“It rained the day they brought us to Thurmond.
And it rained the day I walked out.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Black is the color that is no color at all.
Black is the color of a child's still, empty bedroom. The heaviest hour of night-the one that traps you in your bunk, suffocating in another nightmare. It is a uniform stretched over the broad shoulders of an angry young man. Black is the mud, the lidless eye watching your every breath, the low vibrations of the fence that stretches up to tear at the sky.
It is a road. A forgotten night sky broken up by faded stars.
It is the barrel of a new gun, leveled at your heart.
The color of Chubs's hair, Liam's bruises, Zu's eyes.
Black is a promise of tomorrow, bled dry from lies and hate.
Betrayal.
I see it in the face of a broken compass, feel it in the numbing grip of grief.
I run, but it is my shadow. Chasing, devouring, polluting. It is the button that should never have been pushed, the door that shouldn't have opened, the dried blood that couldn't be washed away. It is the charred remains of buildings. The car hidden in the forest, waiting. It is the smoke.
It is the fire.
The spark.
Black is the color of memory.
It is our color.
The only one they'll use to tell our story.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“They'd never fade, even in the afterlight of all of this”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Everyone needs reality to punch them in the face every once in a while. Keeps you on guard.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“You wanna go build some shelves with me?”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“The thing is...what they don’t tell you about forgiveness is this—you don’t give it for the other person’s sake, but your own.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“What I’m trying to get at is, as bad as everything seems, I think, at its heart, life is good. It doesn’t throw anything at us that it knows we can’t handle—and, even if it takes its time, it turns everything right side up again.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“I love you. With my whole heart. My whole life, however long I'm lucky enough to get, nothing will change for me.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Ruby, what does the future look like?” Nico asked. “I can’t picture it. I try all the time, but I can’t imagine it. Jude said it looked like an open road just after a rainstorm.”
I turned back toward the board, eyes tracing those eight letters, trying to take their power away; change them from a place, a name, to just another word. Certain memories trap you; you relive their thousand tiny details. The damp, cool spring air, swinging between snow flurries and light rain. The hum of the electric fence. The way Sam used to let out a small sigh each morning we left the cabin. I remembered the path to the Factory the way you never forgot the story behind a scar. The black mud would splatter over my shoes, momentarily hiding the numbers written there. 3285. Not a name.
You learned to look up, craning your neck back to gaze over the razor wire curled around the top of the fence. Otherwise, it was too easy to forget that there was a world beyond the rusting metal pen they’d thrown all of us animals into.
“I see it in colors,” I said. “A deep blue, fading into golds and reds—like fire on a horizon. Afterlight. It’s a sky that wants you to guess if the sun is about to rise or set.”
Nico shook his head. “I think I like Jude’s better.”
“Me too,” I said softly. “Me too.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Thing is, though, fear is worthless. It stops you when you need to keep moving most. And it only exists inside of your head.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Are you sure this isn't a nightmare?" he asked quietly. "And that we won't just wake up?" I stared ahead at the road, the way the dust blowing in from the desert covered it with a faint golden sheen even as gray clouds began to gather over us. "yes," i said after some time. Because dreamers always wake up and leave their monsters behind.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“This whole time, from the moment we met, he’d been waiting for me to realize he’d known me all along, and he had never once wanted me to change.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“There is one side. That is the side of friendship and trust and love and that is the side that everyone should be on, and I am refusing to acknowledge that any other side could exist.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“I grabbed Liam's arm as he passed me on his way to the tunnel door, kissing his cheek. "See you later tonight."
He stepped down into the tunnel, shouldering a backpack Cole had left for him there. When I turned to say good-bye to the other Stewart, he'd stooped, turned his cheek toward me, and was waiting. I flicked it with my finger, making him laugh again.
"You're impossible," I informed him.
"It's all part of my charm," he said, shifting the heavy bag on his shoulder. "Take care of things, Boss."
"Take care of him." I said, pointedly.
He gave one last mock salute before shutting the door to the tunnel. I waited until the sound of his and the others' steps faded completely before locking the door after him.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“And the open road rolled out in front of us.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“I don’t care,” I said, leaning my head back against the seat. “Can we just get lost and see where that lands us?”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Yes, well”—he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose delicately—“the burner phone we had accidentally fell out of the car, and someone accidentally backed over it. Because someone was in a rush after she accidentally alerted some skip tracers we were nearby when she accidentally used her abilities to move a light pole out of the road after she had accidentally backed into it.”
“Someone better shut their mouth before I accidentally slam my fist into their teeth.” She punched his shoulder, and it was almost...playful.
“Shut his mouth, fist into his teeth.”
“Really? A grammar lesson?”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Has anyone else . . ."
"Hmm?" Grams walked the paper back across the room and took up her tray of hospital good again, settling it over me. "Has anyone else, what?:
"Been by," I mumbled. "To visit."
Grams gave me a knowing smile. "A charming young woman with a mouth that could give a sailor a heart attack? A sweet little one who brought you flowers? The one who spent half a day chasing doctors and nurses around, demanding answers about your condition? Or, by any chance are you referring to a very well - mannered Southern boy?”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“That's not very Team Reality of you."
