Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies > Books: girly-guy‎ (15)

It was possible that Sahalia hadn’t realized she was pretty much sticking her butt in our faces. And maybe she hadn’t known just how sheer that shi

It was possible that Sahalia hadn’t realized she was pretty much sticking her butt in our faces. And maybe she hadn’t known just how sheer that shirt would get.
But it seemed to me she wanted us to see her body.
She wanted to be wanted.

Josie was a natural.
Where Astrid had that kick-ass camp counselor thing, Josie was a mom. A sixteen-year-old, middle-aged mom.

“Alex, help Jake. Figure it out. Astrid, keep the little kids out of the way.”
“Don’t stick me with the kids,” she protested. “I’m just as strong as you guys are!”
“Just do what I say!” Niko hollered.
She did.

She had on a giant pair of men’s overalls, cut off at the knee. Under them she was wearing very little. A lace bra and matching lace panties. You could see the bra through them because the sides of overalls are totally open. You could also see the lace cutting over her hip. You could almost see where it connected with the thong part in the back.

Sahalia was wearing what I can best describe as a costume. A sexy carpenter costume. Maybe a sexy farmer.

Now her behind is facing us, and they are short shorts she is wearing. So we can see … too much. We can see skin under the leg of her shorts. The creamy skin of her inner, inner thigh.
It was like a Sports Illustrated bikini-issue spread.

“I can carry a stupid sledgehammer,” she sassed.
“Well, go get it then!” Niko yelled.
She hurried to the hatch.

“Enough!” Josie said. “We get it, okay? You’re sexy and you want to have sex with these guys. We get it. But, honey, it’s not going to happen because you are thirteen. Thir. Teen. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I’m fourteen in less than an month,” Sahalia answered.
“Go and put some clothes on,” Josie commanded her, pushing her out of the aisle.

“She’s crazy, that girl,” Robbie said. “She kept talking about how none of you think she’s a grown-up but how she is, and she wanted to prove it to you, and honestly, I was trying to get her to put back her nightgown on when that other crazy girl came with the gun.”

Hail in all different sizes from little to that-can’t-be-hail was pelting the street.

And here’s the hilarious part—it was a FORESHOCK. Apparently, that’s what happens when you’re about to experience an 8.2. It’s an earthquake so big it sends messengers ahead.

The western face of the entire island had exploded with the eruption of the volcano. Five hundred billion tons of rock and lava had avalanched into the ocean.

The explosion had created a “megatsunami.”
A wave a half a mile tall.
Moving at six hundred miles per hour.

We have breaking news. There are reports coming in of a leak. A chemical leak. Chemical warfare compounds.

“The compounds attack based on blood type. People with blood type A will develop severe blisters on all exposed skin. After prolonged exposure, the internal organs will begin to hemorrhage, leading to organ failure and death.”

“People who have type AB blood suffer from paranoid delusions and possible hallucinations.”

“There is confusion as to the effects on people with type B blood. It is possible they will suffer from long-term reproductive difficulties and sterility. But there is hope that people with type B blood suffer no consequences from exposure.”

“People with type O blood, which is the most common blood type, will become deranged and violent. Avoid these people at all costs. Containing them in a closet or basement is advised, if possible.”

“Guys, I am the QB,” he said. “That means quarterback! The quarterback is the guy on the team who calls the shots and makes sure everyone plays their best. And I’m gonna be a great QB for this team. Us. That’s why you should elect me the leader!”

Her eye makeup was all smeared around her eyes and I wondered why nobody fixed her makeup. It was CNN, for God’s sake.

They hunted for their own food and had no electricity and used wild mushrooms for toilet paper. That kind of thing. People called Niko “Brave Hunter Man

I had already overheard him reprimand Brayden for cursing (“Taking the Lord’s name in vain is a sin!”), tattle on Chloe for pushing Ulysses (“Shoving is a sin!”), and inform the other little kids that not saying grace before eating was a sin (“Before we eat, God wants us sinners to give thanks!”).

“Turn it to Tabi-Teens,” Chloe whined. “This is bo-ring!”
“Put it to Tabi-Teens!” Chloe demanded. “Or Traindawgs or something!”

“My mom once took me in the ladies’ room,” Max volunteered. “And there was this lady in there crying and she had a ice cube and she was rubbing it on her eye and she said, ‘If Harry hits me one more time, I don’t know what I’ll do,’ and then this other lady came out of a stall and she said, ‘If Harry hits you one more time, you give him the end of this to suck on!’ And she puts a real, actual gun down on the sink. Made of metal, I am not even kidding. And then my momma turns to me and goes, ‘Tell your daddy to bring you to the men’s room.’”

