“How do you know me, girl?” He asked, his voice caked with venom. There was movement from the curtains and the throng of vamps seemed to cry out as one, in a sound of pure surprise.My head turned towards the figure of a young man. He looked like an angel, dressed in white and gold, but whether that was because he caused Petrel to stop or the flickering candlelight from the sconces above us, I couldn’t say.”

“He won’t stop staring.“What?” I ask.“How much do you weigh?”“Wow. Is that how you talk to every girl you meet? That explains so much.”“I’m about one hundred seventy-five pounds,” he says. “Of muscle.”I stare at him. “Would you like an award?”“Well, well, well,” he says, cocking his head, the barest hint of a smile flickering across his face. “Look who’s the smart-ass now.”“I think you’re rubbing off on me,” I say.”

“What if they don’t let us go through?” I ask, trying not to move my lips. “They will,” he answers from the dark recesses of the backseat footwell. “How do you know?” “Because you have the look they’re looking for.” “What look is that?” “Beautiful.” His voice is like a caress from the shadows.”

“...I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you - if he knew.''Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?''I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town.”

“The facts of his existence are plain. I know that he will never silence those unspeakable voices. He heard how people killed, and how they died and their voices infected him, coursed through his body, poisoned him. He didn't know how to turn off the noise, or turn the hate back out onto the world like the rest of us. He turned it on himself. You could see that from the scars on him.”

“I know you don’t….” He shook his head and glanced up at the stark white wall across the way from his cell, starting over. “I know you care about me. That’s all I need. I just figured… we have enough secrets between us,” he continued as he looked back up at Zane and smiled nervously. “Now it’s just one less.”