De tall, dark vun--dere's nothing special about him at all," ter Borcht said dismissively of Fang, who hadn't moved since the doctor had come in. Well, he's a snappy dresser," I offered. One side of Fang's mouth quirked.

Fang felt a cold jolt, then dismissed it. Max wasn’t dead. He would know, somehow. He would have felt it. The world still felt the same to him; therefore, Max was still in it.

Listen, street punk. You're a guy, and you're a couple inches taller, and maybe forty pounds heavier, and ooh, you're in a gang. But I've survived ten years of Catholic school, and I will cut you off at your knees without a blink. Do you understand?

They call me, The Sharkalator

The hardest part about parenting is when I have to be The Dad--aka the Fun-Sucker--as opposed to being a friend.

"Hello, Max," he said quietly, searching my face. "How do you feel?" Which was a ten on the 'imbecilic question' scale of one to ten. "Why, I feel fine, Jeb," I said brightly. "How about you?" "Any nausea? Headache?" "Yep. And it's standing here talking to me."

Ari smiled. The sun was shining, the weather was great, he was eating ice cream, and all his dreams were about to come true.