“Can we just do this?” Ray asked tightly, clinging to Zheng’s already slightly elongated arm. Because Louis-Cesare wasn’t the only one with a master power around here. “Let go,” Zheng told him. “I’m the rubber band; you’re the spitball. And spitballs don’t hold on to rubber bands.” “Die in a fire,” Ray told him savagely. But he let go.”

“Dorina?" Louis Cesare's voice was loud in my ear. The one I had squeezed against thephone, which was squeezed against my sore shoulder, becuase I was using both hands tokeep Ray's point in his pants."The fey, damm it!" I told him. "They're for the fey!""Which one?" Louis Cesare asked, his voice going velvety soft."All of them- No Ray! Ray, cut it out!""All of them?”

“He caught me to him, his arms banded tight around me. His face pressed into my throat. "Where do we go from here?"I held him. "Wherever this takes us. Together.”

“Danger, Danger running cold              Knowing but fearing just the same               Death comes and yet you don’t let go              Standing while it’s steel bands hold              Don’t walk. Don’t walk where light can not shine              You know the warning has been told              It comes for what is mine and I know it will be so.             Let go, it’s all there is that’s left. Let go your sin has no wrath.              Danger was Hell’s last request.               Let go it’s all there is that’s left. Let go your sin has no wrath.              Forgiveness wasn’t given yet. Not yet. Not yet.              No regrets. ~ Dank Walker”

“It wasn’t. Ray was too alive, too vital, too much of everything. Everything about him was real, solid. He couldn’t be these things the doctor described. Not breathing on his own. No brain activity. Not Ray. “I don’t have home without him”, Carrie said when doctor asked her to go home. “I won’t give up on him. Do you hear me, Doctor? Don’t you give up on him!”

“My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope - make yourself a structure you can live inside.”