and chose between Hector and Marlene, and now a thousand other things besides. And I can’t erase those things. “You would be fine.” I don’t look at him. I stare at his T-shirt between my fingers and the black ink curling around his neck, but I don’t look at his face. “Not at first. But you would move on, and do what you have to.” He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against him. “That’s a lie,” he says, before he kisses me again. This is wrong. It’s wrong to forget who I have become, and to let him kiss me when I know what I’m about to do. But I want to. Oh, I want to. I stand on my tiptoes and wrap my arms around him. I press one hand between his shoulder blades and curl the other one around the back of his neck. I can feel his breaths against my palm, his body expanding and contracting, and I know he’s strong, steady, unstoppable. All things I need to be, but I am not, I am not. He walks backward, pulling me with him so I stumble. I stumble right out of my shoes. He sits on the edge of the bed and I stand in front of him, and we’re finally eye to eye. He touches my face, covering my cheeks with his hands, sliding his fingertips down my neck, fitting his fingers to the slight curve of my hips. I can’t stop. I fit my mouth to his, and he tastes like water and smells like fresh air. I drag my hand from his neck to the small of his back, and put it under his shirt. He kisses me harder. I knew he was strong; I didn’t know how strong until I felt it myself, the muscles in his back tightening beneath my fingers. Stop, I tell myself. Suddenly it’s as if we’re in a hurry, his fingertips brushing my side under my shirt, my hands clutching at him, struggling closer but there is no closer. I have never longed for someone this way, or this much. He pulls back just enough to look into my eyes, his eyelids lowered. “Promise me,” he whispers, “that you won’t go. For me. Do this one thing for me.” Could I do that? Could I stay here, fix things with him, let someone else die in my place? Looking up at him, I believe for a moment that I could. And then I see Will. The crease between his eyebrows. The empty, simulation-bound eyes. The slumped body. Do this one thing for me. Tobias’s dark eyes plead with me. But if I don’t go to Erudite, who will? Tobias? It’s the kind of thing he would do. I feel a stab of pain in my chest as I lie to him. “Okay.” “Promise,” he says, frowning. The pain becomes an ache, spreads everywhere--all mixed together, guilt and terror and longing. “I promise.

Ruger and I had different definitions of what normal, appropriate behavior looked like. For one, I felt that long-term relationships should be monogamous. He felt they should be monogamous for me and open for him. Another issue? My parties usually wound down when people ran out of food and got tired. His occasionally ended with stabbings and high-speed chases. And last, but certainly not least, I tended to think sex should be private. He liked rubbing his sperm on my stomach in front of his friends after branding me with hickies.

Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up—take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.

Yet again, you entered a home without taking a moment to see if you were truly alone,” the god said, and my gaze flew to his. The eather swirled even more wildly in his eyes. “That was incredibly reckless. Don’t ever do that again.” My lips parted on a harsh exhale. “I…I just stabbed you in the chest, and that is what you have to say?” “No. I was getting to that.” Tilting his head to the side, dark hair slid across his cheek. “You stabbed me.” “I did.” I took another step back, throat now too dry to swallow. “In the chest,” he tacked on. The front of his tunic was torn, but there was no stain of blood. Nothing. If it weren’t for the smear on the blade, I wouldn’t have believed I had actually done it. “Almost in my heart.” A tremble ran through my hands. “Well, it seems it had very little impact on you.” Which was terrifying on a whole other level. “It stung,” he growled, head straightening. “Deeply.” “Sorry?” His chin lowered. “You are not sorry.

Dragon’s eyes narrowed on him in instant hatred. “Phantom. Stab anyone in the back lately?” The look on Phantom’s face was one of pure evil. “Never, Dragon. I only stab from the front so that I can see the expression on my victim’s face while he dies. Care for me to demonstrate?

Maggie had no clue that looking at her was like being stabbed in the gut. No clue that she ripped my heart to pieces by just standing in front of me. This girl had no clue that her very existence shredded my soul.

From Gotera they took me to the National Guard headquarters in San Salvador. They held me there for almost two weeks, torturing me and denying me food. There were electric shocks and other things they did that I’d like to forget. Then they sent me to the National Police where it was another dozen days of the same kind of cruelty, maybe worse. They beat me all over my body, stabbing me with an ice pick to make me bleed. When I was full of holes they held a mirror in front of me so that I’d be terrified at the sight of myself and start giving them the names of the “subversive” priests.

