He wiped away the tears, tenderly, and I forgot to weep as he told me silently everything I always wanted to hear.

I wasn't sure if the word boys should mean dim or incomprehensible. I was hovering between the two, with a healthy dose of testosterone-poisoned.

Christophe, with the careful tone of an adult telling a kid not to pet the nice foaming-rabid pooch.

Touch me again, and it will be your last act in life - Blue Eyes.

No problem, Goth Boy. First one's free.

I pulled in a soft breath. My lungs were starving, crying out for air. I lay still, and a cough tickled at the back of my throat. It always happens when you're hiding, a cough, a sneeze, something. It's stupid. The body decides to screw around with you, even though it knows being quiet is the only way it's going to go on living.

I just . . . knew, the way you know how to breathe or to pull your hand back from a hot stove.