Everyone has to blame something for the way the world is.

Do it fast, you pansycake.

He touches my face, covering my cheeks with his hands, sliding his fingertips down my neck, fitting his fingers to the slight curve of my hips. I can't stop.

I have your back. I didn't mean only when it's easy. All the time.

Morning," I say. "Shh," she says. "If you don't acknowledge it, maybe it will go away.

I see a kind of thirst in her expression, the same one I saw when she told me about her brother in the back room of the tattoo parlor. Before the attack simulation I might have called it a thirst for justice, or even revenge, but now I am able to identify it as a thirst for blood. And even as it frightens me, I understand it. Which should probably frighten me even more.

Looks like someone had a mood swing.” She rolls her eyes. “Like you don’t want to know what his fears are. He acts so tough that he’s probably afraid of marshmallows and really bright sunrises or something.