“He couldn't do it. He could not fucking die. How could he leave? How could he go? Everything he hated was here.”

“Takashi had no choice, and he'd always known it. This was one reason he'd triedso hard not to care about anyone, one reason why he'd known immediately just how dangerous Summer Hawthorne could be. Because now she was the one he couldn't sacrifice, couldn't walk away from, no matter how high the stakes. He could die for what he believed in. He just couldn't let her die as well.”

“Could he love this girl the way she deserved? He could love her with everything that he was, and still it wouldn't be enough. He would fuck up somehow, because that is what he did.”

“His voice wavered and he looked down abruptly, at last making some vain effort to hide the shameful tears that tracked down his cheeks even as he continued to pin Boyd against the wall. 'I wish I could hate you. God, I wish I could fucking kill you for doing this to me. Why couldn't you just leave me alone if it was going to be this way?”

“How was it that he could remember not remembering, and yet the fugitive facts themselves remained so elusive? How could he misplace the skills of a lifetime? Where did such knowledge go?”

“He couldn't bear to live, but he couldn't bear to die. He couldn't bear the thought of he making love to someone else, but neither could he bear the absence of the thought. And as for the note, he couldn't bear to keep it, but he couldn't bear to destroy it either.”