“Oh man, getting laid is so awesome,” Jake said, scratching his head. “It’s just absolutely the best thing ever. Once you get it, all you can think of is getting it again. Sometimes I’m having sex and I’m worried about the next time I’m gonna have sex!”
“You’ll get there, in time, Dean. You’ll discover for yourself the beautiful, beautiful world of the hot little clam.”

Astrid looked beautiful talking to them, hearing about their favorite kinds of pizza, with the wind picking up the tendrils of her hair and bringing a flush to her cheeks.

What I wanted was Astrid. She looked so good to me I wanted to take her, in a dark and terrible way.

Astrid’s body was so beautiful my throat closed up.
So smooth and wonderful and soft. She looked so soft. A sculpture of some Greek goddess awoken from cold stone into warm pulsing life.

As I watched, Astrid slid the straps of her bra onto her shoulders and fitted the lacy cups around her breasts.
My whole body was on fire for Astrid.

And there she was. So beautiful, laid out on my knees. She had her eyes closed, and for a moment, I just looked at her. Dirty face. Lips drawn together, chapped and rosy. Eyes red rimmed. The rise of her cheekbones. Eyebrows and lashes golden honey–colored. Some brown, dried freckle-dots that could be blood on her jawline.

I’ll have to decide: join Romeo or let the specter of my soul take me. I know I should be afraid for my future, but all I can think about is Ben.

I’ll have to decide: join Romeo or let the specter of my soul take me. I know I should be afraid for my future, but all I can think about is Ben.

He turns and our eyes meet, and that sense of knowing him hits, catching me in my empty gut. For a moment, the sadness and pain in his eyes is my pain, and I desperately want to make it better. I want to reach for him, hold him, whisper into the warm crook of his neck that everything is going to be okay, that I’ll make it that way.

...flesh in his teeth, blood dripping down his chin.

I’m suddenly very aware of him, as well, of his front warming my back, his thighs shifting beneath mine. I clear my throat, blushing for the first time in so long the strangeness of hot cheeks makes me blink.

“Then this really isn’t your lucky night, chica."

I stay and let him come closer, closer, until I can feel the heat of his lips and imagine just how perfect they’ll feel, how perfect he’ll taste, how—

I fist the damp wipe in my hand, reining in the part of me that aches for this boy with the big brown eyes.
I might feel an instant connection to Ben, but I don’t matter.

"Dulces sueños, Mermaid.”

And then I turn back to Gemma...lost in the rosy glow surrounding her chest.

Ben. Something in my gut twists and for a moment I’m dizzy, weightless, as if the floor has been ripped from beneath me, but I don’t know which way to fall.

I shake my head. This has to stop. I can’t go to pieces every time I see his face. I have to pull it together, be a good influence, make sure he commits to the love of his life and lives happily ever after.

Ben laughs. “Dios mio. Fine, crazy woman.”

Gemma’s thoughtless at best, mean-spirited and selfish at worst, and I want so much better for Ben.

“I’m not doing this right, and I know I sound crazy, but...I love you. I could see myself loving you for a long time.”

“I love you. I want to do everything with you. I want to marry you and have kids with you and get old with you. And then I want to die the day before you do, so I never have to live without you.”

These two are my job, and if I don’t do it, one of them will die. Either they commit to each other or one of them commits murder and becomes a Mercenary. That’s the way it goes. Every. Single. Time.

“Dios mio,” Ben says.

How can I think of loving someone again? How have I let this happen? Even if it weren’t forbidden, haven’t I learned my lesson?

I’ve seen centuries pass, but I died when I was fourteen and have spent less than twenty conscious years on earth.

She and Gemma are so different. It’s amazing they’ve stayed friends for as long as they have.
But they have, and it doesn’t matter what I think. I can’t let Ariel lose this friendship. I could be gone by the end of the day.

Romeo might have praised my loveliness with lyrical poetry, but he never made me feel as beautiful as Ben did when he said four simple words.
You matter to me.

"You’re the one who messed up when you got pregnant when you were nineteen."

She means that she cares, no matter how bad she is at showing it.

The hard light in Gemma’s eyes fades, and for a second I can see that she cares. Or that she wants to care.

Gemma is a vindictive, selfish, spoiled girl who doesn’t deserve Ariel and certainly doesn’t deserve Ben’s love.

