Nenia Campbell

“We both want you dead. I'm bringing the friendship bracelets to the next meeting.”

“All right,” she said a little sarcastically. “I was going to assume you liked eating babies and sacrificing virgins, but I might as well ask, what do you do for fun?”“I languish in sin,” I replied in the same tone. “I take my babies rare, and my virgins over easy.”

“As if I'd had time to drug it in the two milliseconds she'd let me out of her sight.”

“When I felt her yield and kiss me back, and realized I had a fighting chance to make this all work out somehow, I had hope.That was far deadlier than any knife or mace.”

“No. I made that choice. I let all that anger and pain get twisted up in my thoughts for you.” He leaned in. “It fucking kills me. Every night. I relive what I did to you every night.” His forehead rested against mine. “Until you,” he said softly, “I never felt truly helpless.”

“You must be a blast on long car rides.”“Oh, I am. You haven't experienced fun until you try to fuck in the front seat of a Civic.”

“Welcome to Arizona, you bastard.”

“He smelled like alcohol and a bad dream.”

“I'm pretty sure those're my balls you've found,” I said to the man searching my pants. “You gonna count 'em out now? Because I'll save you the trouble. There's two.”

“Ask yourself what a man without guile might do to your body in the dark.”

“When we mated I felt your heart stop beating and it was as if the world had stopped turning. It was only while surrounded by death that I realized I had never felt more alive.”

“Don't tell me it's going to fucking be okay! I am not okay with being that fucker's pinata!”

“Fuck your manners.""You don't have to settle for just my manners.”

“Val had a horrific image of Lisa peering through a magnifying glass like a grotesquely teenybopper version of Nancy Drew — in jeggings.”

“Just remember,” he told her. “If you run from me, I will pursue.”

“People only picked the pretty, sweet-smelling flowers. The ones with thorns were left alone.”

“You're like a half-tamed creature, still shy of the bridle. 'Except you enthrall me, never shall be free.' But freedom is an illusion, anyway.”

“Careful,” he said. “If you keep blushing like that I may do more than just draw you.”

“Boys,” Lindsay agreed, nodding. “What doesn't get lost in translation?”“Things with the letter X in front of them,” Rachel posited. “Like X-Box. And X-rated movies.”

“Now there's a girl I don't want to mess with' — or at least, that's what I would think if I had a chronic fear of freakishly nice people.”

“I feel I could kill. I feel that I might like it. And I know that this should scare me. But it doesn't. It excites me. I am in Plato's cave, watching the shadows and fraught with the desire to hunt what casts them.”

“Not all poison was bitter. Some of the deadliest poisons in the world tasted sweet; they were that much more dangerous because of it.”

“If one has never known freedom, it is easy to be blind to the gridirons composing one's cell.”

“She has built her whole life on the foundation of beauty: each chiseled plane, each sloping dimple, each soft curve as crucial as keystones in the cathedral of her body.”

“Well blow me down with a solar flare.”

“Without ethics, science would be cruelty.”

“You are my star and you have made me see,” he tells her, “and I am the air beneath your wings, never rending, never ending.”

“I remember something.""Yes?""You told me once that you were going to break my heart."He rolls over to face her. "Yes," he says. "I may once have said something like that.""What happened?"His beautiful eyes are even more hypnotic up close."You broke mine.”

“I though I made it clear that harming you isn't high on my list of priorities." He shifts her in his hold so that while he is speaking, he is looking directly into her eyes. "And even if it was - which it isn't - I certainly wouldn't go about hurting you in such a half-coccked way, nor would I do it when your back was turned. As with most other things, I'd do it face-to-face and with finesse.”

“Briar Rose awakens to grace us with her gentle presence once more.""Shut up," says Vol."Your thorns are showing.”

“Thank you, Co-Pilot Obvious.”

“All right," she snaps at the computer. "I get it. I'm slowing down! Gods!""Activating Generic Ocular Display Sequence. G.O.D.S."The front of her shuttle goes transparent and Vol experiences a nauseating wave of vertigo."No, that's not what I meant! It's an expression! What the hell?""Error. Request must be made in the form of a command.""Oh, f*** you.""Error. Command not recognised.""I'm not surprised," Vol mutters.”

“Vol picks up the cup of tea in both hands and takes a long sip. Mm, grass-clippings. Her favourite.”

“They stare at her, not seeing the woman she is or the girl she was none too long ago, but a mere puzzle. An intractable puzzle - bemusing and a little frustrating, but capable of being solved nonetheless.”

“Why do you fight me?" His voice is soft again, as textured as velvet. "Can't you see I'm doing everything I can to help you?""Help yourself off the edge of a cliff," she growls.”

“I think you enjoy messing with people.""That's a purely hypothetical supposition on your part," the bastard says.”

“It symbolises strength."Bastien snorts. "It certainly doesn't provide any.”

“Does your family play games, too?" She tries to sound off-hand."No. Just me - and my brother."Which means her parents are in the casinos, then, leaving this kid in a collapsing mine. Okay, a virtual one, but still.”

“What's happening to me?" she whispers to the quilt. "I'm losing my mind."Though that implies that I had one to begin with.”

“Come here. Then we'll talk."That sounds like a bad idea to her. "I can hear you fine right here.""Is it the arrows?" He kicks bow and quiver into the stream and grins a grin that puts the devil to shame. "There. Now I'm harmless.""No?" He tilts his head, shifting to his side so he can lean his stubbled chin on his hand. "Well, harmless enough. Don't you think?""No.”

“You're going to the ball?""Aren't you? I was led to believe we had no choice in the matter."Vol cracks a wry smile. "Ah. You've met Kira, then.""If that self-congratulatory guinea pig in my doorway this morning was Kira, then yes. We're acquainted.”

“You're screwed, scum, and not in the way you'd like, either. Irony's a bitch, isn't it?""You wouldn't say that if you knew who I am."Vol's bounty hunter laughs. "Trust me, I've seen an asshole before. Drop the sword now.”

“If she sees him again, she isn't sure what she might do. Only that it will include grievous bodily harm and possible grounds for her own firing.”

“I am not going to think about the things I am not going to think about.”

“Do you ever get tired of being such a witch?" Vol asks, holding open the door."Oh, no. Never." She smiles. "You have to admit, it's so much more interesting than being nice.”

“I'm not asking you to come-""Thanks." Vol studies herself in the cracked mirror and secures the braid with the tie."I'm telling you to come." Kira's mouth hardens. "This is not optional.”

“Crazy people always think they're perfectly sane. It's what makes them so crazy; their entire delusion lies within the fact that they believe they aren't deluded.”

“Everyone needs to escape sometimes, and retreating into somebody else's fantasy isn't nearly as satisfying as slipping into your own.”

“That's life. Life is the ultimate game, and its rules were made to be broken”

“When mothers warn their daughters about all the cold nasty men out there who will only break their tender little hearts, I'm the one they've got in mind because I'm the one who broke their hearts when their mothers were warning them.”