“Hey, what are you doing, little one? You want more? You are just too much . . . you . . . oh, no . . . not the quivering lip . . . oh, no.” Nalla let out a giggle.
“Outrageous! You want more, and you know you’re going to get what you want because of The Lip. Jeez, you’ve got your father wrapped around your little finger, don’t you.”
“...he knew on some level he changed the course of his life. And you could do that, couldn't you, he thought as he put the RAZR back in his pocket. you could choose some paths and not others. Not always, of course. At times destiny just drove you to a destination and dropped your ass off and that was that. But on occasion you were able to pick the address. And if you had half a brain, no matter how hard it was or how wierd it felt, you went into the house.
And found yourself.”
“Sometimes IVs and pills weren’t always the best course of treatment for the injured. Sometimes all you needed was the touch of the one you loved and the sound of their voice and the knowledge that you were home, and that was enough to drag you back from
the brink.”
“After a while Mary said, “Zsadist?”
“Yeah?”
“What are those markings?”
His frowned and flicked his eyes over to her, thinking, as if she didn’t know? But then . . . well, she had been a human. Maybe she didn’t. “They’re slave bands. I was . . . a slave.”
“Did it hurt when they were put on you?”
“Yes.”
“Did the same person who cut your face give them to you?”
“No, my owner’s hellren did that. My owner . . . she put the bands on me. He was the one who cut my face.”
“How long were you a slave?”
“A hundred years.”
“How did you get free?”
“Phury. Phury got me out. That’s how he lost his leg.”
“Were you hurt while you were a slave?”
Z swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Do you still think about it?”
“Yes.” He looked down at his hands, which suddenly were in pain for some reason. Oh, right. He’d made two
fists and was squeezing them so tightly his fingers were about to snap off at the knuckles.
“Does slavery still happen?”
“No. Wrath outlawed it. As a mating gift to me and Bella.”
“What kind of slave were you?”
Zsadist shut his eyes. Ah, yes, the question he didn’t want to answer. For a while it was all he could do to force himself to stay in the chair. But then, in a falsely level voice, he said,
“I was a blood slave. I was used by a female for blood.”
The quiet after he spoke bore down on him, a tangible weight.
“Zsadist? Can I put my hand on your back?”
His head did something that was evidently a nod, because Mary’s gentle palm came down lightly on his
shoulder blade. She moved it in a slow, easy circle.
“Those are the right answers,” she said. “All of them.”
He had to blink fast as the fire in the furnace’s window became blurry. “You think?” he said hoarsely.
“No. I know.”
“Sorry to bother you,” Bella said over the wailing. “But she wants her daddy.”
“You’re like your mahmen,” he whispered. “You make the world go away for me”
“Are you all right?”
“Leg’s shot”
“How shot?”
“Well, I’m looking at the heel of my shitkicker and the front of my knee at the same time. And there’s a high probability I’m going to throw up.”
“You are just as beautiful as the first time I saw you … You stopped my heart then – just froze it in my chest. And you stop it now.”
“I’m so sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Can’t live without you.”
“Nalla blinked and waved his finger and transformed him: Everything stopped as she moved not just his hand, but his heart.”
“Scars, though, left wounds on the inside of you, and as with skin that didn't heal right, you still felt the rough spots from time to time.”
“You could choose some paths and not others. Not always, of course. At times destiny just drove you to a destination and dropped your ass off and that was that. But on occasion you were able to pick the address. And if you had half a brain, no matter how hard it was or how weird it felt, you went into the house. And found yourself.”
“Could the past be like this, he wondered, looking around at the empty clearing. A structure in your mind that you could burn down and get free of.”
“Could the past be like this, he wondered, looking around at the empty clearing. A structure in your mind that you could burn down and get free of? He moved his foot back and forth over the forest floor. The weeds that had poked up through the skin of the earth were like green whiskers, and they were concentrated in the area that got the most sunlight. From the ashes came new life. Z”
“Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.”
“Sorrow and profound fatigue are at the heart of Dewey's silence. It had been his ambition to learn "exactly what happened in that house that night." Twice now he'd been told, and the two versions were very much alike, the only serious discrepancy being that Hickock attributed all four deaths to Smith, while Smith contended that Hickock had killed the two women. But the confessions, though they answered
questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense of meaningful design. The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger - with, rather, a measure of sympathy - for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewey's sympathy, however, was not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy. He hoped to see Perry and his partner hanged - hanged back to back.”
“If I had a mind to rent pigs, I'd be mighty upset. A man that likes to rent pigs won't be stopped.”
“you find magic wherever you look. sit back and relax. all you need is a book”
“Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that's gripping the nation!”
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