As Val jumped down onto the litter-strewn concrete after them, she thought how insane it was to follow two people she didn't know into the bowels of the subway, but instead of being afraid, she felt glad. She would make all her own decisions now, even if they were ruinous ones. It was the same pleasurable feeling as tearing a piece of paper into tiny, tiny pieces.

I need your help," says the tiny figure. Her voice is sad and soft and sounds like Lila's, but with an odd accent that might just be how cats sound when they talk.

No trouble ever got fixed late at night," he said. "Midnight is for regrets.

I’ve stripped my life down,” he told me. “I don’t need much. I have all the company I want to keep right in here.” He shot himself in the head with his fingers. “People don’t understand about the need to live simply. They make appointments all day. They even schedule their own deaths. The first time they’ll have freedom to really be themselves is when they no longer exist. But up here, there’s nothing but me and the sky. A million billion stars.

I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like DYING.

She wants me to take out Patton.” Barron’s brows draw together. “Take out? As in transform him?” “No,” I say. “As in take out to dinner. She thinks we’d make a good couple.

Downstairs, Grandad's warning Barron about something. His voice swells, and I catch the words, "In my day we were feared. Now we're just afraid.