Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies > Books: awesome-guy‎ (58)

“You haven’t gone off your meds or whatever, have you?” he asked quietly.
Lilah’s face fell in disbelief. “Are you really asking me that?”
“Like I said, I’m worried about you,” Carter said.
Lilah didn’t answer.

“You’ve got a spark in you. Like a drive, you know what I mean? I’m always so worried about doing the right thing that I wouldn’t have dared do that without you.”

you haven’t gone off your meds or whatever, have you?” he asked quietly.
Lilah’s face fell in disbelief. “Are you really asking me that?”
It occurred to Carter that she hadn’t answered his question.

In her manic exhaustion, she searched down the phone numbers not only of Melissa, but also of the Coral Gables coach and the principal of the school. She’d called them so many times that they’d reported her to Coach Randolph and Lilah had been kicked off the team.

She quickly covered her cuts with her hand. “I thought you were going to leave me. After what I did,” she said.
The thought of what she might do if he broke up with her sent a cold spike plunging through his heart.

She knew he wasn’t criticizing her—he was just trying to be funny, or cute or something. But she couldn’t help but feel like he should have just said thank you.

So she took another swig of rum and Coke. She couldn’t get drunk fast enough. It was the only way she knew how to escape the feeling that everyone here was laughing at her behind her back.

Whether or not he wanted to admit it to himself, it was the first time he breathed all night.

He relaxed a tick. He couldn’t help it. She was so comfortable with herself—you could see it in her posture, in her easy conversation, in the way she was able to look at the things outside herself without worrying about how they related to her—that she put him at ease.

“WHYD U MAKE ME GO TO THAT PARTY?” it said.

“It’s okay. I don’t expect you to all of a sudden be my boyfriend. I understand. You’ve been with her forever. I don’t want to be the girl who broke up the class couple.”

What she felt was fear. And rage. And a despair so huge and heavy she felt like it might smother her, weigh her down, pull her into the ground, where she’d be buried forever.

She struggled with all her might to stop the tears from falling down her cheeks. She understood that he felt he had been wronged. But didn’t he understand that she’d been wronged, too? She ached all over from how badly she’d been wronged.

She regretted every single thing she’d done, and her regret made her hate herself and her self-hatred filled her with an uncontrollable need to hear Carter tell her that everything was okay.

“No. You don’t get to decide when I calm down.” Another surge of rage and she went at him with all the strength she contained. When he held her off with a stiff arm, she clamped her fingers into his arm and dug into his skin with her nails. He’d hurt her; why shouldn’t she hurt him back?

She’s so anxious, though. She needs me so much.” He furrowed his eyebrows. “And she holds on so tightly that she doesn’t realize she’s...killing us.”
Jules felt for him. She understood his fear. Walking away from love was hard—even if the love was bad.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” he said.

“So, look. Things with Lilah are—I don’t even know what they are. We’re going to talk later this afternoon. So, we’ll see. I need to figure things out in my head . . . and . . .” He blushed. “I mean, I should get my shit together before I start messing with yours. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to Lilah. You know what I mean? I shouldn’t be starting new things with new people when I’m in the middle of a great big confusing thing already.”

“I get it. Hey, I don’t want to get involved in some crazy cheating thing, either.”
“So,” he said. “Friends?”
She wanted to take his hand in hers and tell him to let her know if he changed his mind. But she knew better than to do that.
Instead, she smirked. “Friends,” she said.

“Did you hear me?” she said. “It’s not your fault. You don’t have to own problems he’s created for himself. Okay?”
Jules nodded.
“But,” her mom said, arching her eyebrows, “be careful. Guys with girlfriends...they have no idea what they want. And they’ll charm you into thinking that it doesn’t matter. You should know that by now, given the example I’ve set for you.”
“I know,” Jules said. “You’re right. It’s just...”
Jules’s mom patted her hand, and then gave it a playful squeeze. “It’s just that they’re so hard to resist,” she said.
They smiled at each other, almost but not quite ashamed of this truth.

“Kind of funny when you think about it, us believing we had to protect a dude from you,” Tall said. “In a fe

“Kind of funny when you think about it, us believing we had to protect a dude from you,” Tall said. “In a few weeks we can all grab a cheeseburger together and laugh about this. A hot chick like you couldn’t possibly be a vampire. Seriously, though, you might want to cut down on the black garb.”

“Not that you were in any way ‘asking for it,’” Tall said. “A woman can wear whatever she chooses without fear of being mistaken for a fiendish bloodsucking nightwalker. But have you thought green? Green would look great with your eyes.”

The unicorn stood between the dumpsters. He sparkled like a horse-shaped disco ball. His traditional spiral horn beamed like a toy light saber.

Pearl burst out laughing. “Seriously? A unicorn? Please.”

“Why are you here? Are you dumpster diving?” Pearl asked. “I can see how the horn would be useful in sorting through trash. But is that really appropriate behavior for a mythical creature? Shouldn’t you be eating honey and sunshine?”

“Shh,” she said. “Nearly dawn. No time for talking.” Snuggling against him, she continued to feed him ice cream. He swallowed mechanically, as if her proximity erased all brain function. Pearl pressed closer and pushed his straggly hair back away from his neck.
And then she extended her fangs and sank them into his jugular.

...his propensity to chew off birds’ heads was much more unsettling than the puckering on his cheeks.

I should release him, she thought. Let the puppy run free.
Pearl shook her head. Where on earth had that thought come from? He wasn’t a puppy; he was a walking Happy Meal. Had she really just worried about how her snack felt? Seriously?

Colored light tinted her pale skin, and Pearl raised her arm and turned it over to watch the stained-glass light dance over her blue veins and bring hints of color into the whiteness, as if her skin were Formica.
Well, look at that, she thought. I’m a sparkly vampire.

“You want me to find the king’s dinner in daylight?” Pearl guessed.
“Precisely,” Mother said.
Daddy smiled. “We want you to attend high school.”

He’d chosen a chair by the window. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the dust to create distinct rays so it appeared as if he were highlighted by a halo of angelic light. If he’d been trying to stage it to catch her eye, he couldn’t have planned it better.

She watched as Ashlyn strode across the cafetorium with all the confidence of a vampire...and Pearl wondered if that was it, if it was the confidence that she radiated that was the source of her power.
If that’s all it takes, Pearl thought, then I’m going to rule this place.

“Are you kidding?” Bethany said. “She’s, like, a hero!” With shining eyes, she turned to Pearl. “You are exactly what this school needs.”
“How convenient,” Pearl said, “since this school is exactly what I need.”

As the sun sank into the horizon, Pearl trudged home without having seen a single sparkly hoofprint or rainbowed poop pile. It wasn’t as if she’d expected unicorn wuz here graffiti...Okay, yes, that would have been nice.

Hating herself for what she was about to say, Pearl blurted out the words: “I need help.”
So softly that Pearl was certain she wasn’t meant to hear it, Evan whispered, “And lo, Hell freezes over.”

She swallowed hard and tried to force the achy feeling to stop. No matter how lovely the words were, these people didn’t understand, and she couldn’t stay.
Staying could destroy her more thoroughly than a stake through the heart ever could.

Upstairs was the perfect suburban home: couches and TV in the living room, marble counters and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, and color-coordinated lacy bedrooms. Downstairs, hidden from human view, was a catacomb of tunnels and rooms that included sleeping chambers, training rooms, torture rooms, a few storage areas, and the treasury.

Their clan was rising in prominence. Daddy owned real estate throughout western Connecticut, including multiple businesses in Hartford, and Mother had a head for business that rivaled any CEO’s.

You didn’t sit down to tea with someone you were about to punish, but then she’d once seen Mother wait an entire week before slicing off the toe of a distant relative who had crossed into their territory without permission.

Their dinner had been presented on a bed of lettuce. Carrots had been stuck in candelabras on either side of the boy’s torso, and his hands had been positioned to hold a decorative cabbage as if it were a bride’s bouquet. He wore a bellhop uniform.

Pearl didn’t want to adjust. She wanted humans to revert to being merely meals again. She wanted to stop pretending to fit in. She wanted to return to being the ordinary child she was born to be, not a special miracle charged with this impossible task.

Others around her nodded wisely, and a few laughed outright. Pearl realized what she was seeing: a shift in power. Ashlyn had shown weakness, and others were jockeying for her position. She wondered how malleable the social hierarchy was and how far Ashlyn would tumble.

...She elected to simply wait the girl out.
It didn’t take long.
Every time Jadrien swung Laurie, his eyes sought out Pearl. Every time he nuzzled her hair, he looked at Pearl. Every time he curled his lips and pulled her close, he watched only Pearl. After a few minutes Laurie noticed that Jadrien’s attention was fixed elsewhere.

Pearl left the office feeling dazed. Mrs. Kerry at the front desk waved at her as she half walked and half stumbled back toward class. Glancing over her shoulder multiple times, she watched for an attack that never came.

“What’s wrong with me?” Pearl asked. How would she ever undo what she’d done?
Evan touched her shoulder. “Maybe it’s not that there’s something wrong with you,” he said. “Maybe there’s something finally right.”

“Surrender?” she said.
“To you,” he said, “I surrender my heart and soul.”
She rolled her eyes. “Very romantic, considering you have neither.”

“I’m tired of games, Jadrien,” she said. “I play them all night and now all day. But you know what?” She stepped closer to him. “If I have to play...I play to win. You should know that about me by now.”

