Life was going on, and no one but a handful of people cared if I lived or died.

Happy endings were never handed out. You had to fight for them, earn them with bruised hearts and sacrifices.

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.

It was starting to smell really good in here. And if I liked what it smelled like, then they were liking what they were smelling, and ah…that would be me.

Married pixy, I told myself, forcing my eyes back to the shelf of ceramic animals. Fifty-four kids. Beautiful wife, sweet as sugar, who would kill me in my sleep while apologizing for it.

Ivy turned. 'He bit you on the neck?' she said, deadpan serious but for her eyes. 'Oh, then it's got to be love. She won't let me bite her neck.

People ask me what I do in my spare time, and I look at them blankly, truly believing that I don't even have spare time, and if I did, I'd probably use it for something mundane, like chipping away at the mound of laundry rising to dangerous proportions in the back room.