“With the Book hitching rides, hiding on people, guess we’re all going to be dressing like skanks for a while, huh? Skintight or skin. Dude, everybody’s everything’s gonna be hanging out, and some o’ those fat chicks at the abbey are gonna gross my eyeballs right outta my head. Muffin tops and camel toes, gah!”

“Gah, some chicks should be shot. Put out of everyone else's reproduction pool.”

“I pinch the sentence's butt with my other hand and tug it from my skin like a leech, smack it back on the page and clamp the book shut. Part of it's hanging out, and it waves jerkily at me with what appears to be blatant hostility. I stick the book back on the upside-down shelf over my head, pissed off sentence first, counting on the gluey base to hold it in. All I need is a badly mangled, irate sentence stalking me.”

“Like a horse, honey, somebody's gonna break you.''Never. Going. To. Happen.”

“I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself. Movies show you the pink house. A good book tells you there's a pink house and lets you paint some of the finishing touches, maybe choose the roof style,park your own car out front. My imagination has always topped anything a movie could come up with. Case in point, those darned Harry Potter movies. That was so not what that part-Veela-chick, Fleur Delacour, looked like.”

“Sloppy, Mega,” I mutter. I still can’t see. I wipe my bloody nose on my sleeve and reach out to feel what I hit.“That’s my dick,” Ryodan says. I snatch my hand away. “Gah!” I choke out. I can feel my face again—because, like, it’s going up in flames. What kind of universe makes me reach out at exactly that fecking level to feel what I think is a wall and puts my hand on a penis?Then I remember this is Ryodan and scowl. “You did that on purpose!” I accuse. “You saw my hand go out and you stepped right into it!” “I’d do that why, kid?”

“I think I’m under control, that I’ve stripped away all weaknesses. That committing to my mission has made me impervious. I’m wrong. The thought of Barrons smiling brings other thoughts.Barrons naked.Dancing.Dark head thrown back.Laughing.The image doesn’t “gently swim up in my mind” in a dreamy sort of way, like I’ve seen in movies. No, this one slams into my head like a nuclear missile, exploding in my brain in graphic detail. I suffocate in a mushroom cloud of pain.I can’t breathe. I squeeze my eyes shut.White teeth flashing in his dark face: I get knocked down but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down.I stagger.But he didn’t get up, the bastard. He stayed down.”