“He was only protecting her.”
“Like he was protecting you today?”
“Ye-es.” Something in her voice makes me certain my answer won’t satisfy her.
“Ariel … violent people usually have a good excuse for why they’re violent. But even a good excuse is just an excuse.”

I would almost swear that Ben is flirting. With me. Right in front of his soul mate. Which is so bad that bad can’t even begin to describe it.

“I know you,” he says, with a quiet assurance that threatens to make my tears start all over again. “I know you’re strong and as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside. I know you like to eat and hate Shakespeare—at least the love stories—and would do anything for a friend. I know you’re an artist, and you made a wall of bricks look like it should be hanging in a museum."

“Olvida la escuela,” he says, anger in his eyes.

Here’s the basic difference between having a girl as a best friend as opposed to a guy.
When you’re best friends with a girl and you blather on and

Here’s the basic difference between having a girl as a best friend as opposed to a guy.
When you’re best friends with a girl and you blather on and on, she kisses you to make you shut up.

This was why Macallan was the greatest friend in the world. I hadn’t seen her in ten days, yet she wanted to be sure I saw my girlfriend.

I didn’t know what bothered me more: the fact that my best friend had been keeping something from me or that she was currently flirting with some guy.

Ian cleared his voice loudly. “So, Carrie, I think we need to intervene before the Levi and Macallan Show takes over. Once they get started, they don’t stop. Ever.”

Danielle could read the nonverbal exchange Levi and I shared. “Let me guess. You didn’t realize your dates left.”
I grimaced.
She shook her head. “You guys are too much.”
“Clearly,” Levi and I said in unison.

“Um, Mrs. Dietz, I’m Levi. I’m sure Macallan has told you all about me. And, well, none of it’s true, unless she told you I’m awesome.”
"Thank you, Mrs. Dietz, for raising your daughter the way you did. She’s awesome and I know that’s because of
you. I wish I could’ve met you, but I guess I have in a way. Because of Macallan. And just so you know, I’ll do my best to protect her. And be there for her. Even if she does have the worst taste in football teams."

Macallan’s hair in the spring and summer was my favorite; in the sun it was almost bright red with an orange undertone. But if we went inside it looked like it did in the fall.

I hated that something was getting in the way of their friendship. And that something was me.

Get a grip, Jenna, I tell myself furiously. People’s lives depend on you tomorrow, and all you can think about is snogging Max.

Get a grip, Jenna, I tell myself furiously. People’s lives depend on you tomorrow, and all you can think about is snogging Max.

‘Shut up,’ he says. ‘I hate you. I HATE YOU!’

‘What’re you in here for, anyway?’ he mumbles thickly.
‘I killed my parents.’

My head lolls to the side and darkness rolls over my vision like a wave.

The face that stares back at me has brown eyes instead of grey. The nose is smaller, the chin rounder. The cheekbones are more pronounced. And all my scars are gone.
I’m almost pretty, for God’s sake.

He’s not handsome, exactly, but he looks friendly and normal and nice; the sort of guy, if you were lucky enough to get Partnered to him, you could imagine curling up with and talking to until the small hours of the morning, and not even noticing what time it was.

‘I – just – needed – some – stuff,’ he chokes.

As he lurches towards me his eyes roll back in his head and his legs fold underneath him like a puppet that has just had its strings cut.

He’s fever-hot. Crap. Maybe he hasn’t just got a cold.
‘I’m sorry,’ he croaks.
‘Don’t worry about it. You can’t help being ill,’ I say.

‘You lying, murdering bitch.’ His eyes are shining with fury and hate. ‘All this time, I thought you were helping me. I thought you cared. And it was all lies.’

‘You don’t want me!’ he yells. ‘You want her! She’s a murderer!’

He’ll never know, now, how much I care about him. I want that moment back where he tried to kiss me. And this time, I want to let him, and I want to kiss him back.
And knowing I’ll never have that again makes me want to curl into a ball and howl.

‘So why can’t they rescue Max, then?’
‘It’s too risky. If any of the FREE operatives there were to even try to make contact with Max, our cover could be blown.’
‘That’s so wrong!’ I cry.

‘Because we deserve it,’ Dad told me.

"Liv...it’s a name, a verb, a command. A notion of mortality. That’s a name ripe for some epic poetry. If I could write, I’d write you one, a poem.

"Liv...it’s a name, a verb, a command. A notion of mortality. That’s a name ripe for some epic poetry. If I could write, I’d write you one, a poem.”

