Destiny was a machine built over time, each choice that you made in life adding another gear, another conveyor belt, another assemblyman. Where you ended up was the product that was spit out at the end—and there was no going back for a redo. You couldn‟t take a peek at what you‟d manufactured and decide, Oh, wait, I wanted to make sewing machines instead of machine guns; let me go back to the beginning and start again. One shot. That was all you got.

Man, he wasn't going to need a stress test anytime soon. If his heart could get through a kiss from her, he could probably run a marathon. While dragging a car behind him. Sideways to the road.

You would have made a fine warrior, you know that?" I am one. Death is my enemy." Yeah, it is, isn't it." God, it made such sense that he'd bonded with her. She was a fighter… like him. "Your scalpel's your dagger." Yup.

She silenced him with her mouth, then pulled back. "You can't change what I think of you." He reached up and brushed her lower lip with his thumb. "If you truly knew me, everything you believe would change." "Your heart would be the same. And that is what I love.

The place is also big enough. We could all live there without killing each other." -Rhage "That depends more on your mouth than any floorplan." -Phury

Souls were the same. They, too, had useless baggage that impeded their proper performance, these annoying, holier-than-thou bits dangling like an appendix waiting for infection. Faith and hope and love...prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude...all this useless clutter just packed too much damn morality into the heart, getting in the way of the soul's innate desire for malignancy.

V rolled the Aquafina bottle between his palms. "How long have you wanted to ask me the question? About the gay thing." "For a while." "Afraid of what I'd say?" "Nope, because it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. I'm tight with you whether you like males or females or both." V looked into his best friend's eyes and realized… yeah, Butch wasn't going to judge him. They were cool no matter what. With a curse, V rubbed the center of his chest and blinked. He never cried but he felt as if he could at this moment.