“How about you?” she asked. “You seem to have everything under control. What are your issues?”
“At the moment just you.” His voice was serious. “I have a bit of a hero complex, you see, and you need saving.”

The strange staring contests. The lack of parents. And the missing blood. Oh God, the missing blood. How could I be so stupid? Th

The strange staring contests. The lack of parents. And the missing blood. Oh God, the missing blood. How could I be so stupid? They’re vampires, or at least under a number of severe delusions.

Jesus, Sophie, the guy’s name is Vlad.

Marisabel just shrugs, rolling on her back to stare up at an open copy of Twilight.

“This is not right at all,” she says. “Edward is dreamy, though. Maybe you could get some tips.”

I can imagine the expressions that flicker across my face; there’s the “Crap, she is a vampire,” followed by “Crap, I am not supposed to know she is a vampire,” followed by “Crap, I think she just realized that I still know she is a vampire.”

“Like I said, I love everything you’re doing, but our school paper is generally supposed to be less investigative and more...”
“Fluff?”
“Celebratory. It’s not that your article on the health code violations committed by lunch ladies in the cafeteria wasn’t stellar—it was—but I think we are ruffling too many feathers. I also think they spit in my soup when I’m not looking.”

Vlad is hot. Vlad is cool. Vlad has a silver Hummer with tinted windows and he offered to drive Caroline around in it. Vlad is rich. Vlad’s parents are away on business in Europe, so he has the house to himself. And yes, he’s delighted that they let his friends come stay with him this semester so he wouldn’t be lonely.

“They already like me, Neville,” Vlad says. “Did you see how many of them congratulated me afterward? Look, this is called a ‘fist bump.’ It is more accepted now than a handshake.”

Vlad is making his way across the cafeteria. He moves silently and with an easy grace, an achievement when you take into account the cheap tile that makes everyone in sneakers sound like farting mice.

“Not only won’t they talk to me, they scare the crap out of me. They’re not normal students. I overheard a very strange conversation yesterday. And Vlad’s dating my sister. And possibly dating his sister, too.”

“She’s said to be the great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of some dumb baby of some musty vampire family named Mervaux.”
“Let me guess. A half-vampire baby?” I ask, leaving off the “...who fights crime.”
“No!” Marisabel says. “A plain old human baby. That’s what makes the whole thing so weird. Who cares about a human baby? People have those all the time.” She pauses. “Well, I mean, not vampires. They never have any babies, which is good because child vampires are freaky.”

For one crazy, hurtling second I heave a sigh of relief; if forced to choose, he is the better option. But then again, I would also rather drown than be eaten by snakes.

I attended a weekly karate class with the same fervor as a nun attending Mass. It was three years before my sensei told Marcie that he was afraid I was there for the wrong reasons. I believe the word “bloodthirsty” was used. Right before the phrase “I think you should get her checked out.”

After a moment of deliberation, I grab the wooden spoon and a knife and do my best to file it into a point. Two thousand years of folklore can’t be that wrong, right?

She is gorgeous in a dark, moody way, with thin black brows and long chestnut hair that breaks into a natural wave at her shoulders. If ever there were a girl meant to sit in a smoky café and tell you about the guinea pig that died tragically when she was four, it’s her.

“Can I ask you a question?” Violet asks. “Let us say that you liked this boy. You liked him so much that you didn’t care that your family and friends said that it would end badly. You think he admires you as well, so you give him everything that he could ever want. But what does he do? Does he stay with you forever? No! He ignores you and goes off to live who knows where.” Her voice cracks, and she lets go of my arm to flounce back into her seat. “I am at a loss,” she hiccups, holding the handkerchief to her mouth. “Do you think I should give him a lock of my hair? Maybe he is unaware that I still care.”

“Can you believe them? Neville does nothing but attach himself to any organization that will have him, and Violet...yesterday Violet asked if I wanted to participate in a ‘quiz’ that will tell me what my ‘best fall look’ is,” he says. “What does that even mean?”
“Mine is eggplant,” Marisabel offers absently. “And scarves.”

“And you’re stronger?”
“Yes.”
“And you have heightened senses.”
“Yes.”
“And you sparkle in the sunlight.”
His lips make the “yuh” shape, but then he does a double take. “What?”

I’m just about to start my return creep across the yard when a figure darts through the far hallway. For a second my shocked brain scans for a “Stop, drop, and roll” sort of acronym that explains what to do when you’re about to be caught spying. I decide on RLH—Run Like Hell.

“Wonderful,” Vlad says, and then probably follows it with something else ridiculous (“Your hair is like sunlight in space” or “Let’s greet the dawn with kisses”).

In reality our relationship consisted of hair pulling (age six), doll vandalism (age eight), and relentless teasing about my freckles (age eleven). Not exactly Romeo and Juliet, but try telling Marcie that. Luckily he moved away to New York before either one of us had to drink poison or kill a cousin.

Now I channel all of my anger and lingering fear into one mighty upward chop to the nose. When he covers his face, I bend my knees up and use my legs to pop him off of me before rolling sideways and scrambling to my feet, my legs still shaky from the adrenaline.

“I’m sorry, were you expecting a parade?”

“It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. You can’t kick me more than I’ve kicked myself.”
“Couldn’t you have just dyed your hair purple and called it a day?” I ask weakly. When I think about the loneliness and grief that drove him to do this, I am suddenly choked up. I slide halfway across the floor to be closer, to let him know that I appreciate his honesty. When I stop, he lifts an eyebrow.
“Really? That’s the best sob story I’ve got. What does a guy have to say to make you move all the way?”

I sat back in my chair and sighed. “I have to seduce someone,” I announced to my parents. “High school is already destroying my moral code and I ha

I sat back in my chair and sighed. “I have to seduce someone,” I announced to my parents. “High school is already destroying my moral code and I haven’t even set foot on the campus yet.”

My mom peeked at my dossier. “I think ‘befriend’ is the word you’re looking for,” she said after a minute.

Sometimes she’s no fun.

“I get to go to high school?” I said. “No more homeschooling? Do I … do I finally get an assignment?”
“Holy crap!” I said. “Hallelujah, it’s a miracle! I finally get to do something besides watch everyone else have fun!” I raised my bagel in the air like an award, then pretended to wipe away tears. “This just means so much to me! I’d like to thank all the little people that I crushed on my way to the top.”

Tobacco executives on trial because of damning evidence? Human smuggling rings being broken up? The fall of that Peruvian dictator? That’s us.

I even managed to mortify myself by having a long-running and completely one-sided “How you doin’?” imaginary conversation with Cute Boy.
Where’d we move from? Oh, nowhere you’d know. So what do you do around here for fun?
Ice cream? Yeah, I love ice cream. With you? Of course! No, my parents are totally cool with me dating.
See? Pathetic.

“So you get in through Jesse,” my dad said to me. “This one’s on you, kiddo.”

“He’s a delinquent!” I yelled out to my parents. “He was arrested for shoplifting last year!”
No response.
“I just want you to know that I’m going to be hanging out with someone who has a criminal record!” I cried.
“Let’s not forget that our family can never reenter Luxembourg without being arrested!” my dad yelled back.
Touché.

After my first week of high school, I was ready for it to be over.

The Collective should have enrolled me on the first day, not three weeks into the semester. What were they even thinking? I didn’t know who made up the Collective, but clearly, there wasn’t a teenage girl among them.

I was sure I knew her! Maybe she was a spy, too. Maybe the Collective had two of us infiltrating the system. That would be a first, but hey, it wasn’t any crazier than enrolling me in geometry.

“Sorry,” I said immediately. “Look, I can do this. I can do this better than anyone because I am a spy, okay? I am a great spy and—and something is licking me.”
There was a definite wetness on my calf and I glanced down to see a huge, shaggy golden retriever pushing his nose against my leg, then giving me a big doggie grin. I had seen this dog somewhere before, and I looked from the dog to his leash to his very cute owner.
Oh, no, I suddenly realized, my heartbeat flying into overdrive. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
“So,” Jesse Oliver said, “what’s this about being a great spy?”

“Are we sworn now?” he said, his eyes crinkled at the corners.
“Yes,” I said, and tugged on his finger for good measure. “It’s also possible that we’re now considered married in the country of New Guinea.”
We both cracked up at the same time. “Kidding!” I giggled. “Kidding! At least I think I am. Who knows?”
“Let’s Wikipedia that when we get home,” Jesse suggested.

Somewhere in the deep, shameful part of my heart, I knew that I wouldn’t always be friends with Roux, or even together with Jesse. It wasn’t in the job description, and I had watched my own parents pack up and move so many times that I had lost track. None of this was a surprise.
But that was before I had made friends.

I entered the code to our front door and opened it carefully. My parents were probably sleeping and I didn’t want to—
“Where have you been?”
Both my mom and my dad were standing in the kitchen, arms folded, staring at me. I hadn’t seen them look that angry since … well, ever.
“Oh, hi,” I said. “I can explain.”

“But how can you expect me to make a choice about my life, my future, when I know only one option? All I know is this job. Yeah, I’m good at safecracking, but what if I’m better at being a normal person? What if it makes me happier?”

“It’s two thirty in the morning!” my mom cried. “In Manhattan! Do you know all the things that could have happened to you?”
I looked at my parents like they were speaking Korean. (And to be fair, my dad can speak Korean, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.)

She’s an amazing computer hacker, which I think sort of rankles my dad. He’s useless when it comes to electronics. One time, we were in Boston and they got into this huge fight because my dad thought my mom was taking too long to do her job. She just handed him the TiVo remote and said, “Tell me how this works.” And of course he couldn’t, so she was all, “Don’t tell me how to do my job,” and believe me, he doesn’t anymore.