“I appreciate the effort, man, but let it go,” Gabe said, sincerely. “You know what’s most important right now: to learn the truth and bring justice. For her.”

My grades certainly didn’t get me into Wickham Hall. I assumed it was my portfolio.

They dressed the same. Their hair was almost identical. Their skin was milky with the occasional bout of freckles. Their noses even turned up in the same way. But mostly, they all talked the same.

That’s when I noticed him. He was standing next to the headmaster, still looking at me even though the others had turned away. Our eyes met, and I quickly looked away. But I could feel his gaze linger. I desperately willed my face not to flush, my lips not to purse. Suddenly I was aware of every single muscle in my face.

I looked up, mouth full of bread, to see what had happened and...he was there.
He stood in front of me and asked, “May I have this dance?”

He was skittish and intense, but his brown eyes were gentle. Still, I wanted to keep at least three feet away. He was almost exactly how I’d always pictured Vincent Van Gogh—in other words, pretty crazy.

Malcolm let go of my hand and took out his iPod. He clicked it on and then handed it to me. A playlist called Liv, Forever was cued up.
“I made it for you. Obviously.”

And we walked along a sun-dappled path, comfortable like two people who’d known each other forever.
I looked out over the terrain. Lush and seemingly endless. And we walked right into it, serenaded by the Beatles’s “I’m Looking Through You.”

He turned to me. “Draw on me.”
“What?”
“Draw on me.""
After he said that, he took his shirt off. His body was perfect.

My head whipped back from its force. And that’s when everything went black.

My body was cold and dull. Plump with death. I looked almost serene. My dark hair spread around my head, kind of like that famous painting of Ophelia floating in the river. Funny, I’d made so many self-portraits and yet I’d never really looked at myself and realized I was actually kind of pretty.

He kneeled on the ground next to my body and kissed my cheek.

I was separate from the world. I had become the star, hadn’t I? That tragic, lonely thing.

I imagined myself an angel. I kind of was, wasn’t I?

I waited and waited until there was enough condensation for me to write a single sentence. It took every ounce of willpower to ignore the pain in my fingertip. But I did it.
I will hold u again, I wrote on the glass.

It was mid-afternoon so there were no stars, of course, but the leaves were every possible orange and the clouds were perfect puffs.

A self-portrait. Almost all my drawings are self-portraits. They don’t necessarily look like me—in fact, they rarely do—but they represent me.

“You are so talented. Do you understand? Your skill is exceptional. If you unleash and add true emotion to your work, it will sing, Olivia! It will fly!”

“I think I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”
“It must’ve been a pretty boring life.”
“It was. Then I met you.”

But then images started to emerge from the darkness around us. At first they were pleasant: a Titian cherub, a Chagall angel. But then one of Bosch’s devils appeared. And Munch’s screaming terror. Francis Bacon’s agonizing Pope. And one of Basquiat’s jagged skulls.

There was an opening in the canopy of trees where we could see the brilliant moon. And stars. Hundreds of them. He took my hand. He held it strongly—with commitment. We lay there silently for a long while until he spoke.
“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

I was dying inside. Brain exploding like a Pollock. Heart melting like one of Dalí’s clocks.

And he cried. He didn’t have that embarrassed look guys usually have when they cry, like the way my dad had struggled against his tears. Malcolm let go, without shame.

“You know what I wish?” he asked.
What?
“That I could just see you one last time—hear your voice. Hold you.”

“A boy.”

The woman laughs and closes her eyes, but it isn’t a happy laugh. It’s an of-course-a-boy-knows laugh. A why-did-I-even-bother-asking laugh

“A boy.”

The woman laughs and closes her eyes, but it isn’t a happy laugh. It’s an of-course-a-boy-knows laugh. A why-did-I-even-bother-asking laugh.

He waves a hand, blindly indicating the area around her head. “Your hair is blond, and Jay says it’s brown. And your eyes? Oh God. What is going on?”

“Different? Aren’t they, like, brown or something?”
Colin mumbles, “Maybe gray.”

Her eyes are murky green-brown.

Her eyes are this rich, grinding violet, flecked with metallic red

Her eyes changed colors as he watched, from deep gray to an aching, honest blue.

Her eyes morph from dark to pale yellow in the light of the bright, full moon.

He watches her eyes shift from green to silver in the light.

Her eyes open, and hunger and joy swirl green and auburn inside

Her eyes are a provocative, sympathetic indigo.

Her eyes have gone metallic brown, swirling.

Her eyes darken, mocha swirling into burgundy.

