Lili St. Crow

“He peered down at me. “Jesus Christ. You’re leaking.”If by “leaking” he meant “sobbing like a girl,” I guess so.”

“To Gran, “strong medicine” could be good or bad, just like the laxatives she was forevertalking about. Good for makin’ the mail move smooth, but too much and you shit yerbrains out. -strange angels”

“I love you!" he shouted, his eyes glowing laser green."I love you, okay? I'm not some hopeless retard you pull along behind you because you feel sorry for him! I love you and I'm going to prove it!”

“I never had trouble eating or sleeping when I thought of her in danger. I didn't want to tear my heart out when she looked sad. I'm tainted, I know as much. Just let me stay near you, Dru. Please." - Christophe”

“Every kid's afraid of that right? That someday you'll be left in a corner, like a toy, staring with button eyes and a broken heart.”

“You can only shove shit under your bed for so long before it starts moving around and wanting to get out. You can only cope for so long before everything breaks.”

“It's woman's power, food is. You be sure you know where'n the hook is before swallerin' it, Dru. You mind me, now.”

“I've talked to Bruce about it. He'll have kittens, and Hiro will have penguins, and August will completely throw a fit, but I've made up my mind. It's up to you”

“And I knew that tone, the pleading, the fear that was sitting like a spiked ball in his chest. He'd been left behind too, maybe more than I had.”

“And death doesn't wait for you when your rested and ready. It sneaks up on you when your exhausted and hungry and cold and so scared you can't even see straight”

“Like a kid, I hadn't wanted to make it true by saying it out loud. Because if you don't say it, there's still a chance God, or someone, or anyone will notice the mistake and fix it.”

“I was lying there on the floor, feeling a cold draft tiptoe down the hall and into the living room, and all of a sudden I felt very, very lonely.”

“Fury ignited behind my breastbone , a hot glow like coals blooming into something sharp and dangerous. It was the same old crap- someone thinking they can push you around because you're young, because you're helpless. You had to just sit there and take it because you were under a certain number , because you weren't a real person yet; you could be picked up and dropped like a toy, left behind or thrown away...”

“I rubbed at my temple, where the zit was gone. It still hurt a little , though, deep under the skin. I hate those zits that burrow underground. You think they've vanished, but no, they just barricade themselves right next to the bone and hurt.”

“…The first wave of vampires hit the stairs then, a cascade of tip-tapping feet and dark-spangled hatred.”

“Shanks moaned, stirring. “You broke my nuts”So that was what my elbow had hit. “Sorry.” My voice cracked.”

“Anna never wanted to walk when she could be carried, your mother wanted to walk when she could fly, and you want to run before you can walk.”

“Nat flung her arm over my shoulders and Alex leaned against my other side, the prohibition against touching gone for a few brief seconds as everyone collapsed together in a heap.But I wasn't wulfen. I was still lonely.”

“We ran and the ghost of Graves ran with us.”

“It was like my hormones had decided to stage a revolt whenever he got within a ten-foot radius.”

“I would not put my little bird in the jaws of a trap without being near enough to make sure it wouldn't close on her.”

“I mean, seriously, is a baby doll dress for the breastless? I don’t know.”

“I hit the dance floor, wincing a little bit as the DJ looped feedback through the throbbing of a useless song about someone playing poker with his face or something.”

“Graves leaned forward, eyeing me. "Hey, Dru. You were french-kissing a winged snake. creeptastic.""I was stealing her breath, imbecile. go get a towel." christophe shoved him, and graves shoved back.”

“Sonofabitch answer me!" My voice bounced off the walls, made the whole room whirls around me. My blood pounded in my ears. Adreline poured through my blood, copper winding me tighter and tighter."YES!" he screamed back "yes. i am a fucking virgin, don't shoot me goddammit fucking please!”

“Amazingly, he smiled at me. "You're bossy." His pupils were still huge, but a little color had begun to come back into his face, especially along his cheekbones. "I like bossy chicks.”

“Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch.”

“Answer this question very carefully, kid. Are you a virgin?"The silence was so long I thought I was going to have to ask him again."What the hell?" He sounded honestly perplexed."Yes or no? Are you a virgin?" I lost control halfway through. My voice spiraled up into a scream... "Sonofabitch answer me!""Yes!" he screamed back. "Yes, I'm a fucking virgin, don't shoot me goddammit fucking please!”

“I was always holding onto people, and they were always leaving.”

“Who. Hit. You?”

“I don't need an invitation to step over your threshold. -Cristophe”

“Wulf aside, boys are stupid. Always were, always will be, world without end, amen.”

“People are goddamn geniuses at not seeing what they don't want to see.”

“It wasn't exactly dangerous to be out during the day... but the Council, every one of them, up to and including August, would have kittens and penguins and little baby narwhals, too, probably, if they knew what I was up to.”

“The taste of rotting, waxen oranges slid across my tongue, paying no attention to the fact that I was chewing on a wad of spearmint gum. Gran called it arrah-an aura. I was calling it danger candy nowadays. I always felt like spitting it out, but spitting would only make it worse.Plus, spitting on a dance floor is damn rude. I was raised better.”

“Okay," I began. "You’re too old for me. You’re scary. It’s creepy that you were so all over my mom and now you’re all over me.”

“Some part of me must've thought that would fix everything. Things, don't just get fixed, though. Things get broken, and somtimes they stay that way. You just have to glue them together and hope it holds.”

“And now things were as bad as they could get.I winced inwardly. You're never supposed to even think that. Because it's just an invtation for the world, Real or otherwise, to throw something even more incredibly fucked up at you.”

“Don’t send me home, it’s boring as fuck-all there.”

“You can scrub and scrub, but sometimes something doesn't just go away. It . . . it stains you.”

“Donc pour moi, c'est le tai-chi et ce que papa appelait "la base de la bagarre de rue" quand il était sobre et "six bonnes façons de dresser un trou du cul" quand il avait bu quelques verres de Beams.”

“Come now, no use wastin sunshine.”

“Anything for you, Dru. And I mean it. Now, be quiet and let me concentrate.”

“Boys always get the best lashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law.”

“I'm here to help you, fucking morons.”

“I'm going to draw whoever it is off so you can go back to the dorms and fuck yourselves.”

“If wishes were fishes, even beggars would eat”

“No,” he agreed. “You’re not. She never caused me this agony.”What could I say to that? The way he was looking at me was making my head feel funny. Was making me feel funny and not just in that oh God I just almost died way.Christophe leaned in. His mouth was a mere centimetres from me. “She never made me think I would die of heart failure. She never, never made me fear for her this way.”

“Move first, worry about looking like an idiot later.”

“First one's free”