My teeth clatter in my mouth as everything ripples and shudders in the storm of shells, whining, whizzing. The kid on the bicycle rolls out of sight. Untouched. A miracle. A dream. The shells abruptly cease and there is only the settling creak of the car seat, a scatter of twittering birds in the shrubs and trees. I could use some gum. Where do you buy gum so early besides the service station? It seems wrong to go there since we don't need any gasoline. We don't drive enough. A tank of gas lasts us forever. I get behind the wheel and in the mirror I can see my eyelids fluttering. I sit squeezing the steering wheel until I realize I haven't started the engine. The garage conceals me. I don't want to go out into the open. A horse whinnys – are they bringing up the artillery? It's the farm field where old Wallam tills a little garden, his yard is the biggest and runs alongside the back of ours to the farm where his family has their orchards. What's wrong with me? Sounds of explosions, bullets, voices of men. Volleys. I smell smoke. Burning things, festering ruptured corpses with maggots pulsing under horrible skin and the shells, the horse, it's hit, it shrieks, explodes apart – can we pull the gun by hand? The crew is dead too, bullets are making their bodies jump even after they have broken apart like smashed holiday nuts. I want to scream. Maybe I am? I begin breathing rapidly. I don't know how long I am there but I hear the screen door open and I key the ignition. “Car troubles?” Mr. Kincaid calls out to me from the front porch. “No troubles,” I say setting my arm out the window and holding the mirror to keep my hand steady. “Lovely day.” The sun was really rising, taking the temperature up with it, hot shards of searing light coming over the treetops to stab at everything that couldn't find the shade. I couldn't find the shade.

As we started our long drive back to the zoo, we stopped at what could be called a general store. There was a pub attached to the establishment, and the store itself sold a wide variety of goods, groceries, cooking utensils, swags, clothing, shoes, even toys. As we picked up supplies in the shop, we passed the open doorway to the pub. A few of the patrons recognized Steve from television. We could hear them talking about him. The comments weren’t exactly positive. Steve didn’t look happy. “Let’s just get out of here,” I whispered. “Right-o,” he said. One of the pub patrons was louder than the others. “I’m a crocodile hunter too,” he bragged. “Only I’m the real crocodile hunter. The real one, you hear me, mate?” The braggart made his living at the stuffy trade, he informed his audience. A stuffy is a baby crocodile mounted by a taxidermist to be sold as a souvenir. To preserve their skins, hunters killed stuffys in much the same way that the bear poachers in Oregon stabbed their prey. “We drive screwdrivers right through their eyes,” Mister Stuffy boasted, eyeing Steve through the doorway of the pub. “Right through the bloody eye sockets!” He was feeling his beer. We gathered up our purchases and headed out to the Ute. Okay, I said to myself, we’re going to make it. Just two or three more steps… Steve turned around and headed back toward the pub. I’d never seen him like that before. My husband changed into somebody I didn’t know. His eyes glared, his face flushed, and his lower lip trembled. I followed him to the threshold of the pub. “Why don’t you blokes come outside and tell me all about stuffys in the car park here?” he said. I couldn’t see very well in the darkness of the pub interior, but I knew there were six or eight drinkers with Mister Stuffy. I thought, What is going to happen here? There didn’t seem any possible good outcomes. The pub drinkers stood up and filed out to face Steve. A half dozen against one. Steve chose the biggest one, who Mister Stuffy seemed to be hiding behind. “Bring it on, mate,” Steve said. “Or are you only tough enough to take on baby crocs, you son of a bitch?” Then Steve seemed to grow. I can’t explain it. His fury made him tower over a guy who actually had a few inches of height on him and outweighed him with a whole beer gut’s worth of weight. I couldn’t imagine how he appeared to the pub drinkers, but he was scaring me. They backed down. All six of them. Not one wanted to muck with Steve, who was clearly out of his mind with anger. All the world’s croc farms, all the cruelty and ignorance that made animals suffer the world over, came to a head in the car park of the pub that evening. Steve got into the truck. We drove off, and he didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t understand,” I finally said in the darkness of the front seat, as the bush landscape rolled by us. “What were they talking about? Were they killing crocs in the wild? Or were they croc farmers?” I heard a small exhalation from Steve’s side of the truck. I couldn’t see his face in the gloom. I realized he was crying. I was astounded. This was the man I had just seen turn into a furious monster. Five minutes earlier I’d been convinced I was about to see him take on a half-dozen blokes bare-fisted. Now he wept in the darkness. All at once, he sat up straight. With his jaw set, he wiped the tears from his face and composed himself. “I’ve known bastards like that all my life,” he said. “Some people don’t just do evil. Some people are evil.” He had told me before, but that night in the truck it hit home: Steve lived for wildlife and he would die for wildlife. He came by his convictions sincerely, from the bottom of his heart. He was more than just my husband that night. He was my hero.