Wild, dark curls fall into his eyes, and he flips them away with an unconscious shake of his head. In that moment, her silent heart twists beneath the empty walls of her chest. And she realizes, in the absence of hunger or thirst, discomfort or cold, this is the first physical sensation she’s had since waking under a sky full of falling leaves.

“I think I’m here for you.”

She looks like a shadow of a girl. A shadow wearing a cap of sunshine.

She’s spent hours since she woke trying to understand what she is. If she’s back where she was killed, then is she a ghost?

Colin hasn’t seen her in a week, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about what she said just before she ran out the door.

He wants Lucy to be his girlfriend in every way that matters, including the ways that mean he can touch her. The urge to kiss her is becoming suffocating.

If the simple touch of his lip on her fingertip felt so intense, what would it feel like to actually kiss him? She’s afraid she’d be unable to process so much sensation.

“I started researching hypothermia, and it takes a long time for the brain to shut down entirely. I mean, in between being cold and being dead, there’s a lot of room.”

“You are crazy.”

His hands find waist, ribs, breasts. They grow wild and impatient, itching to feel every inch.

Stories of a place where students seemed to die at a higher rate than any other boarding school in the country. Colin never understood why it was a surprise that kids died or disappeared more frequently here than other places from things like exposure, pneumonia, and suicide.

Prosecutors allege the 42-year-old former headmaster of Saint Osanna’s boarding school outside of Coeur D’Alene stalked [his victim] for several weeks prior to the murder.

Lucy’s been lurking around campus for more than two months—minus the ten days of unexpected vanish—and no teacher really bothers to question her presence, let alone her decidedly non-dress-code boots.

Lucy is exactly where Jay said she was, sitting on a bench in front of Ethan Hall.

“Amanda said they saw her walking down by the lake,”

There’s an old dock not far from where the trail ends. Colin isn’t surprised when he sees Lucy sitting at the end of it.

She sits by the statue of Saint Osanna the next morning with her arms wrapped around her legs pulled tight to her chest.

She’s here, a ghost in girls’ clothing, haunting this private school. But she doesn’t want to haunt anyone. She wants to be tangible and solid. To sleep in a dorm and eat in the dining hall and flirt. With him. All she wants is to be near him.

She tells him that she didn’t feel the need to find her parents even though they might still be alive and how that lack of compulsion worries her somehow.

He wants more. He practically aches for her touch. It’s more than hormones. It’s like he’s physically drawn into her space, has to force himself to keep any sort of acceptable distance.

Her dimple makes him think of giggled pleas, mischievous promises, and the taste of sugar on his tongue. Gunmetal eyes meet his, and the color is alive, churning like an angry ocean, pulling him in.

He lets himself drown.

Colin mumbles, “Maybe gray,” but his heart is thundering.

He’s pretty sure if he says, “They’re like melted metal,” Jay will actually have a T-shirt made for him with the words I AM A DELICATE POET printed across the chest.

"If you want, I’ll finish combing your hair.”

I stared at his outstretched hand, totally floored.

I loved getting my hair brushed. More than getting

"If you want, I’ll finish combing your hair.”

I stared at his outstretched hand, totally floored.

I loved getting my hair brushed. More than getting my back scratched, more than getting a massage, more than anything, and I’d always dreamed about having a cute boy brush my hair.

Thad had just served up my secret fantasy on an island platter.

I sat on the bed while Natalie messed with my hair. It was the latest surreal Nil moment of the day. Less Survivor, more like America’s Next Top Model, island-edition.

When all the girls grew curves, I’d just stretched, growing like crazy until I hit six feet. Recently my chest had made a small effort to catch up— the key word there was small— but I still had no hips. The boyish Bermudas were perfect.

For a second, I saw myself through his eyes: gaunt, sunburned, not a speck of makeup, looking like some six-foot wild child from the bush after twelve days of oceanside camping. I was a tropical freak show.

She’d stood on the black sand, chin raised, Kevin’s shorts slung low on her hips and his bandana wrapped around her chest, her dark hair whipping around her shoulders, like a kick-ass character from a graphic novel.

“Is that breakfast? Something smells delicious.”
“Definitely. I’m guessing roast fish, warm pineapple. It’s a break from yesterday’s roast fish and warm pineapple.”

White and flaky, with a hint of citrus, the fish melted in my mouth.

Expecting fi sh, I was thrilled to find shrimp. The only thing better would’ve been a big ole pile of cheese grits on the side, but shrimp was shrimp, and this shrimp was good. Plump and tasty, it was seasoned with coarse sea salt and chopped fruit.