Make nicey-nice with Jesse Oliver? Check! Get into his house so I can scope out his father’s office and see what his safe situation was? Check, check! Foil Dad Oliver’s plan, save the world, and be promoted to head spy of all time? CHECK, CHECK, AND CHECK!

“Right back atcha,” I said, taking my class schedule and sauntering out.
Bring it, Harper School.
The Harper School definitely brought it.
By the time lunch rolled around, I felt like I was ready to retire.

You know how sometimes you realize you’re doing or saying the wrong thing, but you just can’t stop yourself? You can literally hear the words coming out of your mouth and you just want to shove them back in because the real you, the good you, would never want to be this way, but you just keep going?
Yeah. That was me. Because instead of agreeing to try harder, be better, I got whiny.

“Look,” I said. “I like you. Like, like like you. Like, a lot.”
“That’s a lot of ‘likes.’”
“Yes, it is.” Angelo was right about the West Coast ruining my grammar. “But don’t you feel like it’s happening kind of fast? Shouldn’t we just slow down a little?”

Even Jesse Oliver’s photo page was banal. Hanging out with friends in one shoot, giving the finger in another, hugging a golden retriever in the third.

“It’s like, I have all this luck and wealth and privilege, but who gives a shit? People expect me to be some spoiled brat, so then I act like some spoiled brat—I mean, I stole that book, what a dumbass—but it’s not me at all. And then when I try to act like an upright citizen, volunteer and all that, they accuse me of using my dad’s connections to get ahead. But if I don’t do anything, then my dad gets pissed that I’m not doing anything."

“Maggie.” He got up and came over to stand next to me, taking my hand in his. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”
At that point, I would have run away to Zimbabwe and raised herds of elephants with him.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Do you want to go on a date with me?”
“Are you kidding? I’m going to show you how it’s done. I’m going to date you like you’ve never been dated before. We’re talking fireworks, okay? Literal fireworks. None of this ‘let’s eat ice cream in the freezing cold while we sit on a dirty stoop’ shit. I’m pulling out all the stops. Call me LL Cool Jess.”

I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last 31 days.

If the Oxy

I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last 31 days.

If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.

So yeah. I’m fucked.

I’m pretty much fucked.

That’s my considered opinion.

Fucked.

Six days in to what should be a greatest two months of my life, and it’s turned in to a nightmare.

It was a ridiculous sequence of events that led to me almost dying. Then an even more ridiculous sequence that led to me surviving.

We were six days in when all hell broke loose, so that leaves enough food to feed six people for 50 days. I’m just one guy, so it’ll last me 300 days. And that’s if I don’t ration it. So I’ve got a fair bit of time.

But if I could communicate, I might be able to get a rescue. Not sure how they’d manage that with the resources on hand, but NASA has a lot of smart people.

So that’s my mission now. Find a way to communicate with Earth. If I can’t manage that, find a way to communicate with Hermes when it returns in 4 years with the Ares 4 crew.

Remember those old math questions you had in Algebra class? Well, that concept is critical to the “Mark Watney doesn’t die” project I’m working on.

I need to create calories. And I need enough to last four years. I figure if I don’t get rescued by Ares 4, I’m dead anyway. So that’s my target: four years.

I have an idiotically dangerous plan for getting the water I need. And boy do I mean *dangerous*. But I don’t have much choice.

As you can see, this plan provides many opportunities for me to die in a fiery explosion.

Firstly, Hydrazine is some serious death. If I make any mistakes, there’ll be nothing left but the “Mark Watney Memorial Crater” where the Hab once stood.

Presuming I don’t fuck up with the Hydrazine, there’s still the matter of burning hydrogen. I’m going to be setting a fire. In the Hab. On purpose.

If you asked every engineer at NASA what the worst scenario for the Hab was, they’d all answer “fire.” If you asked them what the result would be, they’d answer “death by fire.”

“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?”

He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”

LOG ENTRY: SOL 61

How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.

I’m going to use the RTG.

The RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) is a big box of Plutonium. But not the kind used in nuclear bombs. No, no. This

Plutonium is way more dangerous!

Plutonium-238 is an incredibly unstable isotope. It’s so radioactive that it will get red hot all by itself. As you can imagine, a material that can literally fry an egg with radiation is kind of dangerous.

I'm turning my pee into rocket fuel. It's easier than you'd think.

Urine is mostly water. Separating hydrogen and oxygen only requires a couple of electrodes and some current. The problem is collecting the hydrogen. I don't have any equipment for pulling hydrogen out of the air.

If I survive this, I'll tell people I pissed my way into orbit.

I chipped his sacred religious item into long splinters using a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. I figure if there’s a God, He won’t mind, considering the situation I’m in.

Ruining the only religious icon I have leaves me vulnerable to Mars Vampires. I’ll have to risk it.

One thing I have in abundance here is bags. They’re not much different than kitchen trash bags, though I’m sure they cost $50,000 because NASA.

"We updated Pathfinder’s OS without any problems. We sent the rover patch, which Pathfinder rebroadcast. Once Watney executes the patch and reboots the rover, we should get a connection.”

“Jesus what a complicated process,” Venkat said.

“Try updating a Linux server some time,” Jack said.

After a moment of silence, Tim said “You know he was telling a joke, right? That was supposed to be funny.”

[12:04]JPL: We’ll get botanists in to ask detailed questions and double-check your work. Your life is at stake, so we want to be sure. Also, please watch your language. Everything you type is being broadcast live all over the world.

[12:15]WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)

Just sex. Am I never going to be anything more than somebody’s strategy, a destination marked off on a road map and then passed t

Just sex. Am I never going to be anything more than somebody’s strategy, a destination marked off on a road map and then passed through for someplace better?

Heaven by the water.
Best-kept little secret in New England.
Tiny hidden jewel cradled by the rocky Connecticut coast.
Seashell Island, where I’ve lived all my life, is called all those things and more.
And all I want to do is leave it behind.

In another year, I’ll graduate. I can go someplace else. I can leave those boys—this whole past year—far behind in the rearview mirror.

“‘Then he took her, as a man can only take a woman he yearns for, pines for, throbs to possess,’” I read softly.
“Speak up, dear girl. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
Oh God. I’m nearly shouting the words now.

The yard boy is everywhere on island, all summer long. Cass will haunt my summer the way he preoccupied my spring.

He jams his hands into the pockets of his suit, turns away from me. “Fine, Gwen. Gotcha. And you’ve got me figured out. Clue me in on this, then. Why do I bother with you? Why not just ram my head against a brick wall? It would be easier and less painful. Why are you so freaking—burned, that, that nothing I do counts! How come it’s so clear to you when some made-up fictional characters are massively stupid and you can’t see it at all when it’s you and me?”

“Just think about it, Guinevere, smart advice from your old man.” Dad takes the pole from me, securing the hook. “Embroider it on a pillow. Spray-paint it on your wall. Just never forget it: Don’t be a sucker. Screw them before they screw you.”

What you’ve always had doesn’t mean that’s what you’ll always get. What you’ve always wanted isn’t what you’ll always want.

Maple trees arch and curl their branches over me, making the path a tunnel. The air smells earthy and tangy green. These woods have been the same for hundreds of years.

We get woods at our back and can only squint at the ocean; they get the full view of the sea—sand tumbling all the way out to the water—from their front windows, and big rambling green lawns in back. In the winter it’s like we year-rounders own the island, but every spring we have to give it back.

The realization is quick, sharp, and shattering like that bag striking the wall.
I’m not the only one who can get hurt here.
Who was hurt here.

He was right. I should come with a YouTube instructional video. Or a complete boxed set. How the hell can I expect him to figure me out when I don’t even get myself? And worse, I’m a total hypocrite.

"I can’t claim to know you”—he pauses, has the grace to turn red, then forges on—“but I know you don’t put up with crap. That made me sick.”

“It’s not about a jumbo box of condoms,” I say.
“Never was,” Cass says simply.
He slants his hand against my jaw, tips his mouth to mine.

He proceeded to do some moves I can only assume are part of a war dance in some lost tribe of the Amazon. There were a mysterious

He proceeded to do some moves I can only assume are part of a war dance in some lost tribe of the Amazon. There were a mysterious number of elbows involved, and a face that was probably meant to be sexy but looked more pained.

“Eh.” He shrugged and swallowed the last of his pizza. “Anyway, he already had tickets to prom, so I said you’d go with him.”

Ryan beckoned me closer with a jerking head motion. “Listen...I was wondering...would you want to go to prom with me? As friends.”

“So...” He drew an elaborate, invisible design with his finger on the lab table. “Just pick someone and be done with it.”
“It’s not that easy.”

“If you don’t want to, that’s cool.” Troy looked down, and I swear to God, I thought he was going to start crying. Ginormous, six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Troy Rafferty was going to break down in the french fry line.
“That’s cool,” Troy said softly. “Sorry to bother you.” He started to lumber away, and my heart crumpled.

He smiled and laughed nervously. “I just feel like I should be honest with you,” he said. “I didn’t want you to think that I was asking you because...that we...that I...” He took a frustrated breath and let it out in a short huff. “I’m gay.”

There was nowhere to turn when he laid a wet, alcohol-soaked kiss on me.
His tongue was like a fish flopping on a dock in my mouth, but hot instead of cold.

“Ugh, maybe you are gay after all.” I crossed my arms.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you’re into sports and you hate dancing, but now here you are giving me relationship advice.”
“You have way too many stereotypes in your head.”

