“[Devina] “You know, Adrian, you ever get bored with being a Goody Two-shoes, you could come over to my side.”
“Because you have cookies, right.”
Those black eyes returned to his own. “And so much more.”
“Well, I’m on a diet. Sorry—but thanks for the invite.”
“That's where you come in. I want into that guy's mind, and you need to tell me how to do it."
Ad shrugged. "Personally, I'd just use a hacksaw, but—"
"There are potential consequences and side effects," Eddie said carefully.
"Like what?"
"Well, worst case... he could end up like Adrian.”
“Come here. I need to hold on to you."
She felt the same way. And when there was no distance between them, it was like coming home.”
“It...is for me?"
"Aye. So what say you, lover mine.”
“Scratch what I said before. I think I am falling in love with you. Right here. Right now.”
“Conservatism is the cousin of cowardice.”
“Then how about we start with a shower," he said in the kind of deep voice that made her consider the value of cleanliness.”
“Tell me this isn't permanent"
"No, you have to give me my weapon back at the end."
Har-har, hardy-har-har. "I'm talking to Jim."
"No, it's not," the angel answered from out of Veck's mouth. "I can get free as easily as I got in."
"You sure about that?"
"Nope."
"Fabulous.”
“Hello? You tracking at all? Or were you planning on sleeping through this round."
The lids on that red stare lifted. "I'm not sleeping."
"Meditating. Whatever."
"I wasn't meditating."
"Fine. Psychically manipulating energy fields——"
"You make me dizzy when you pace. It's vertigo diversion.”
“Ah, yes, the departmental shrink. And in the silence that followed, he knew everyone was waiting for him to groan, but he wasn’t a Lethal Weapon wild card, damn it.
Yeah. For example, he couldn’t dislocate his shoulder, he didn’t live on the beach with a dog, and he wasn’t rocking a death wish. You’re welcome.”
“How can something so . . . huge happen so fast?”
“It's not big," Veck said, "but it's flawless. That was important to me. I wanted to give you something...flawless”
“But come on, like she hadn't seen every aisle in his grocery store already?”
“Reilly's closet looked like Marilyn Manson's. Assuming he'd been reborn as an accountant.”
“Reilly is fine.”
For a moment, his lids dropped low, and she could have sworn that he muttered under his breath something like, She sure is.
But no doubt it was her new underwear making her hear things.”
“How'm I doin'?" Jim asked in his own voice—hey, he could talk out of the bastard's mouth, too.
Across the way, Adrian shrugged. "Pretty damn good—I can't sense you. But I gotta ask—the pair of you want a cigarette? Or are you going for a twofer?”
“Matter of fact, when it came to manscaping, all he had was a dark stripe that ran between his belly button and his...
You know, maybe size did matter, she thought.”
“The Maker was a genius, he thought. Infinity resulted in insolence. But transience was the way one treasured what one had been given.”
“now he knew why God didn’t give people superpowers. Humans were dangerous enough as it was. . .”
“The renegade strand of hair nipped her eyes once more. With a swift, steady hand, Oscar pushed it away from her face. His fingertip left a trail of fire along her cheek. Camille reached up to help him tuck the strand back, and their fingers met. She knew for certain the flush had returned to her ears.
Oscar dropped his arm and walked to the rail, wrapping his strong hands around the carved wood.
“He is used to having things go his way,” Oscar said, his voice low and only for her ears. Camille moved to stand beside hm.
“Have you always done everything he’s asked of you?” She was cautious not to come off sounding snide.
His knuckles whitened as he gripped the rail tighter, as if to hold something back. Hold something in.
“No.”
She hadn’t expected him to give her an answer, and certainly not that one.
“No? I don’t believe it. What have you done that’s gone against his wishes?”
Oscar had been her father’s shadow since day one. He’d watched and obeyed William Rowen with the kind of devotion any eager apprentice would show his teacher.
Oscar had been staring at the water, at the mounting churn of the waves. Now he shifted his eyes to her and fixed her with a look so strong and deep, she felt helpless beneath it.
“He asked me to stop associating with you,” he answered, still hushed. Camille’s eyes watered with mortification and dread. Her father had spoken to Oscar, too. She wiped her sweaty palms on the hips of her trousers.
“But clearly,” Oscar continued, leaning toward her, “I didn’t listen.”
His gaze revolved out to the ocean again, releasing Camille. Air flowed back down her windpipe. This was beyond humiliation. Her father couldn’t do this. He couldn’t order people to stop speaking to her.
“Why not?” she asked, her breath uneven from a cross of fury and the steadfast way Oscar had looked at her. “He could fire you.”
He moved away from the rail.
“If he wants to fire me for speaking to you, for looking at you…” He turned back to her on his way to the quarterdeck and held her gaze again. “Then I’ll risk it.”
She watched in awe as Oscar took the helm from a sailor and placed himself behind the great spoked wheel. He’d risk everything he had to be able to speak with her, to just look at her. His bravery made her feel no taller than a hermit crab. She’d so quickly, dutifully, accepted her father’s request to set her focus solely on Randall. But she mattered to Oscar. She mattered, and that one truth made her wish she was brave enough to risk everything, too.”
“Now she realized that she was not peering at a so-dark-blue-it-looked-black ocean, but rather she was looking straight through miles of incredibly clear water at something enormous and black in its nethermost depths. Maybe it was the bottom--so deep that not even light could touch it.
And yet, down in those impossible depths, she thought she could see tiny lights sparkling. She stared uncertainly at the tiny glimmerings. They seemed almost like scattered grains of sand lit from within; in some places they clustered like colonies, faint and twinkling.
Like stars...”
“El polizonte era capaz de anonadarlo, a fuerza de denuncias. Por ejemplo, vería a tu gato vagabundeando y te denunciaría por dejar tus animales errantes...;”
“The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.”
“Neither could speak. It was the day that a silence settled on the pair of them, and they were bound close by it. Will felt, in that moment, too small to face such misery, but she knew that she would have to expand now, with a terrible rush, to fill the empty space.”
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