The Cove. Beautiful water as clear as glass, cascading into a black rock pool as cold as ice. Trees with deep green leaves the color of lush magnolias, kissing an Easter egg blue sky, lime green moss clinging to life on damp charcoal rock that will never burn.

There was a pit in the sand, lined with coals and an honest-to-goodness pig. There was a bonfire surrounded by black rock. Fish and crabs steamed over the fire, and yams baked near the crabs.

Up the beach, Heesham and Rives were pounding two wooden poles into the sand. A net stretched across the middle. Talla held a green ball; it appeared to be woven from the same green strips I’d tried to fashion a net from on my second week here, only these strips were cross-hatched in a tight pattern, forming a ball.

A volleyball.

Afternoon, a group of us went surfing. I managed to actually stand up for more than two seconds without falling off.

Slowing in the headwind, we glided over the rocks about seven meters off the ground. Jason cruised ahead of me. Landing was its own little rush, not quite like takeoff, but close.

A fire pit wafted lazy smoke into the air. Around the fire, kids laughed and talked. Two shirtless boys were playing catch with a coconut, throwing it like a football, their shoulders and backs rippling under a sheen of sweat. A girl built like a Playboy bunny was sprinting down the beach beside a tall boy with dreadlocks, like an advertisement for island athletic wear. Other kids floated on surfboards past the whitewater.

“How do you know I kissed him?”
“Please. I think everyone saw that kiss by the fire. And it’s about damn time.” She smiled.

Blue sky shone ahead, and when we broke through the trees, an open meadow burst with color: purples, blues, pinks, reds, yellows, and lots of white. Riding the breeze, the colors shifted in gentle waves.

Soon everything smelled like coconut-lime shower gel from Bath & Body Works.
“Who makes the soap?” I asked.
“Li. She’s crazy good with floral stuff. Her sandsoap’s the best.

Blessed with high cheekbones and sandy blond hair that brushed his broad shoulders, he looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of a cheesy romance novel in the grocery store book section.

“Talla.” Straight blond hair, knockout body. I missed her day
count because I was so distracted by her chest. No one should get boobs and muscles, but Talla had gobs of both.

Perfect latte skin, model-worthy dreadlocks, the shade of summer limeade.

I love you.
The rush of emotion hit me so hard, the words stuck in my throat.
Unable to speak, barely able to breathe, I twisted my fingers in her hair and pulled her lips to mine. Then, breaking away, I held her tight. No words, no expectations, just Charley in my arms and my eyes wide open.

Charley stepped onto the sand. Wearing Kevin’s shorts and a simple chest wrap, she wore her hair long and loose; it blew around her shoulders, like the first day I’d met her.

I couldn’t spear fish, weave a stupid net, or make fire. I’d no clue how to bake island bread. At home I made cakes from a box.

Watching Charley smile, I was dying to kiss her.
I fought the urge to wrap my arms around this girl I’d just met less than forty-eight hours ago.

To stay.

To be with Charley, a girl I didn’t know but wanted to—more than I’d wanted anything in months. For the first time since my feet hit Nil dirt, there was something I wanted more than leaving: time. Time without limits, time to get to know the girl who made me feel alive again.

“Tell me how to finish...i-e or e-y?”
“E-y,” I answered.
He chuckled. “So right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He said, “Because for your name to end in a lie doesn’t fit. You’re the most real girl I’ve ever met, on or off Nil.”

My breath sort of stops, right there in my lungs.
Standing behind the glass...is the person I swear I’ve waited my entire life to see.

I should be mad. I should be angry and embarrassed.
Instead, all I can think is I might love this girl.

The stars are out tonight. But the stars aren’t what I want to see right now.
It’s the moon. The moon that reminds me of the moonlit girl.
My moonlit girl. She’s the cure to my nightmares, the one thing that helps me feel safe when I can’t even trust my own dreams to harbor me.
There aren’t many things I want.
But stars, I want the moonlit girl.

"...maybe there’s a chance she’s been dreaming of me, too."

He is beautiful. Shaggy brown hair sweeps across his face, and I am shocked at how bad I want to touch it.

“Say you love me, vampire girl,” he whispered, his voice low and husky. “Tell me...that this is f

“Say you love me, vampire girl,” he whispered, his voice low and husky. “Tell me...that this is forever.”
“I love you,” I said immediately. “And if we have forever, there’s no one else I want to spend it with.”