He laughed. “You’re having...thoughts?”
“And feelings. Damn it. Feelings! This is not on my agenda.”

Sometimes, people ask me what it’s like to be named Heart, but how am I supposed to answer that? I mean, how would you answer if a fish popped out of a lake and asked you what it was like to breathe oxygen? Apart from freaking out that a fish was talking to you, of course. You don’t know what it’s like to breathe anything else. You’d probably be like, “I don’t know. It’s okay, I guess. What’s it like to breathe water, Talking Fish?”

“I don’t believe in fate.” It was automatic. My response since I’d decided not to let my maternal genetics and my porn-star name choose my future for me.
“Why not?”
“I don’t like the idea that I can’t control the outcome of something. Your choices should be the only influence in your own life.”

“Did you see the way Olivia went off? God, that girl would do anything for attention.”
“I know, she’s so pathetic.”
“I can’t believe she even got nominated for prom court.”
“It’s just because she’s going out with Austin.”
“Seriously.”
I wasn’t exactly buddy-buddy with Olivia, but my ears got hot with embarrassment and anger listening to them dissect her.

I had a feeling they’d both heard plenty of gossip about themselves over the last four years. You don’t get to be a senior looking like custom-ordered perfection without earning a little jealousy along the way.

“Uh-uh. I had no idea how you felt about me. None. And you know whose fault that is? Yours. If you wanted to ask me to prom, you should have frigging asked me. You don’t get to whine about it just because somebody else had the balls to do what you didn’t. I’m done apologizing to you.” I poked him in the chest. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Get over yourself.”

“And you have to promise we’ll take it slow.”
“How slow?”
Blanking, all I could think of was my mother. I blurted out, “Well, like, let’s not have kids anytime soon, okay?”

As he turned to meet my gaze, his full lips lifted in a welcoming smile, and his dimples made a rare appearance.

“Damn you, man, you do not need to announce me!” a roar came from the hallway.

"I have a standing appointment with her, which you bloody well know. We do not need to go through this every damn time, Sherman!” Marcus shouted, his voice much closer than before.

Sprawled over the rest of the couch, with his head on my husband’s thigh, was the large form of his lover, Henry Fletcher.

His amber eyes shone like topaz as they fixed on the point where Henry’s lips touched my skin, and the intensity I saw in them unsettled me.

What I would give to have a man look at me that way.

“Do you ever feel as though you made the wrong decision, Katherine?” he asked, his voice desperate and his beautiful face tormented in the dim light.

“Is it possible?”
It only took half a second for his eyes to come sliding back, and I watched as he dragged them down over my jaw, my throat, my breasts, my waist, and then back up again. “It’s possible,” he said on an exhale.

“We can’t just dive into this,” he said, his rumbling voice slow and lethargic.

Yes we can! I wanted to shout.

“I can tell you what I’d like to happen,” Henry offered, a lazy smile on his face. We both looked at him, waiting. “I want Kit to spread her legs, I want you to lean back into her, and I want you both to watch as I suck you off.”

About your husband.

Together the notes read, “I know a secret about your husband”. No, Henry hadn’t sent it, and neither had John. So that begged the question, who had? And why?

“Who did you send for?” I asked.

He eyed me a moment before responding. “James.”

I needed to lose control. I needed to find a person or a pastime to surrender myself to. I needed to be helpless to someone or something, turn my mind off, allow myself to feel, to want, and follow through without fear of the repercussions.

“Are you all right, Kit?” John asked, his voice sounding far away.

Has he been calling my name all this time? I wondered. It took me several attempts before I finally managed to answer him with a strangled, “Yes.”

“Do you want us to continue?” he pressed.

I’d always heard that when you truly love someone, you’re happy for them as long they’re happy. But that’s a lie. That’s higher-road bullshit. If y

I’d always heard that when you truly love someone, you’re happy for them as long they’re happy. But that’s a lie. That’s higher-road bullshit. If you love someone so much, why the hell would you be happy to see them with anyone else? I didn’t want the easy kind of love. I wanted the crazy love, the kind of love that created and destroyed all at the same time.

Dr. Meredith took a deep breath. “Alice.” His brown eyes found mine, and it was only me and him. He exhaled. “You’re in remission.”
Oh shit.
This, I did not expect. This was not on my list.

On that cold night in January it all slipped into place for me and she became my everything and my everyone. My music, my sun, my words, my hope, my logic, my confusion, my flaw.
I was thirteen years old, and she was all these things to me.
And I was her friend.

“Harvey,” I said, my voice low. “Trust me.”
I knew what this looked like. It looked like I was using Harvey. But here was the reality of the situation: the minute my life went from semipermanent to most likely temporary, I decided to latch on to everything in my world that had always been permanent, and for me, Harvey was so permanent he was concrete.

Luke hauled ass out of the locker room and ran for the ladder to the projector, which ran up the back of the bleachers opposite us. To Alice’s absolute delight, he wore nothing but a towel.
Luke leaned forward a little farther and his towel began to slip. He wasn’t fast enough to catch it. We all watched as the white piece of fabric drifted slowly down to the bleachers below, leaving him in nothing but his skin.

I shook my head again and Alice took my hand, pulling me to her.
“Please,” she whispered, so close to me that when she spoke, our lips touched.
“Fine, but after this I’m done.”

“What do you want, Celeste?”
“All I want is for you to feel welcome. It’s cute how people are so excited to have you back.” She took two steps closer to me. “They don’t know what I know. The cancer might be gone, but the bitch isn’t.”

We stopped in front of the last case. Every surface was covered in cloth. Old, dying flowers had been thrown across the surface. There were candles; those idiots could have started a fire. And pictures of Alice. Her eyes had been crossed out and things like bitch or whore had been written across each print.

Pushing away my memories of Harvey, I shoved Eric’s shoulder back and straddled his lap. This wasn’t scary or complicated like being with Harvey. This didn’t have to mean so much.

I laid my head against him and he wound his arm around my shoulder. “What’s going to happen to us, Harvey?”
He pressed his lips to my head and said, “It’s a surprise, I think.”

Cancer would take away plenty. My hair, my body, my life. What I’d never realized, though, was that there was one privilege to dying: the right to live without consequence.

After a moment, he threw his arms up and said, “God, what the hell, Al? This is so screwed up. You don’t talk to me for a year and now—no, this is ridiculous.”

“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound that way.” I almost said it, that I was sorry for how I’d acted and what I did, but instead I said, “Do you want to write up your own apology and I can sign it? Would that work better for you?”

This feeling that the world was so pleased to call love destroyed people every day and it would do that to me too. It would disappoint and deceive and manipulate. But then, the part of me that was dying thought, What would it matter? If I wasn’t going to live long enough to have to worry about the aftermath of it all, what did it matter?

“You should’ve left us then. Ripped the Band-Aid off. Because the lies are destroying us,” I said, my voice catching on every syllable. “You ruined me. You made me this way. This.” I motioned to myself, my chest heaving now. “Is your fault. And now it’s too late to fix it.”

I wanted to lie to her and tell her that I didn’t like Alice in that way, but I couldn’t. “I don’t know. But I’m not on a date with Alice. I’m here because I like you. That’s not a good answer, but I won’t lie to you.”

“Yeah.” I was an ass. I knew from the moment I asked Debora out that I wasn’t over Alice. I was too selfish to even bother wondering how this might end.

Most mothers don’t talk to their daughters like that, but my mom and I had never been most mothers and daughters. I remembered reading about wolf packs when I was younger. Each wolf pack could only have one alpha, one chief. This was the very unfortunate truth of my mother and me. We were two alphas who could never coexist in peace. The only time we had was when she thought I was dying.

Once again, my chest tightened, and there was that weird fluttering sensation that was like butterflies. But it couldn’t be butterflies. I did not

Once again, my chest tightened, and there was that weird fluttering sensation that was like butterflies. But it couldn’t be butterflies. I did not have butterflies over David Stark.

“So, Harper Jane Price. Are you ready to accept your destiny?”

His breath was coming out in short gasps, and there was a dark red stain spreading across his expansive belly. There was no doubt in my mind that he was dying.

“Look after him, okay?” he said, his eyes looking glazed again. “Make sure he’s...he’s safe.”

“I really can’t think of a worse choice,” he said, still smiling, “than the bimbo who wrote a paper on the history of shoes for my class.”

The sword was still poised in the air when I came to an abrupt stop and sunk the heel into his throat, right under his jaw.

Mr. Hall hadn’t been a superhero. He’d been a Paladin, and that was . . . different, right? And what—or who—had been his noble cause?
What was mine?

Under the picture of me and Bee, there was a smaller caption: Homecoming Queen misses crowning under mysterious circumstances. My eyes darted over the rest of the article as my heart started pounding. “...hiding in the boys’ room...violently ill...tension between the ‘Queen Bee’ and her underling, Bee Franklin...this reporter...”

Whatever the reason, my right hand shot up to slap David Stark across the face.
Half an inch from David’s cheek, my hand stopped in midair. And it wasn’t because I had some crisis of conscience, either. It was like my hand hit an invisible wall right by his head.

I withdrew my hand. “No, thank you.”
Saylor and David both stared.
“I appreciate your offer very much,” I continued. “But I’m afraid I have to refuse.”

“But you’re always arguing with him. Or talking about him. Or competing with him. And sometimes I wonder how you can be so obsessed with someone you supposedly hate.”

