If I stay, they'll kill me... If I go, at least everything that wants me dead won't be taking it personally.

Wait. You work for me?" "I prefer to think of it as managing your incompetence.

Isana felt her throat tighten. "We failed." Serai lifted her chin and patted Isana's arm firmly. "We have not yet succeeded. There is a difference.

I could buy that she would murder me in a fit of rage, poison me out of flaming jealousy, or bomb my car out of sheer, stubborn pique. But she would never do it and feel nothing.

If I lived through the next day or so, I needed to start keeping track of where these jokers liked to get their bloodthirsty freak on. It might give me an edge someday. Or at least a list of places that could use a nice burning down. I hadn't burned down a building in ages.

If you can't manage courtesy, try silence.

Life is full of toil, sacrifice, and pain, and from the time we stop growing, we know that we've begun dying. We watch helplessly as year by year, our bodies age and fail, while our survival instincts compel us to keep on going-which means living with the terrifying knowledge that ultimately death is inescapable.