His smile matched mine. "Screw Team Reality - I'm leaving to join Team Sanity.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Now, darlin', I just had myself a little thought."
"Did you?" I murmured, distracted by the way he reached up to run his thumb over my bottom lip.
"I did indeed. It being that you are seventeen and I'm eighteen, and we have every damn right to make out like teenagers. Like normal, happy, crazy kids.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Now isn't the time to change yourself to fit into the world,"Clancey said his voice raw with whatever thoughts were storming beneath his skin. "You should be changing the world to accept you. To let you exist as you are, without being cut open and damaged.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“I don't mean to be such a burden," I whispered. All I ever wanted to do was protect you.
"It's not a burden if people are willing to carry it," she pointed out.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Are you sure this isn't a nightmare? And that we won't just wake up?
Yes.
Because dreamers always wake up and leave their monsters behind.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Seat belts. Welcome to Psi Services. I'm Zach and I'll be your driver on this epic quest to freedom. If you look out your windows--but, obviously, don't because Ruby just told you not to--you can give Nevada the finger as we pull away.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“It was almost painful, I thought, to have a heart so swollen with gratitude and what must have been pure, untainted happiness. I wanted to live inside the feeling forever.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“They don't burn, do they? Not like us.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“You keep going to your bad place," she added. "I have one, too. I get trapped there if I stay too long."
"If you go to the bad place again," she said simply, "Tell one of us so we can help you back out.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“You want to hear the rules?"
My heart jackhammered as I nodded. That same hand slid around my hip, up under my shirt, and felt warm and perfect against my lower back. I closed my eyes as his lips just barely brushed mine. His touch made me feel brave. It pushed the uncertainty back until it couldn't reach me. "The first one is you can't think too hard about it. The second is you say when you want to stop. The third is you do whatever feels good to you. The fourth is-"
"-you stop talking," I said, blindly reaching back to pull the door shut, "and kiss me?”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“Ugh.” Cole rolled his eyes, gave a small laugh. “In a move straight out of Lee’s playbook, I rolled over in bed this morning and hit the dresser. Already killing it this morning.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
“We used our minds like weapons clenched tightly in our fists, struggling to return them back to their holsters without injuring ourselves in the process.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from In The Afterlight
Alexandra Bracken
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“The tricky bit was figuring out where we were because I couldn’t imagine anyone, God included, daring to send Lilith Bresson to hell.”
― Tabitha McGowan, quote from The Tied Man
“What does she look like?" Sin asked.
"Like she'd look good on a mattress."
Sin jammed her fists on her hips. "That tells me nothing, and aren't you mated?"
"I'm also a sex demon. I didn't go blind when I took a mate.”
― Larissa Ione, quote from Ecstasy Unveiled
“He was a very arrogant young man, so full of himself.”
― Irvine Welsh, quote from Filth
“I'd burn the salad, suh. Us of the fatal beauty type are pretty awful cooks if y' ask me. - Dorothea Duckfontein Dillworthy "Dotti”
― Brian Jacques, quote from Lord Brocktree
“And she knew her defiance in escaping his grasp, even temporarily, had shown Jasu the depth of her strength. In the months afterward, though he behaved awkwardly, he had allowed her the time and space she needed. It was the first genuine show of respect he had made toward her in their four years of marriage. Jasu’s parents made no such concession, their latent disappointment growing into relentless criticism of her for failing to bear a son.Kavita walks outside and spreads her mat on the rough stone steps, where she sits facing the rising sun in the east
She lights the small ghee-soaked diya and thin stick of incense, and then closes her eyes in prayer. The wisp of fragrant smoke slowly circles its way up into the air and around her. She breathes deeply and thinks, as always, of the baby girls she has lost. She rings the small silver bell and chants softly. She sees their faces and their small bodies, she hears their cries and feels their tiny fingers wrap around hers. And always, she hears the sound of Usha’s desperate cry echoing behind the closed doors of the orphanage. She allows herself to get lost in the depths of her grief. After she has chanted and sung and wept for some time, she tries to envision the babies at peace, wherever they are. She pictures Usha as a little girl, her hair wound in two braids, each tied with a white ribbon. The image of the girl in her mind is perfectly clear: smiling, running, and playing with children, eating her meals and sleeping alongside the others in the orphanage.Every morning, Kavita sits in the same place outside her home with her eyes closed until the stormy feelings peak and then, very gradually, subside. She waits until she can breathe evenly again. By the time she opens her eyes, her face is wet and the incense has burned down to a small pile of soft ash. The sun is a glowing orange ball on the horizon, and the villagers are beginning to stir around her. She always ends her puja by touching her lips to the one remaining silver bangle on her wrist, reconciling herself to the only thing she has left of her daughters. These daily rituals have brought her comfort and, over time, some healing. She can carry herself through the rest of the day with these peaceful images of Usha in her mind. Each day becomes more bearable. As days turn to weeks, and weeks to months, Kavita feels her bitterness toward Jasu soften. After several months, she allows him to touch her and then, to reach for her at night.”
― Shilpi Somaya Gowda, quote from Secret Daughter
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