Larry had brought me blue jeans, a red polo shirt, jogging socks, my white Nikes, an extra cross from my suitcase, the silver knives, the Firestar complete with inner pants holster, and the Browning and its shoulder holster. He'd forgotten a bra, but hey, except for that it was perfect.

He laughed, and it raised goose-bumps on my arms. "Oh,ma petite ,ma petite , you are precious." Just what I wanted to hear. "So how are you getting here?" "My private jet." Of course, he had a private jet. "When can you be here?" "I will be there as soon as I can, my impatient flower." "I prefer ma petite to flower.

He had this old southern idea of what a lady should be. A lady should not carry a gun and spend most of her time covered in blood and corpses. I had two words for that attitude. Yeah, those are the words.

Walking your path doesn't mean you don't hurt, it means the pain is worth the progress. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to remake it, and that includes yourself, or it did for me. There were moments when I wept for an easier road, but in the end I would not trade my path for anyone else's. It is mine and the traveling of it has made me who I am, and continues to shape and remold me into the best, happiest, most productive, most playful me, I've ever been.

Pity is an emotion that can get you killed. The only thing more dangerous is blind hate, and maybe love.

His parting shot to me had been, "I don't want to love someone who is more at home with the monsters than I am." What do you say to that? What can you say? Damned if I know. They say love conquers everything. They lie.

He'd kill you all right. No sweat. But for the wrong reasons. Amateur's reasons. Of course, you'll be just as dead.