“We had no idea what waited ahead of us, other than the big, fat unknown, and most likely a big, fat kick in the face. The gravity of that was killing me-killing usI squared my shoulders. "Release the Kraken!"Several sets of eyes settled on me."What?" I gave a lopsided shrug. "I've always wanted to yell that since I saw that movie. Seemed like the perfect moment.”

“Daemon snatched the yellow packages from my hands. “Oh! Books! You have books!”I laughed as several people waiting in line looked over their shoulders. “Hand them over.”He clutched them to his chest, making moony eyes. “My life is now complete.”“My life would be complete if I could actually post a review on something other than the school library computers.”I did that about twice a week since my latest laptop went to the big computer heaven in the sky.”

“Listen to me, Ember. I couldn’t hurt you. I can’t.” Hayden settled his eyes on me. They were softer than I’d ever seen. “I love you— I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you.”

“You look like you're twelve. No. Maybe thirteen, but my sister has this doll that kinda reminds me of you. All big-eyed and vacant.”

“We can't lose you," she said after a few moments of awkward as hell silence. "You have to understand that we aren't doing this because we don't care about Kat. We're doing this because we love you.""But I love her," I said without hesitation.Dee's eyes widened, probably since it was the first time she'd herd me say it out loud, well, about anyone other than my family. I wished I had said it more often, especially to Kat. Funny how that kind of shit always turns out in the end. While you're deep in something, you never say or do what you need to. It's always after the fact, when it's too late that you realize what you've should've said or done/It couldn't be too late. I knew that. The fact that I was still alive was testament to that. Like Dee said, though, there were worse things than death.”

“Once I got home, though, and saw several packages on my front porch, all the crap from the day disappeared. A few had smiley faces on them. Squealing, I grabbed the boxes. Books were inside-- new release books I'd preordered weeks ago.”

“I can help Katy," Blake wheezed. "Good enough for you?""What?" I demanded, dropping my hands."Yeah, see, you saying her name alone makes me want to kill you. So, no, not good enough for me.”