Did something happen to the sanctity of your church again?" My eye twitched. "Newt broke it so she could look in my closet." Again.

The gentle sound of her words became the shushing of my blood in my head, and I listened, hovering on the edge of consciousness, bathed in the oblivion of whatever drug they had given me.

I turned back to the mirror, seeing that there were no lines on it. It was empty. "What happened to my mirror?" I said, bewildered. Then realizing that I was looking at the back of the dumb thing, I swore and turned it over.

Teens like a lot of the same things adults do: smart people doing amazing things against awful odds.

This is about Ku’Sox, isn’t it,” I said, more of a statement than a question. He made a sighing groan, and I knew it was. “Then you’ve met,” he said, his thoughts clearly on the day-walking demon. “Funny, you don’t look dead.” His hand touched my chin, shifting it so he could see where I’d been pixed, the blisters itchy and red. “I’m surprised you survived the little designer dump. I nearly didn’t.

Growing up is hard, love. Otherwise everyone would do it.

The warm dampness of her breath made me shiver at the mix of the familiar and the unknown, with a soft exhalation she shifted her head and her lips found my collarbone, teasingly shy of my old scar. Tendrils pulsed in time with my heart, building on the ones before to an unseen height.