“Great. "So not only am I not-human, but Death is my arch foe?" Who, me? Panic? "Anything else you want to tell me, while we're confessing?”

“So ... will you stay with me until it's over? Please?" "Kaylee, I would do anything for the girl who granted my dying wish.”

“So instead of ignoring the pain, I called out to it, reaching for more. Pain is part of who I am. It’s the defining characteristic of a Shifter’s transformation. Pain is what I suffer from my enemies. It is what I deal out to those who break our laws. It is what I protect my charges from. Pain is what I inherited from fate, that fickle bitch who gave me a mouth and fists, then put me in a world that wanted only my womb and my cradled arms.”

“I could have kissed you months ago, but it wouldn’t have meant anything. I wished for you to see me. And want me. So…did you mean it?”“Yes,” I said, and some unnamed tension inside me eased. “I see you, Tod.”

“I’m sick of white walls and endings. The only thing that doesn’t end in this place is me. I don’t end. I just go on, and on, swinging that scythe glued to my hand. There’s no rhythm to the strokes. Few see death coming, and even those who do see death don’t see me. Because there is no me. Not anymore. Always the reaper, never the reaped. Soon that won’t bother me. Soon I won’t care. Emotional death follows physical death at a different pace for each reaper. I’ve put it off for more than two years, but it’s inevitable.”

“Yeah.” I took another deep breath. “I’m gonna die, Emma.”“You mean eventually, right?” She blinked, and I could tell it hadn’t sunk in. “Please tell me you’re making some kind of big-picture philosophicalstatement about the inevitability of death and the transient nature of human existence.”“Not eventually, Em. Sometime on Thursday.”

“Em didn't truly understand about my panic attacks - no one did. But she'd never pushed me to explain, never tried to ditch me when things got weird, and never once looked at me like I was a freak.”