What’s going to happen to Wes?” She lifted her eyes steadily to her brother’s, but she didn’t answer at once. “I don’t know. He’s admitted himself into a drug treatment program.” “Why?” Bud asked. Again she paused. “For drug treatment. It’s not unusual for some of those traders to get hooked on... You know... Uppers?” It was stated as a question. And Preacher thought, it was meth. It wasn’t a little bitty innocent drug. “And you couldn’t do anything about that?” “Like what, Bud?” she returned. “I don’t know. Like help him with that. I mean, what did you have to do?” Paige put down her fork and glared into her brother’s eyes. “No, Bud. I couldn’t help with that. It was completely beyond my control.” Bud tilted his eyes toward his lettuce, stabbed a piece with his fork and muttered, “Maybe you could’ve kept your stupid mouth shut.” Preacher’s fork went down sharply. And Preacher, who rarely used profanity and only in the most heated moments, said, “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Bud’s eyes snapped up to Preacher’s face. His jaw ground and he scowled. “She tell you she had six thousand square feet and a pool?” Preacher glanced at Paige, Paige glanced at Preacher and then swiveled her eyes slowly to Bud. She spoke to Preacher while she looked at Bud and said, “My brother doesn’t understand. The size of the house you live in has nothing to do with anything.” “The hell,” Bud said. “I’m just saying, there are times to keep your mouth shut, that’s all I’m saying. You had it fucking made.” It took every red blood cell in Preacher’s body to stay in his chair. He wanted to shout, He beat her up in the street in front of me! He killed their baby with his foot! He was squeezing and releasing his fork with such tension, he was unaware he was bending it. It wasn’t his right to speak out; he was a guest. He didn’t see himself as Bud’s guest, he was Paige’s guest. He got a sick feeling in his stomach at the thought he could’ve dropped her here for a visit, alone. He felt his blood pressure going up; his temples were pulsing. “Bud, he was abusive.” “Jesus Christ, you had a few problems. The guy was loaded, for Christ’s sake!” Preacher thought he might explode, his heated blood was expanding so fast. He could hear his own heartbeat. And he felt a small, light hand on top of his coiled fist. He raised his eyes and met the dull, nervous stare of Paige’s mother, pleadingly looking at him from across the table. “Bud doesn’t mean exactly that,” she said. “It’s just that we’ve never had a divorce in the family. I raised the kids to understand, you have to try to get beyond the problems.” “Everyone has problems,” Gin said, nodding. Those same eyes. Begging. Preacher didn’t think he could do it. Sit through it. He was pretty sure he’d never get to the steak without shoving Bud up against the wall and challenging him to keep his mouth shut through something like his fists. The struggle was, that was like Wes. Get mad, take it to the mat. Beat the living shit out of someone. Someone you could beat into submission real easy. “They weren’t problems,” Paige said insistently. “He was violent.” “Aw, Jesus Christ,” Bud said, lifting his beer. A

shock of excitement, of exhilaration, ran through me like a lightning strike, and my heart galloped against my ribs as his fingers tightened and his lips brushed over mine. "I told you not to get dressed, angel," he murmured, his grip just a fraction away from cutting off my air, but loose enough that I could still reply. "What are you gonna do about it, then?" Silly question. Cass kept his grip on my throat but circled around behind me until my back was pressed to his chest once more. Slowly, letting me anticipate his actions, he reached out and plucked a fileting knife from the block on the counter. Then, in a series of quick, precise cuts, he shredded my bodysuit but left my gun holster intact. "I swear," he murmured in my ear, "I've never seen a woman make weapons look so fucking hot." Satisfied with the way he'd destroyed my bodysuit, he stabbed his knife point first into the wooden cutting board in front of me.

pulled my sword out and jumped across the table, ready to stab Herobrine in the heart. John watched my antics with a chill expression. Herobrine simply raised his hand and snapped his fingers and a rock wall appeared right in front of me on the table. I couldn’t stop in time and smashed into it, almost knocking myself out. Biff reached across the table and dragged my carcass back to my seat. I sat there in a daze. The rock wall disappeared and Herobrine continued as if nothing had happened.

Block, here,” Valen said, adjusting the wooden practice sword in front of Ellis’s narrow chest. “Now, tell me, what areas do you guard at all times?” “Head, heart, and manhood!” Ellis shouted. Valen shot a glare at Halvar who barked a laugh. With a sigh, Valen placed the practice sword over the boy’s middle. “Close, but you protect your innards. Don’t listen to fools, boy.” “Fools!” Halvar said, wiping his eyes. “Would you want to take a stab there?