“I love you,” he said at last. “You know that. But it’s...it’s like we’re speaking two different languages most of the time. Harper.” He tugged on my hand. “If there’s something going on with you, you can tell me, okay?”

“You guys seemed pretty...intense yesterday,” Ryan said, dropping my hand.
“Yeah, we were intensely arguing over him writing that stupid article,” I said even as I had a sudden vision of me and David, laughing in his car. Hugging. God, we had hugged.

And the next time I did school stuff in the middle of the night, I just did it in my closet with the door locked. Honestly, what is wrong with this country when striving for excellence means you need antidepressants?

Ryan was a good guy. He always had been.

He lowered his head and kissed me, albeit pretty chastely. PDA is vile, and Ryan, being my Perfect Boyfriend, knows how I feel about it.

“Ladies,” Ryan said, nodding at Amanda, Abigail, and Mary Beth. “Let me guess. Y’all are...plotting world domination?”
“No,” Amanda told him, deadly serious. “We’re talking about Cotillion.”
“Ah, world domination, Cotillion. Same difference,” Ryan replied with an easy grin, and this time, all three girls giggled, even Amanda.

He and I had loathed each other since kindergarten. Heck, even before that. Mom says he’s the only baby I ever bit in daycare.

“I’m sure you’d hate to miss everyone’s felicitations.”
David had beaten me in the final round of our sixth-grade spelling bee with that word and now, all these years later, he still tried to drop it into conversation whenever he could.

For one horrifying second, I thought he was going to kiss me. I wasn’t really sure how I’d react if he did.
But it was only a hug. And if I maybe spent a second or two thinking that he actually smelled really nice, or that he was much more solid than he appeared, so what?

Still, I had to admit, yellow was a good color on him. It brought out the gold in his hair, and—
I stopped myself. The gold in his hair? Since when did I care about David.

“But, God, Harper, sometimes I feel like your whole life is a checklist, and I am way down at the bottom. And, you know, every once in awhile, you throw me a bone to keep me happy.”
I flinched at that, hard. Not only because it was insulting, but because it was way too close to the truth.

"We’ve hated each other since forever.”

“Love, hate,” she says with a smile. “Such a fine line between the two, isn’t there?”

"We’ve hated each other since forever.”

“Love, hate,” she says with a smile. “Such a fine line between the two, isn’t there?”

...married BFFs who were invested in keeping the Cafferty-Marsden attachment alive and strong.

You can imagine what it’s been like since our mothers first plopped us into a crib together, rubbing their hands in conspiratorial glee as they planned our wedding. Playdates followed where the adults smiled and cooed as they watched us dig in the sandbox, where Ryder tugging on my pigtails was a sure sign of his adoration, where me throwing sand in his face only proved my devotion.

“Great, here we go again.” He starts to walk away and then turns back to face me. “You know what? I have no idea what I did to piss you off, but—”

“Seriously?” I sputter. “I’ll give you a hint—eighth grade.”

“You’re mad at me about something I did in eighth grade, Jem? That was four fucking years ago. Whatever it was, why don’t you grow up and get over it?”

It’s not that I don’t want to live out my days here. It’s just that I want the opportunity to...I don’t know...spread my wings and fly a bit before I come back home to roost, you know? If I end up back in Magnolia Branch, I want it to be because I’ve chosen to be here.

He deepens the kiss, and I feel myself pulling away mentally even as I participate physically. My mind begins to wander.

“I wonder if it’ll be as bad as they’re saying.”
“Could be the worst to hit the coast since Katrina.”

I can smell something else too—fear. He’s terrified.
Of the storm?
Six foot four and scared as a puppy.

“Are you scared, Jemma?”
I prop my head up on one elbow. “Yeah, I’m scared,” I say, carefully weighing my words. “But...we’ll be okay."
I hear him swallow hard. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
“I’m glad you are too."

If you’re wondering what it’s like to grow up here, just consider this—there are six choices when it comes to places of worship, but only one when it comes to fast food.

Most everyone adores Dr. Parrish, except for Cheryl Jackson, who’d been very vocal about taking her children elsewhere because she couldn’t possibly trust her pre cious babies to one of “those” people. And by “those” people, she means black people. Of course, her son is a complete tool, and her daughter spent half of last semester in rehab, so there you go.

Mama taught me to sew, Daddy to shoot. That’s the way we roll here in Magnolia Branch.

Am I dating him just to have someone to go out with? Or is the attraction real? Honestly, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s the whole bad-boy thing—which I realize is beyond stupid.

Besides, he’s not that bad of a boy. But he is the total opposite of Ryder, which means that going out with him is the complete opposite of what my family wants me to do. Maybe that’s it, then—a minor rebellion on my part.

He’s the star quarterback of our Division 1A state-championship football team. Top student in our class. He plays the piano like some kind of freaking prodigy. Oh, and did I mention that he’s gorgeous? Of course he is. Six foot four, two hundred ten pounds of swoon-worthy good looks.

"My mom already controls enough in my life. What food I eat. What clothes I wear. Hell, even my underwear. You wouldn’t believe the fight she put up a few years back when I wanted to switch to boxer briefs instead of regular boxers. Anyway, if my parents want it for me, it must be wrong. So I convinced myself...”

“Is this okay?”

I tilt my head back against the wall, catching my breath. “Yeah,” I say, panting. “It’s definitely okay."

And, of course, that’s when the dang-blasted tornado siren decides to go off again.

All my life I had sought to do the right and proper thing. I did not frequent gaming hells. I did not imbibe until I became a stumbling drunk. I fell in love at nineteen, married at twenty-one. I did the honorable thing: I did not bed my wife until I wed her. On our wedding night she was not the only virgin between our sheets.

I was brought up to believe that we were rewarded according to our behavior. Yet the Fates had conspired to punish me, to take away that which I treasured above all else, and I could find no cause for their unkind regard.
And so I said to hell with it all. I would sow the wild oats I had not in my youth. I would gamble, I would drink, I would know many women.

And they were charming. Every last one of them. Which was part of her dilemma. How to separate charm from con.

“I do not doubt that I will know if I love him. But how will I know if he loves me? With so many men vying for my affections, how can I know if their hearts are true? I shall marry only once, and fortune hunters abound. I want to ensure that I choose well.”

“He would touch you in ways he could not touch you with his hands—not in public. But images would be filling his mind. He would be unable to tear his gaze away.” Clearing his throat, he broke the connection that was joining them and looked up into the trees. “He will look at you, Little Rose, as though you are everything, because to him you will be.”

“He won’t marry again, Grace. Something inside him broke with the death of Juliette and Margaret. You can’t put him back together, sweetheart, not the way he was.”

“We all have jagged edges.” Hers more hideous than any Lovingdon might possess.

“Why can’t it be you?”
“I don’t have it within me to love like that again.” His voice was somber, reflective, filled with pain and anguish.

Lady Cornelia beamed, and Grace didn’t think she looked at all like a ghoul. She thought she more closely resembled an angel. “The other girls are jealous of the attentions you get, you know.”
“I know. But we always want what someone else has.”
“What do you want?”
Grace gently squeezed her arm. “I want you to have Lord Ambrose.”

She cursed Lovingdon for not taking her problem seriously, but then she supposed it wasn’t truly a serious problem. No one would go hungry, be without shelter, or die because of her choice. And if she didn’t choose, her parents weren’t likely to disown her. She supposed she could live very happily without a husband, but it was the absence of love that was troubling.

...her heart did that silly little somersault thing in her chest, which had irritated her beyond measure. She didn’t want it dancing about for him. He had proven to be a disappointment. She loved him as a friend, a brother. Her woman’s heart would never love him as more than that.

Staring at him, she shook her head. “I can’t make it work without falling in love. I won’t. I deserve a man who cares if I die.”

...she certainly wasn’t going to sit here all night feeling sorry for herself. She thought about trying to sketch. She had been working on a story told through pictures of a bunny who had lost an ear and feared no other rabbit would ever love him, because he was scarred and different. She thought she would have it published as a children’s book, but at the moment she didn’t care about the damn bunny.
She hurt too much to care about anything.

“She deserves better than a man who sees only a fortune when he gazes on her.”
Until that moment he hadn’t realized the truth of those words. She did deserve the love she so desperately sought.

She wanted love. He could give her lust in abundance, but not love. He had closed his heart to the possibility. He would never again experience the devastating pain of loss. He would not love. He would not.

He did care about her, dammit, just not as she wished, not with his entire heart and soul. Those belonged to, would always belong to, Juliette.
He cared for Grace too much to place her second when she deserved to be some man’s first.

"Help her if you’ve a mind to. Otherwise walk away. I value your friendship, but I value hers more. I could destroy you within the blink of an eye.”

“You judge love by her,” she stated. No question, and yet he felt obligated to answer.
“I judge everything by her.”

Hadn’t he taken Juliette for walks in the garden at night whether the moon was full or absent, and behaved himself? A kiss on the back of her hand. Twice he leaned over for a kiss on the cheek. Once he had grazed his mouth across hers in much the same manner that Grace had described Somerdale’s kiss. Innocent. Respectful. Boring as hell.
Only now did he realize how dull his courtship had been.

He’d never had harsh words with Juliette. They’d never argued. She’d never been short with him or looked as though she were on the verge of reaching across the expanse separating them in order to give him a good hard shake.

