…a cheerful black shadow reared up behind him as he spoke, thundering a happy challenge to my Dark Passenger, which slid forward and bellowed back.

Nothing in life is fair. Fair is a dirty word and I'll thank you not to use that language around me.

Of course, having information to use is one thing. Knowing what it means and how to use it is a different story.

Stop the nurse like the monkey.

In its own way the kiss had been an act of murder.

I stood up. It was all too much. I could not even meet my own expectations, and to be asked to deal with all theirs too was suffocating.

I had become a perfect fake human, saying the stupid and pointless things that humans say to each other all day long.