Puppers crouched down in front of me. He was a bit blurry. It must’ve been the steam coming off my mug of chocolate. “Are you crying, Lucia?” I’m not crying! Legend’s never cry! “I’m going to stab you.” “I didn’t see anything,” Puppers said.

J-Just m-my throat,’ I stuttered, my lips quivering from the cold. ‘Let's get you out of here, then,’ Marcel said. He slid his arms under me and lifted me without effort-like picking up an empty box. His chest was bare and warm; he hunched his shoulders to keep the rain off me. My head lolled over his arm. I stared vacantly back toward the furious water, beating the sand behind him. ‘You got her?’ I heard Sam ask. ‘Yeah, I'll take it from here. Get back to the hospital. I'll join you later. Thanks, Sam.’ My head was still rolling. None of his words sunk in at first. Sam didn't answer. There was no sound, and I wondered if he were already gone. The water licked and writhed up the sand after us as Marcel carried me away like it was angry that I'd escaped. As I stared wearily, a spark of color caught my unfocused eyes-a a small flash of fire was dancing on the black water, far out in the bay. The image made no sense, and I wondered how conscious I was. My head swirled with the memory of the black, churning water of being so lost that I couldn't find up or down. So, lost… but somehow Marcel… ‘How did you find me?’ I rasped. ‘I was searching for you,’ he told me. He was half-jogging through the rain, up the beach toward the road. ‘I followed the tire tracks to your truck, and then I heard you scream…’ He shuddered. ‘Why would you jump, Bell? Didn't you notice that it's turning into a hurricane out here? Couldn't you have waited for me?’ Anger filled his tone as the relief faded. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘It was stupid.’ ‘Yeah, it was really stupid,’ he agreed, drops of rain shaking free of his hair as he nodded. ‘Look, do you mind saving the stupid stuff for when I'm around? I won't be able to concentrate if I think you're jumping off cliffs behind my back.’ ‘Sure,’ I agreed. ‘No problem.’ I sounded like a chain-smoker. I tried to clear my throat and then winced; the throat-clearing felt like stabbing a knife down there. ‘What happened today? Did you… find her?’ It was my turn to shudder, though I wasn't so cold here, right next to his ridiculous body heat. Marcel shook his head. He was still more running than walking as he headed up the road to his house. ‘No. She took off into the water-the bloodsuckers have the advantage there. That's why I raced home- I was afraid she was going to double back swimming. You spend so much time on the beach…’ He trailed off, a catch in his throat. ‘Sam came back with you… is everyone else home, too?’ I hoped they weren’t still out searching for her. ‘Yeah. Sort of.’ I tried to read his expression, squinting into the hammering rain. His eyes were tight with worry or pain. The words that hadn't made sense before suddenly did. ‘You said… hospital. Before, to Sam. Is someone hurt? Did she fight you?’ My voice jumped up an octave, sounding strange with the hoarseness. Marcel’s eyes tightened again. ‘It doesn't look so great right now.’ Abruptly, I felt sick with guilt-felt truly horrible about the brainless cliff dive. Nobody needed to be worrying about me right now. What a stupid time to be reckless. ‘What can I do?’ I asked. At that moment the rain stopped. I hadn't realized we were already back at Marcel’s house until he walked through the door. The storm pounded against the roof. ‘You can stay here,’ Marcel said as he dumped me on the short couch. ‘I mean it right here I'll get you some dry clothes.’ I let my eyes adjust to the darkroom while Marcel banged around in his bedroom. The cramped front room seemed so empty without Billy, almost desolate. It was strangely ominous-probably just because I knew where he was. Marcel was back in seconds. He threw a pile of gray cotton at me. ‘These will be huge on you, but it's the best I've got. I'll-a, step outside so you can change.’ ‘Don't go anywhere. I'm too tired to move yet. Just stay with me.

