“I lit my loneliness on fire like it was a cigarette. But I didn’t smoke it, because that would have required me to remove my gas mask. And what kind of sensible girl is going to be attracted to a guy out in public not wearing his gas mask?”

“I think I just inhaled a cloud. That’s what I get for not wearing a gas mask while riding my Pegasus.”

“The gas mask keeps me looking like any other tagger - skinny, fast, and vaguely male. Someone would have to be pretty close to tell I'm a girl, and frankly, no one ever gets that close.”

“He thought of the feeling of receiving oxygen from a mask and the calming sensation it brought, partly because of the concentrated gas but partly too because he could hear his muffled lungs expelling their product within the mask, and it reminded him that he was breathing, that the gas was flowing at all times but most importantly at that moment, a constant and essential truth. His lips and lungs and teeth were witness to the passage of breath.”

“I don't want blood to rule my life like it does some. Once you take it, it's like a drug." He stared out the window to the masked revelers in the courtyard. "Warm, rich, never enough."I nodded, fidgeting with my mask. "Kind of like chocolate." I tried to hold in my grin. Casey always said I had a weird sense of humour that came at the oddest times.He blinked before bursting into laughter. He had the nicest laugh and the most incredible smile I'd ever seen. It lit his grey eyes and sliced attractive little dimples into his cheeks. "Yeah. I guess it is like chocolate.”

“Do you like me?”No answer.Silence bounced, fell off his tongueand sat between usand clogged my throat.It slaughtered my trust.It tore cigarettes out of my mouth.We exchanged blind words,and I did not cry,I did not beg,but blackness filled my ears,blackness lunged in my heart,and something that had been good,a sort of kindly oxygen,turned into a gas oven.”