Gwen smiled. "Hardly. Bedraggled is being in the full throes of nicotine withdrawal, and after a week on a bus with a group of senior citizens, falling into a cave, and landing on a body." "And then getting tossed back a few centuries, with no idea of what's going on," Chloe agreed. "Naked, too, weren't you?" Gwen nodded wryly. Gabby blinked. "I gave you my plaid," Drustan protested indignantly.

The two of you are getting downright chatty, aren't you, Ms. Lane? When did you last see him? what else did he tell you? I'm asking the questions tonight. If an illusion of control comforts you, Ms. Lane, by all means, cling to it.

His face was in my neck and he was breathing hard. Was he grieving me? Already? Would he miss me? Had I, in some tiny way, come to matter to this enigmatic, hard, brilliant, obsessed man? I realised he'd come to matter to me. Good or evil, right or wrong, he mattered to me.

He didn't just occupy space; he saturated it. The room had been full of books before, now it was full of him.

I'd never been turned on by the Ken doll—even before I looked down his pants and saw what was missing.

Barrons knows virtually everything about me. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere he has a little file that encompasses my entire life to date, with neatly mounted, acerbically captioned photos—see Mac sunbathe, see Mac paint her nails, see Mac almost die.

I flash him number seventeen of my thirty-five Looks of Death.