Poem - Freedom XCIII From the divine orgy The suicidal came But what gods would Be? If not ashes From a forgotten Fenix “I believed in the love Of a fallen angel And as an ashen maggot Which crawls on Christ’s Dirty wounds He stabbed me But the Devil laughed And danced by my side He showed me his helping hand So I could live another day Depression probed me On the house’s dark corners And every time The Devil slept She would come to torment me I screamed and cried in despair But no god could hear me (…) The anxiety would proclaim curses That not even Judas would dare; Bent in my knees With antidepressants in my hands I threw myself at an abysm of a Insanity overdose I crossed the same path as Christ Where he carried the human’s cross And I found him hanged In a tree of lies With a note at his feet- Dance with me And I’ll give you the strength to keep going- Believe in the beast which lives Inside the men And light in you the morning star’s light I got up Drowning in my own blood And proclaimed My scream of freedom- of love! I only want orgies! – From gods I only want the human corruption The deaf depression Which crawled in my disgusting dreams As I proclaimed In front of the mirror of life My desire to live And without noticing She put a rope around my neck… I feel my body struggling In a deep despair Today I die! But I’ll tell Christ That his sons did not honored his suicide Today! I die for myself When the pigs grunt And the wolves howl I’ll be free from life! Which I was condemned to live - Gerson De Rodrigues

Wake her, Gregori,” Mikhail demanded, dragging Raven into his arms. Very gently he cradled her to his chest, rocking her with his body. Gregori complied as his form shimmered translucent, and then took shape beside Mikhail. For the first time there was a hint of anxiety in Gregori’s pale eyes, although there was hard arrogance stamped on his harshly handsome features. Raven blinked, and took a moment to focus. Her breath caught in her throat, and fear leapt into her enormous, expressive eyes. That look stabbed through Mikhail as nothing else might had done. “Csitri--little one.” He breathed the endearment softly, his breath warm against her ear. “Do not ever fear me.” She pressed away from him. “I don’t know you,” she whispered, her voice strangled and raw, her eyes on his bloodstained hands. Mikhail frowned and looked down at his hands. There was no blood there; he had bathed his body in the cleansing energy of the white-hot heat. No blood could remain on him. Vampire blood burned like acid--yet she still saw the scenes from the battle. He glanced at Gregori with a small frown of inquiry. Gregori shook his head in puzzlement. Raven seemed light and insubstantial in Mikhail’s arms, as if she might fade away to nothing. She needed nourishment and care. Very carefully Mikhail touched her mind. His skull exploded with pain. Her mind was a maze of fragments, desperately holding on to her sanity. She feared him, but even more, she was afraid to trust her own judgment. Fragments of the battle, of Mikhail standing in front of Andre, haunted her mind. Her blue-violet gaze, so confused, so frantic and bewildered, sought and found Monique. She gave a small inarticulate cry and strained toward her. Mikhail’s body went rigid. He turned his head slowly in the direction of her pleading gaze. Monique huddled beside her husband, her horrified eyes on Mikhail and the men crowding beside him. Mikhail forced down the wildness of his nature and his resentment of the humans that Raven would turn to for comfort rather than him. For one long moment his black gaze rested on the male who had dared to put his hands around Raven’s throat and tried to end her life. Power pulsed in the room. Tension stretched into terror. You are not helping, Gregori pointed out. And I must say, this is strange to be the one cautioning you against violence. Very funny. But the exchange eased some of the ferocious need to retaliate in him.

Merle took off to hide his front end under a dining room chair, ass in the air like always, as I scooped up the shoe he’d been gnawing on like a damn rawhide bone. “Just a shoe?” I asked in a deadly-quiet voice. “Just a shoe? This is a goddamned Manolo Blahnik! It cost four hundred and seventeen dollars!” I stared down at the ravaged shoe in my hand and felt a whimper bubble up from my chest. I swear to God, I was this close to crying as I looked down at my poor, ruined baby. “Holy shit! You paid four hundred and seventeen dollars for a pair of friggin’ shoes?” Trevor asked in astonishment. “Are you insane!” “Nooo, I said this shoe cost four hundred and seventeen dollars. As a pair, they cost eight thirty-five!” I shouted like the math made the situation more understandable. “Fuck me, cher. It’s a shoe. You walk around with it on your foot; you don’t live in the damn thing! You’re telling me that ugly-ass thing cost more than I paid in rent for a month at my apartment?” I sucked in an audible gasp. How dare he call my precious ugly. “Take it back,” I whispered. “What?” Trevor looked at me like I was a crazy person. “Take it back. This shoe is not ugly. It’s stunning,” I said, holding it to my chest and giving it a loving stroke. He let out a sarcastic grunt and eyeballed the pump like it was garbage. “Not so stunning covered in dog slobber,” he laughed. And I was a second away from stabbing him with the chewed-up stiletto heel. Those shoes deserved to be praised. They deserved to be worn to the most expensive restaurants and balls and red carpet premiers! And they deserved to be buried with dignity in the backyard under my pretty oak tree. And I didn’t think I was being ridiculous at all!