He kisses me again, more insistent this time, his hands squeezing my waist. His breaths, his body, my body, we are so close there is no difference.

I see a few hands stretching out to me at the edge of the net, so I grabbed the first one I could reach and pull myself across. I roll off, and would have fallen face-first onto a wood floor if he had not caught me. "He" is the young man attached to the hand I grabbed. He has a spare upper lip and a full lower lip. His eyes are so deep-set that his eyelashes touch the skin under his eyebrows, and they are dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color.

Really? I thought the transfers will go through Four’s landscape,” says Uriah. “Like he would let anyone do that,” she says, snorting. Something inside me gets warm and soft. He let me go through it.

I wipe my face with my sleeve, laughing so hard my stomach hurts. If my entire life is like this, loud laughter and bold action and the kind of exhaustion you feel after a hard but satisfying day, I will be content.

You were afraid of shooting people?" "No," I say. "I was afraid of my considerable capacity to kill." How many young men fear that there is a monster inside of them?

People, even genetically damaged people, make choices. That’s what matters.’

Fear," she says, "is more powerful than pain.