No,''he said.''I was a Strigoi. I was one of them. I did...terrible things.'' The words were mild, but the tone of his voice spoke legions. The radiant faces of his family turned sober.''I was lost. Beyond hope. Except...Rose believed in me. Rose never gave up.

She felt so much emotionally, she would say, that a physical outlet - physical pain - was the only way to make her internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it.

She didnʹt know if she could carry on by herself, but then, she realized that if this wasnʹt a dream—and dear God, did it feel real—there was no magic ʺstopʺ in real life. If she couldnʹt deal with loneliness in a dream, she never would be able to while waking.

Are we going to New Orleans?" "No", she said, backing out of the spot. "We're going to West Virginia." "I assume by 'West Virginia,' you actually mean 'Hawaii,'" I said. "Or some place equally exciting.

Rose, I'm an addict with no work ethic who is likely going to go insane. I'm not like you. I'm not a super-hero." "Not yet," I said.

He used to talk to me about Russia all the time and had sworn up and down that I'd love it here. "To you, it'd be like a fairy tale," he'd told me. "Sorry, comrade. Borg and out-of-date music aren't part of any happy ending I've ever imagined." "Borscht, not borg. And I've seen your appetite. If you were hungry enough, you'd eat it." "So starvation's necessary for this fairy tale to work out?

His eyes, I’d long since discovered, could be as eloquent and expressive as his pen. The messages they sent me now hardly seemed decent for a public setting.