The girl whose beauty was once fabled became a horrifying monster.
Her legs twisted together into a reptilian beast. Her hair, so

The girl whose beauty was once fabled became a horrifying monster.
Her legs twisted together into a reptilian beast. Her hair, so envied by women and the subject of many an ode by men, transformed into a nest of vipers.
I am the Gorgon Medusa. And my eyes can turn anything living to stone.

They are gentle creatures, individually named by me but normally referred to as a whole, since they intertwine together more often than not. More importantly, they abhor death just as avidly as I do.

And it sucks. It genuinely, truly, absolutely, unequivocally sucks. I hate stealing lives.
Thus, not only am I a monster, I’m a really lousy one. A lonely, classic Five Stages of Grief following, insecure, shut-in of a pathetic beast who talks to the snakes on her head and the statues on her island.

I loathed and feared him at first, convinced he would abuse me like his relatives had, but he is a persistent thing. It took years—literally, hundreds of years—but he chipped away at my shell with acts of kindness small and large.

He is always trying to right wrongs, save people, and make the world a better place, which is one of the things I love best about him.

“The simple fact is, my uncle raped you, and somehow my bat-shit insane sister blamed and cursed you for it happening in one of her temples. In no way did you deserve what happened to you.” He shakes his head slowly as he closes in on me. “You’ve born it better than any other person I could ever imagine. It’s time for it to end, though. I sorely regret not doing anything earlier.”

Before—I had no say in my punishment. I’ve born it quietly.
Maybe it’s time I finally take a chance.

Athena is sitting next to Poseidon. Her hair is in a tight bun, her expression sour as she peers down at me. There is disdain there, and something else—something I can’t quite pinpoint. But whatever it is, I am more than aware of her revulsion, and it saddens me. I worshipped her. Served her. “How many times do I need to say it? The little whore got what she deserved.”

“Niece,” he stresses, mimicking her formality, “this isn’t the first time you’ve overstepped your bounds by punishing innocents; this one just so happens to be the last remaining victim. If you even try to spew that victim blaming crap again, I’ll take you down to the Underworld with me for a spell. Maybe then you can understand what true justice entails.”

“Anger is good. I can work with anger. She doesn’t need your coddling, Nymph-girl. She needs somebody to help her kick some ass.” His lips curl so high that I swear, the corner of one side of his mouth closes in on an ear. “And I can do that.”

Another kiss, a light brush across the center of my lips. “I will fight for us, Medusa. I will not give up. Please do not give up on yourself, either. Never forget that I love you. Never forget that you mean everything to me.”
Our foreheads touch. “I love you. Hold onto that. I did not wait two thousand years for your love only to lose it so easily.”

“For somebody who is supposedly the bastion of wisdom,” Hades continues darkly, “you do a piss-poor job of exhibiting it yourself.”

His voice matches mine. “No. It’s like I said—she’s insane. Her being named the purveyor of wisdom is one of the greatest of cosmic jokes.”

He is lounging in his throne, dressed in a t-shirt, torn shorts, and flip-flops. There is no beard, no mustache—just sandy hair and weathered, tan skin.

“Cease your frivolity, cow,” Athena hisses at her sister.
“How delightful. Your daughter strives to show example of my words,” Hades says, this time to Zeus.
“Athena, shut it, will you?” Zeus snaps. An exasperated sigh escapes from his lips as he kneads his forehead. Hermes was certainly right on this account—the Assembly loves to bicker.

It is obvious he and Persephone are deeply in love, which is yet another surprise. Like most everyone, I’ve read the stories of how he’d kidnapped her and held her against her will half the year in the Underworld. Only, Persephone doesn’t act like a kidnapped victim ought to act; that, or she’s an excellent actress who suffers heavily from Stockholm syndrome. She dotes on his words, as he does to hers.

He murmurs sweet words of comfort, ones that do not rush me to wrap up nor belittle me for my outburst. And I know, just know, in this moment that I love him. That I am in love with him.
That I have been for a long time and too blind to see it before now.

“You have a goodness in you others would have long let die away in such circumstances. This is what I fell in love with. Not your body—which, I won’t lie, I enjoy very much, or your beautiful hair (because you know I most certainly was fascinated with your snakes, too), or those eyes of yours I find myself so easily lost in on a regular basis. Dusa, I love you. Who you are."

And for as long as she could remember, Izzy had been waiting—with dwindling faith and increasing impatience—for that part of her life to begin.

Her cravings for romance were gone. Now she’d settle for bread. What fairy tales were left over for a plain, impoverished, twenty-six-year-old woman who’d never even been kissed?

This castle didn’t welcome or enchant.
It loomed.
It menaced.
She almost worried it might pounce.

There were things in nature that took their beauty from delicate structure and intricate symmetry. Flowers. Seashells. Butterfly wings. And then there were things that were beautiful for their wild power and their refusal to be tamed. Snowcapped mountains. Churning thunderclouds. Shaggy, sharp-toothed lions.

This man silhouetted before her? He belonged, quite solidly, in the latter category.

“That’s it,” he said, at length. “You’re leaving this place the same way you came in.”

He ducked, caught her by the legs, and threw her over his shoulder—with the ease of a man who’d tossed many a woman over his shoulder. This was definitely not his first go at lady-tossing.

He bounced her weight, plumping her backside with his forearm. “There’s so little to you.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “There’s a great deal to me, Your Grace. More than you know. More than anyone supposes. You can carry me outside, if you like. I’ll come back in. Again, and again. As many times as it takes. Because this is my castle now. And I’m not leaving.”

She poked around, making busy clanging noises. “I don’t suppose there are eggs? If I do say it myself, I make a very good pancake.”
Oh, no. This just grew worse and worse.
I make a very good pancake.
Appalling.
What was even more appalling was that Ransom found himself suddenly hungry for a very good pancake. Starving. Ravenous. Damn it, he was faint with yearning for a very good pancake.

Get out now. The threat is coming from inside the castle.

The armored riders dismounted in unison, and the carriage doors opened, spilling forth about a dozen young ladies in medieval dress. Banners waved briskly in the morning breeze.

Once again, she woke to darkness, her heart pounding with terror and her throat scraped raw.
Strange noises assailed her from all sides.

“There’s a rule about sunsets in this castle, Miss Goodnight.”
“There is?”
“Yes.” He turned her to face him. “And a man and a woman standing in this very place are compelled to heed it. No choice. There’s only one thing to be done.”
“What’s that?”
Her pulse stumbled. Surely he couldn’t mean to...
He lowered his head and made his voice a seductive whisper. “Duck.”
Duck?

“Oh, no.” She stiffened. “Those can’t be...”
They were.
Bats.
An entire colony of them had been roosting in the highest reaches of the canopy. Now they took wing one by one, then ten by ten...and then hundreds all at once.

The Lord Archers of the world didn’t want Izzy to be a grown woman with her own set of likes and dislikes, dreams and desires. They wanted her to be the wide-eyed young girl of the stories. That way, they could continue to read and reread their beloved tales, imagining themselves in her place.

He might be wealthy, powerful, angry, and big. But on at least one score, Izzy had him outmatched. Buoyancy. She knew how to handle prickly creatures, and she knew how to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation.
When thrown in the pond, she learned how to swim.

But was this truly all that was left of him? A cruel, unfeeling brute who would cast a defenseless young woman out into the night?
He didn’t want to believe that. Not yet. He didn’t surrender anything lightly, and that included what few shards remained of his broken soul.

It was so foreign to him, this unsolicited tenderness. Incomprehensible. And much as he craved it, it scared him like hell. With every caress he permitted, he was piling up debts he could never repay.
You don’t deserve it, came that dark, unforgiving echo. He’d heard the words so many times, they were part of him now. They lived in his blood, resounding with each hollow beat of his heart. You don’t deserve this. You never could.

If not for her, this room would still be filled with rats and bats. If not for her, he’d be sitting unshaven and drunk in the great hall, morosely counting his steps to nowhere. And if not for her, he would have no reason to fight this battle at all.

She growled in frustration. “I know I’m not. It makes no sense at all. I’m not a silly little girl who dreams of knights. I’m a woman. A woman who’s inconveniently, completely, and for the first time in her life, in lust. Just burning with desire for the worst possible man. A profane, bitter, wounded duke who refuses to leave her house. Oh, you are dreadful.”

Her grip tightened on his shirtfront. “You’re not going to ruin my first kiss. I won’t let you. You’re going to kiss me again, right now. And make it better.”
He shook his head, incredulous. “It’s over. It’s already done. Even if I did kiss you again, it wouldn’t be your first kiss anymore.”
“It counts,” she said. “So long as it’s part of the same embrace, it all counts as one.”
Bloody hell.

Somehow, he’d wound a lock of her hair about his finger. There it was. Right This Moment. And he had no recollection of doing it, either.
What was he coming to, when a woman sat in his lap, he gave her a stern what-for...and then ten seconds later, oopsy-daisy and la-di-dah, he went and twirled a finger in her hair?
That was not ducal behavior.

“When the swamp took my brother, it sent someone—something else to take his place. I don’t know what Lenora May is, but she’s not my sister.”

“When the swamp took my brother, it sent someone—something else to take his place. I don’t know what Lenora May is, but she’s not my sister.”

“The swamp ate my brother.”

For some reason, the swamp stays firmly on the other side. A few brave plants may reach across the line, but by and large, the swamp keeps as much distance from us as we do of it.

Her hand extends slowly and she hesitates before finding the fence. Dark hair hangs in her face, wild with curls and lovely in a way mine will never be. She climbs with something less than grace, fumbles with her dress, and nearly falls to the ground in my yard.