“Puppy, I am getting so tired of listening to you whine about this,” he snarled at Zeke. “This isn’t rocket science. If you don’t want to be a monster, don’t be a bloody monster! Be an uptight stick in the mud like Kanin. Be a self-righteous bleeding heart like Allison. Or you can stop agonizing about it and be a fucking monster."

“Two lives for the rest of the world?” he continued. “Are you willing to sacrifice everything to save one and destroy another?”

“I want you to understand exactly what you are deciding, right now. If we return to the city for Jackal and Ezekiel, Sarren could reach Eden, complete whatever he is planning, and unleash a virus that could destroy everything. And if that happens, everything we’ve done here will be for nothing. Do you understand that?”

“I just want you to understand the potential consequences of tonight,” he went on. “If we are killed, if we cannot get to Sarren in time, everything could die. It will be like it was sixty years ago. You aren’t old enough to remember the days Before, but when Red Lung was at its peak, the entire world was madness and chaos. And when the rabids appeared, it became hell on earth.”

“It is...a very heavy weight to carry, Allison, the damnation of a world. I want you to be very certain, before we go any further. Is it worth it? Is he worth it?”

I already knew my answer. It was selfish, it was unreasonable, and I knew it was the wrong choice. But I looked up at Kanin, into his impassive face, and whispered, “Yes.”
“You are willing to let others die for this. To let Sarren win.”

“I’m a demon, and the sooner I take myself out of this world, the better.”

“I only have to understand one thing—I’m a demon. I may not have wanted it, but it’s what I am now.”

“This is what I am, Allison! I’m a demon—you know it as well as me.”

“I’m terrified that I won’t be able to fight this, that I’ll turn into a demon and lose my soul forever, if it’s not already gone."

“Still incredible, vampire girl,” he whispered, sounding almost like himself again. “Dangerous, beautiful and unstoppable. You haven’t changed.”

“Oh, isn’t that sweet,” came Jackal’s loud, mocking voice before I could reply. “Let’s make goo-goo eyes at each other in the middle of a stinking corpse field, how very romantic.”

“Aw, isn’t that sweet.” And Jackal sauntered into view, smirk firmly in place. “But don’t wait around on my account. It’s not like I can’t wait for yet another riveting night of listening to you people whine at each other. Oh, woe is me, I’m a vampire. I’m a horrible monster who eats babies and murders bunnies, boo hoo hoo.”

A terrifying plan began to take shape, and his chest tightened in fear as he realized what he would have to do. But Wells knew there was no other w

A terrifying plan began to take shape, and his chest tightened in fear as he realized what he would have to do. But Wells knew there was no other way. To save the girl he loved, he’d have to endanger the entire human race.

He wasn’t the brave knight who’d come to rescue the princess. He was the reason she’d been locked away in the dungeon.

He grabbed on to a branch for balance, gasping as he tried to force air into his lungs. The girl he’d risked his life to protect wasn’t just kissing someone else—she was kissing the hothead who may have gotten his father killed.

He cocked his head to the side and surveyed Clarke quizzically. The skin under her eyes was bruised with exhaustion, but the purple shadows just made them look greener.

He didn’t care whether they’d found the missing medicine. There was no drug strong enough to repair a broken heart.

I saw crushed cars stacked on top of one another and the street in front of my house split in two, exposing the innards of the earth. Nothing grew and not a soul roamed. The trees had fallen and the ground was barren of any life, the world as far as I could see, deserted.

The doors are all open and people are inside sleeping or hooking up, survivors like us. Broken bottles and clothing litter the hallways. A girl is crunched up into a ball, hugging her knees and whistling, pointing at the blank wall. Another is crushing red flowers so the juice drips into her mouth; some spills down her neck in rivulets.
“I love you,” my new friend says. “What’s your name?”

Hex tells me that back Then, when he was twelve, he started drinking and using, doing whatever it took to get his supply. “Good times.” At thirteen he was a full-blown addict and it got worse when he started DJing five years later because he could get into all the clubs and everyone was always giving him free alcohol and drugs. “I was like this mini–pill machine, downing them with whiskey. Could drink a dude twice my size under the table.”

McKale was from another family of ancient magic. His people had only been able to produce male children for many, many years now. I was told they n

McKale was from another family of ancient magic. His people had only been able to produce male children for many, many years now. I was told they needed a special, magical girl to bind herself with one of their special, magical boys to ensure the continuation of their family’s bloodline. It sounded extraordinary to me as a child—like I was a princess—special, chosen.

