“I think you look like the spawn of Satan.""Yeah, and you still look like my brother's favorite blow-up doll.""Speaking of, what's the deal with the size of my breasts in last month's manual?" He'd drawn me so top heavy a stiff wind could have knocked me off balance."Creative license," he said with a shrug."A little too creative.”

“I saw you, looking like Hayworth, making me want to pin you up, pin you down, take you for a different kind of ride altogether.”

“Miss me?" he whispered, giving me the once-over, eyes lingering on my chest. My heart skipped a beat. My glyph pulsed painfully."Like a urinary tract infection," I said, through gritted teeth.”

“So. You're a fallen angel." She folded her arms."I'm not fallen," he said roughly."Then what are you?"He shrugged. "Busted.”

“All right," Marcus said, like he was doing me a grave favor. "But take it slow, sister. Any sudden moves and we'll drop you like a used-up ho on the corner of Fifth and Bridger.”

“...a companion had seemed unnecessary fuel when her body still burned at the core, waiting to ignite. But now, with the wind blowing icicles through her [Kit] veins, it felt like she, too, was in the grave. All her nuclear energy had been snuffed like a match between the night's icy fingers.”

“But no life was without it's strain & strife, not if it was fully lived. Opening up to experience, even the good ones like trust & love, was to open yourself up to the pain. I suppose the key was to not compound matters by making the rest of it unnecessarily hard. My need for control had certainly done that in the past. So I made a promise to myself in that moment. I would make a concerted effort to reach for what was soft & good in this world. I'd find a place to settle into, and hold still so that this world's good and soft could reach back & touch me as well.”