“I want to know who she is, why she’s here, and why you’re all acting like you know her. I watched her climb over the swamp fence, for crying out loud!”
“Now you’re worrying me,” Mama says. “Are you telling me you don’t recognize your own sister?”

I can’t remember someone who doesn’t exist. I can’t remember that her favorite color is purple but thinks Chevelles look best in red. I don’t even know her name.
Except I do.
Lenora May. May to her friends. Lenora to teachers and Aunt Mina. But Lenora May to me. Always Lenora May.

“Nathan Payola,” he says. He waits for me to react, but there’s nothing for me to react to. Angrily, he adds, “He was my best friend.”

Heath wasn’t a talker, but when he did talk, the words we shared were sweet and supplemented with notes of the flirting variety.

At any other time, I’d be stuck on him admitting he ditched me. But now, all I can think of is Phin.

We can’t fight something we don’t understand. But I remember what Heath said about hope. I’m not going to let the swamp have that, too.

There are a hundred ways to die all cloaked in the twist of pale trees—gators fast enough to catch a grown man, mosquitoes teeming with disease, stinging plants, hungry black bears, and nasty cottonmouths all filled with spite and patience.

But what’s in ours is worse.
Ours is a creature all its own. We don’t stare into its depths and we don’t ever go inside.

Most of the good folk of Sticks consider it’d be faster to throw your money in a fire if you’re that keen on wasting it, but then, most of the good folk of Sticks think the periodic table has something to do with birth control.

“I’m hungry,” he says, a sound that seems to crawl from his throat. It’s devoid of the warmth Phin’s voice should have, all mud and gravel. He reaches with webbed hands, each finger tipped with a sharp, black claw.
Not my brother, I think, a trick.

he was gone.
And it’s my fault.
If I was afraid to live in a town without Phineas, I’m plain terrified of living in a world without him.

The first time she asked me about this, I’d tried and failed to explain that it wasn’t about wanting to be thin; I couldn’t think of food when the threat of losing Phin to college was so near.

The swamp continues to beckon.
I can do this.
“Phineas Harlan Saucier,” I say to whatever might be listening. “I’m coming for my brother.”

“You’ve been so safe all your life. So safe you might as well be dead. Phin did that, he kept you from living, but I won’t. I promise you, I only want to live as fiercely as I can.”

Lenora May doesn’t care that she’s in the dirt or that she’ll have to wash her dress three times to get rid of the stubborn smells that follow you home from the track, and not caring makes her both vulnerable and beautiful.

I feel small and secure in his arms with my hip balanced against his thigh. This is different from the kiss. That felt chaotic and delirious and like something beginning. This is the opposite. Together we are solid and smart and somehow not new at all.

“Sterling Saucier,” he says.
His eyes narrow in a smile. Sunlight shines through them, illuminating too many rings of brown and brass to count. He bends closer.
“May I kiss you?” he asks.

“Fo’ shizzle,” Quentin agrees.
“Fo’ shizzle?” Tara asks, rounding on Quentin. “What are you supposed to be, Q-dog? A gangsta? A re

“Fo’ shizzle,” Quentin agrees.
“Fo’ shizzle?” Tara asks, rounding on Quentin. “What are you supposed to be, Q-dog? A gangsta? A redneck gangsta? That’s like the worst fake accent I’ve ever heard.”
“Girl,” Quentin throws his screwdriver to the floor, “please don’t be gettin’ in my face. I’ll bust yo—”

“The virus referred to as Bleek-Burns has now spread across all fifty states and most of North America. China was ground zero for this one, and last we heard, their population will more than likely be decimated by the virus.”
“Decimated?” I ask Deke. “Like practically wiped out?”
“Well, technically, that’s not what the word means.”
“Right,” I answer absentmindedly. “The historical definition of decimate is ‘to destroy one tenth of a population.’ But you know how the English language keeps evolving.” Once again, I’m babbling to hide my rising fear. “Nowadays, most people misuse ‘decimate’ to refer to the death of a large mass of people.”

“With you,” he continues, “there’s no arrogance, no self-centeredness. What I find most unfathomable is that you have no clue how beautiful you are.”

Deke clicks off the TV, swinging around to face me. “Donna,” he says carefully, “I’ve got to tell you something, but I need you to stay calm, okay?”
I spring off the bed, almost taking the burritos with me. “Is Muriel all right?”
“Yes,” Deke stands. “She’s fine. Donna—”
“Where’s my dad? Is he okay?”
Deke reaches over to steady the room service tray teetering dangerously on the edge of my bunk. “He’s fine, too. Still on the bridge. Donna—”
“They had a fight, didn’t they? And you and Muriel are leav—”
“Jeez, Donna! Shut up for a second so I can explain.”

From the expression on Deke’s face, I know he’s figuring out how to explain something. With science stuff, Deke usually has to dumb it down so I can understand.

I had pre-algebra with him that year, and he sat two rows to the left of me. When I turned my body slightly, stretching my legs in the aisle between desks, I could watch him out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t make very good math grades that year.

My house, Deke’s house, and all the other houses in our ’burb, are probably infested with the walking dead. I picture corpses hiding in my closet, lurking behind my school clothes, my raincoat, my dress for the dance. What if one of them tries on my red semi-formal gown? I shake my head.

“You’re a little slow on the uptake,” I tell him, glancing at the sky. “The sun is up now. Duh. Zombies don’t like light.”
Deke scowls at me like I’m a total idiot. “It’s vampires that don’t like light.”
I shoot him an equally fierce gaze. “I don’t care what you think. They’re zombies, Deke.”

He snorts. “They are not zombies. Zombies are dead people who have been reanimated. These people are still alive.”

“It is not alive. It’s a zombie!” I yell.
Deke scowls at me. “There’s no such thing as zombies.”

Gretchen seems to forget us, and rambles to herself, “He’s not human, but he’s not a...a...”
“Zombie.” For a moment, I don’t realize I’ve said the word aloud. My voice carries in the quiet room. A few nervous snickers erupt from the group. No one looks at me. I don’t care. They have to face facts sooner or later.
“Zombie?” Gretchen snaps back to her politician routine. “You’re so funny, Donna.” She laughs her best fake laugh. Everyone joins in, and the tension breaks.

“We’re going for water!” She grips Bo’s hands and they dance in a circle. “Water! Water! Water!”
Lara snaps out of her stupor and joins the chant. “Water water water!!”
Oh God, please tell me they’re not gonna cheer.
“We’ve got water, yes we do! We’ve got water—”
Yep, they’re gonna cheer.
Tara does a few back handsprings. Her short skirt flips inside out. Deke and Fabio watch, their mouths gaping slightly.

“I was supposed to get braces after Thanksgiving. See, I already got the spacers. And dang, girl, those babies hurt when they put them in.” He laughs. “Now, I don’t have to go to the orthodontist no more. So I’m fine with this whole worldwide-plague thing.”

"...anyone who touches the metal doorframes receives a severe electrical shock.”
In the front row, Veronica makes a loud bzzzzt noise that reminds me of a bug zapper. Immediately, three or four other kids from the robotics dork brigade start going bzzzzt, bzzzzt.

Oh. My. God. Liam just whispered to me. To me. Like we’re friends or something.

“Yay!” We fist bump. I’ve never touched Liam before and my hands tingle from the contact.

He’s beyond hot when he smiles—chiseled cheekbones, easy confidence. I remember why half the girls at school were crushing on him.

I’ve never been so happy to see Liam. And it has nothing to do with the fact that his shirt, slightly sweaty from being outside, is now clinging to his muscled chest.

Liam comes toward me. Maybe he’ll scoop me up in his arms. Bury his face in my hair. Tell me how much he missed me. Let me feel his chest.

“Be reasonable. If I leave you here, you will most likely die, and Guy de Molay wins. Come with me, and you get your chance at retribution. Which option appeals to you more?”

Junaid did not smile back. His eyes were hard. “I cannot teach you if you are afraid. Faithful Ones are chosen not only because of strength of mind and body, but also strength of character. You will be expelled at the slightest sign of weakness, and I will take you back to the sheepherder’s shed so that you may finish what I interrupted.”

“I speak for many of us when I say this,” Bashar continued, ignoring her. “We do not think she belongs here. She will only cause us trouble. Furthermore, it has come to our attention that she is currently unclean.” He watched Zayn’s jaw drop with relish. “We strongly believe she should abstain from handling holy texts and training with us until she is clean again.”

“Your anger,” he interrupted, his voice firm but gentle. Like his eyes. “She says your passion burns brightly in your face, Zayn. How will you deceive a Frank, a lady, a knight, when your hatred for them is so clearly written in your eyes?”

You are ruined, and no man will ever love you.

Its domes, spires, and minarets shimmered white in the sun, contrasting brightly with the aquamarine water. Ships from Venice and Genoa and even farther away crowded the harbor, a forest of galleys and pinnaces, all laden with goods. A caravan of bedouin camels traipsed through the dust, carrying bolts of silk and bales of spices.

Beggars pulled at her skirts, stretching their disfigured hands out to her in supplication. Blind, legless, leprous—they were all there, hiding in the shade. A one-eyed woman, cradling a tiny baby, peered up at her from within a worn, sun-beaten face. Zayn tossed down her coins and tried to shut the woman—all of them—from her mind. She had never seen such human suffering. And this in the holiest of cities.

I’m damaged. I’m afraid to trust men. I don’t know how to cope with my feelings for you.
I’m afraid to love you.

She hated herself, the curves of her body, the hairless skin of her face, her childlike eyes and lips…everything that made her female and feminine.