“Oh, Cassidy Renee,” she whispered into the air. Her eyes watered. “Why must you learn everything the hard way?”

“You kissed her?” He nodded once. His eyes were strained. “Really kiss her?” Another nod.
Jealousy reared, but I didn’t feel angry at McKale. I knew he did what he had to do.

There was an abundance of winking going on, and no female’s backside was safe from an onslaught of pinches, including mine.
It wasn’t viewed as an act of disrespect. Even McKale thought it was funny.

The term “prearranged marriage” was thought of as something from the old days, or something that other societies did. I should have been terrified or indignant, but the way Mom presented my future eleven years ago made me feel important and useful.

[Her mother] had a sudden fervent wish that Robyn was bald and funny-looking like so many precious babies she’d seen. Instead, the consort admired an inch-plus of wavy chestnut hair, rounded pink cheeks and the sweetest puckered mouth. Chocolate eyes and black lashes blinked at the Faerie. Beauty.

“Mom…” My heart pounded and I chose my words carefully. “What is McKale’s clan called?”
She wouldn’t look at me. The cabin space seemed to close in on me. It was forever before she answered in a cracking voice. “They’re the Leprechauns.”

I’d always felt like an Amazon woman, standing as tall as the guys at school, and even taller than many of them.

He sighed and swallowed. “When I was a wee lad, I dreamed of running away. I didn’t understand why I had to be different. Not just my height."

“So you can get big, like us?” she asked her tiny admirer. He nodded. “Can you do it now?”
A short blast of tingling magic hit us at our backs and we spun around. There on the top of the table sat Rock, full-sized, limber legs crossed.

I’d expected to feel emotional when I laid eyes on him. But I hadn’t expected the emotion to be so intense that it would impact me physically. Blood rushed through my veins at an alarming speed. My mind swirled and I swear I tilted to the side, off balance and unable to fully fill my lungs.

At one point I had the ball and when I turned to dribble away she tripped me, and then we were at it again. The crowd was clapping in sync and chanting, “Ma-son Girls! Ma-son Girls!”

“Hopper racing,” McKale said.
As we got closer I could make out the barrier of rocks lining the “racetracks” and a dozen frogs hopping every which way inside.

My Leprechaun had rhythm. And it was hot in a way that made me dizzy. I let myself lean back hard against him, raising my arms to the air and moving my hips.

At one point in the game Cassidy screamed, “The next pair of grabby hands that touches my boobs or butt is getting a beatdown!”

Her tiny oval face was made of delicate features that would break any girl’s heart with envy. I was mesmerized by her big, almond shaped eyes of icy blue and her round, innocent flower of a mouth. Her hair was amazing: long, past her hips, straight and thick without a single hair out of place. The color was like white gold: the ultimate platinum blonde.

“I daresay not, Melindalah,” Khalistah answered.

“Is this the one who fancies you to pieces, Princess?”
“The very same, Mirandalah.”

My entire body tightened and pulsed with a sensual charge. I was filled with need and want and—

“Do me a favor,” she said to Rock. “Say ‘They’re always trying to steal me Lucky Charms.’”

Cass sang, “They’re magically delicious!”

He pulled me to him again and laid his lips gently against mine.
“I fancied it when ye called me Kale.”

I watched him go, noting his long limbs and thin frame. It was hard to believe he was fifty-years-old and his body still had some filling-out to do.

I felt my ponytail lift and I stopped cranking. A slow turn of my head caught McKale letting the hair fall from his hand. He’d been smelling my hair. And now he wore an expression like a boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

His hands held each side of my face. I reached up and held his forearms until he pulled away just enough to see my eyes. We sat there, reading each other and savoring our prospects.

"I had never met a living thing like you. Brave enough to seek me, yet too shy to touch me. Such a refreshing change from the arrogance of Fae males."

"But none of them is so well loved as Baldur the Beautiful.
He’s the god of light, and is handsome and golden, strong and funny. At the end of every summer, he dies and his body is consumed in a great bonfire, only to rise again at winter’s end. He gives himself to Hel for six months of every year, but lives harder and more brightly in the time he has with us on earth.
He is the only god who dies at all.
And that makes him the one most like us."

"I think my heart stops beating.
There are stories of old heroes being born and reborn to discover loves from past lives, to suffer and struggle for them again and again. Sigurd Dragonslayer and the Valkyrie Brynhild, Ivar and Ohther, Starwolf Berserk and Lady Kate.
In that moment on the roof of the Spark, I imagine ages and lifetimes pile atop us, spinning us into the pull of destiny."