“I want to go home," she whispered to me. "Forget that last speech, I want to go home.”

“If you’re going to need me, even if it’s just to yell at, I’m going to stay right here.”“No, I want to take a shower. I’m not about to if you stay out there.”“Excuse me, but-huh? Then there will be two doors between you and me.”Some of the blood stayed in my cheeks as I found myself spluttering, “But you’ll know I’m taking a shower!”“You just told me you were going to!”

“And Bram?"Panic punched me in the chest. So far today she'd been willing to touch me, laugh with me, confide in me, and now she was wondering if Chas shouldn't go out with me? Had I misread something somewhere?Chas shook her head and grinned. "Nah. Bram's too busy waiting.""Waiting?" Nora didn't take her eyes from me. Maybe she wanted me to answer. "For the right girl," I said curtly. "And he has very specific physical preferences," Chas said. I grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She'd better not.She did. "For some reason, he is terribly attracted to black hair. Tom's a leg man, himself...attached, unattached, doesn't really mtter. But Bram likes the hair."With all the various methods of Chastity Disposal flying through my imagination-should I just shoot her, or should I open her skull and puree her brains with a motorized mixer, or perhaps set her on fire?-It took me a minute to notice me a very shy smile.I dropped Chas's wrist. I almost dropped my machete.Nora looked away and moved a few steps in front of us, leaping into the grass to flatten it for herself as she went."I win," Chas whispered."Smoke all you want," I whispered back.”

“So, despite the fact that my survival instinct was hollering like a drunk town crier, I started to accept that if I wanted to find out more about my father, I would have to go out and hobnob with the zombies.”

“Now, feel free to call me what I am-call me a corpse, call me dead, call me a killer if you want. I've killed people in battle, I'll admit. But don't call me what I'm not. I am not a freak, and I am not a cannibal, and-"I would have adeed, I'm not a monster, if it hadn't at that moment hit me that I was going all self-righteous on a girl whose world I had just turned upside down.Smooth, Bram. When will you learn to shut up?”

“I would think that the last person you'd want to sass ould be the one who might react by tearing you limb from limb.”

“I want him to explain a few things to me, before I beat the prion-whatevers out of him.”