She detested men and their lust, and she loathed herself for inspiring it in them.

Filth. Nothing but filth.

But there was something else, too…something that maddened her with its simplicity, with its validity: Earic Goodwin. His presence had shattered her focus.

My face feels as if it’s turning as red as kimchi.
I’m out of breath, and my nerves are fried squid.

My face feels as if it’s turning as red as kimchi.
I’m out of breath, and my nerves are fried squid.

“In ancient times there was a daughter of the spirit of the river.”

“Why don’t princesses ever do something in all these old stories?” I interrupt. “Like try to escape or get someone to help them?”

“You misunderstand me, Jae Hwa. It is not because I do not want you here. It is for your safety.” Then he shoots Dad a tight-lipped look. “You must take her back to America.”

“I knew you would come back, my princess,” he says.
I stop midstride at his words. There’s something about his dark-pooled eyes that causes my breath to catch and my heart to ice over.
“Just give me back my arrow,” I say.
But I never get it back.
Because he vanishes in a trick of the light.

A growl rumbles. I look up and freeze. A massive, lionlike creature, eyes glowing yellow, stands in my path.

“I am the Guardian of Seoul. Some call me Haechi. I have been sent by Palk to warn you and offer my protection.”
“But—but you attacked me,” I sputter. “And how do you know English?”

It’s as if a switch has been flicked. Honking cars, the pound of construction, the roar of the buses replace the creature’s breathing. I swivel in a circle. Everything is back in place as if nothing happened.

“You can leave the country, although I doubt Haemosu would ever let you on that plane. Find someone to marry you and hope he does not die before you make it down the aisle. Haemosu gets terribly jealous of suitors.”
“Komo.” I give her an incredulous look. “I’m sixteen.”
“Or stay and fight. But whatever happens.” Her eyes narrow as thin as slivers. “Do not let him touch you.”

It isn’t the first time I’ve dangled over the edge, streetcars zipping below me, to swing into our neighbors’ balconies.
I creep to the railing, careful that Dad doesn’t catch my silhouette through the windows, and climb over the metal bars. I could fall, but I know I won’t.

I should go and not let crazy mythical creatures control my life.

Then I think about my aunt. She’s totally against the ski trip, especially since it’s outside of Seoul in the mountains. I thumb through the edges of my notebook. What should I do?
“Marc will be there,” Michelle says slyly.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll go.”

[My aunt] would flip if she knew I was out here on such a clear, sunny day. But all that seems so far away. I suck in a gulp of mountain air and feel as if I’ve finally escaped it all.

“So you will come, then. To the land of the wonderful dream.” He extends his hand, and I take it without thinking. The instant we touch, it’s as if a small electrical shock surges into my fingertips.

No! I leap on Haemosu’s back and wrap my arm around his neck, choking him.

How do I stop him?
Dad knocks and opens the door. “I just got off the phone with your principal,” he says. “The police called the school. You’re suspended for three days. You’re lucky. You could have been deported.”

"When he touches you, he will leave his mark… and your courting begins. Each time you meet, he will pull a little piece of your soul into his realm. Until you are no longer with us."

Haemosu left his mark. My stomach rolls, remembering my stupidity.

But I let him into my head. I’ve fallen into his freaking trap. So stupid!

“It would have helped if you had stayed out of the sunlight. Or fought him in our world.” Komo is all brisk-like again. “If you had not let him touch you and pull you into his lands. If you had listened to me.”

She scowls, her eyebrows knitting close together. “I told you not to let him touch you.”
It’s as if I’d been slapped. Of all people in the whole entire planet, I thought she’d understand. Now she’s treating me as if I’d done something wrong.

“I speak and write six languages fluently, been on the honor roll practically my entire life, and even know some judo moves."

“I’m fluent in Chinese!” he yells over the rush of everyone dashing into class.
I freeze. What can that boy not do?

Marc and Grandfather chat in Korean for the rest of the taxi ride. Marc is more fluent than I am.

Marc slides his hand in mine. I don’t pull away. “I’m saying I can see things. You know, supernatural stuff."

He isn’t laughing. “I know where they keep their keys. I know where the back door is. And I know where the power box is.”

All I can think about is how Marc saved me and I did nothing. There must have been something I could’ve done.

"Your dad isn’t Korean; and if it’s all so secret, then why do you know all this?”
“My dad is an expert in religious studies, and he’s an archaeologist.” Marc’s voice turns to a whisper. “Because of his expertise, he gained the trust of the Guardians."

There are two kinds of people in this world:
1. zombies
2. freaks.
Only two. Anyone who tells you different is lying. That person is a lying zombie. Do not listen to zombies. Run for your freaking life.
Another lesson: everyone is born a freak.

My math teacher had a vendetta against me and as proof I offer the fact that I had not been told about Wednesday’s test.

All of my answers were drawings of armored unicorns. Five minutes before the period ended, the principal’s voice lectured the entire school about how badly we’d screwed up last week’s lockdown drill. I drew a bomb attached to a ticking clock under one of the unicorns.

Another lie. I leaned my forehead against the door. “Did you even try to get out the door? Did you get dressed? Take a shower?”
“I’ll try harder tomorrow, princess. I promise.”

He grabbed the front of my sweatshirt. I gasped. His jaw was clenched tight. The bonfire danced in his eyes. I had to say something to calm him down, but he looked so far gone I wasn’t sure he’d hear me. He tightened his grip, pulling me up on my tiptoes. His free hand was balled into a fist. He had never hit me before, not once.
I braced myself.

“I really like you, Hayley Kincain. I want to be with you as much as I can. I get that it’s weird at your house, scary maybe, and your dad can be a jerk. You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to, but it kills me because you are so beautiful and smart and awesome and I don’t want anything to be scary for you, I just want—”

he wnts 2 no if yr gay
yes
wtf??
????!!!!????
rilly????
want to go out with me?
???
chill, im not gay
???? r u shur
you’re not my type G
wats yr typ?
people who can spell
fin sez he kn spl

“I thought we were supposed to use time travel to help people,” I say. “I thought that’s what I did.”

He wheels around and aims a finger at me. “Tha

“I thought we were supposed to use time travel to help people,” I say. “I thought that’s what I did.”

He wheels around and aims a finger at me. “That’s not what you did. You played dress-up while you chased after some ridiculous teenage fantasy. You can’t make that much of an impact on the past. You can’t fall in love.”

His phone rings in his pocket. The vibrator motor stings his thigh, and he shrieks into the microphone. He actually shrieks. The ringtone peels thrtough the gym, the rapper rhyming about beating up his cheating girlfriend “because she deserved it” and dropping he F-bomb every other word. The entire student body bursts into howls of laughter.

Soft, wavy tendrils framed my face, gently brushing my red cheeks in the crisp autumn air. Everything else was the same – my nose, my lips, my chin – only I looked thinner, possibly two sizes smaller beneath that long wool coat.

It felt like ages before the gunfire stopped and the roadster sped away, but as soon as it did, Blue Eyes pulled me to my feet.

Back home, I would’ve run for my life if I’d come face-to-face with a guy like him in an alley. But in this body, I wasn’t scared.

Six to one. I didn’t know a damn thing about fighting, but I knew those weren’t good odds.
My feet were planted. And my fists craved contact. I was hungry for a fight, and somehow I knew I could hold my own.

I’m not sure what I’m doing, following a cryptic flyer to meet some old guy I don’t know. I know a hundred different ways this meeting could take a turn for the worse.

“You’re the only one of your kind,” Porter says, making it sound like an honor. “The only reincarnated Descender. A Transcender."

When Helena finished my makeup, I looked in her mirror and turned my chin to the left and right. A movie starlet stared back at me.

Porter’s voice elbowed its way inside my head, just as startling and unsettling as the first time.

We stood outside the Chicago Theater, waiting in line under a huge, glittering marquee that read The Jazz Singer. My jaw dropped when I first saw it.

He helped me onto the roof, and we gazed out at the city, breathing in the night and listening to the distant street sounds. The stars seemed close enough to fog with your breath.

You need to come back now. I didn’t tell you the rules. You have to come back before you–
His words resonated inside my skull like the gong of a bell. I fought harder.
I struggled longer.
Porter was gone. Equal parts relief and guilt twisted inside me.

I stare at him like there are marbles spilling from his ears. “You can’t be serious. Everything I went through, everything that happened...You want me to erase it?”

He lifts his chin, daring me to defy him. “Yes.”

“But...” I grasp at straws, trying to delay the inevitable. “I didn’t sleep in until lunchtime. I landed at lunchtime.”

“I may have posted a few of Tabitha’s personal text messages on the cafeteria’s scrolling message board...”

“Sadly, I haven’t met too many elders worthy of respect outside my family. Adults seem pissed off because of their life choices and take it out on us kids because, unlike them, we still have time; or they’re blind and forgot what it was like to be a kid so they try to put us in a glass box; or they’re jackasses just for the fun of it; or they’re blissfully ignorant of, like, everything."

We don’t make an impact. But you?” His short laugh is dry and hollow. “You broke just about every rule we have – short of killing someone – on your first run. I think that must be some kind of record.”

"And they were geniuses. But there was more to it than that. They had an upper hand. A secret weapon no one else knew about. They could travel back in time.”

“How did they travel?”
“By accessing Limbo.”
“Limbo? Like Dante’s Limbo?”
“Exactly, yes. Everyone passes through Limbo on their way to Afterlife when they die, but only a few can access Limbo while still alive."