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Then she saw hi, as he wheeled his trash can into the roo backward until she half sat, half fell into the chair Balthazar came nearer, but already it was harder for her to see hi through a dead man’s eyes

Pain curls up his ars, blurs his vision For one moment he can tasteHis heart, he thinks, and there’s nothing scarier than the feeling that a ti in his chest, and someone’s just pressed the detonator

"Skye!" Balthazar had seized her shoulders and was trying to shake her out of it But this tiainst the visions--which she’d always tried to do before--Skye exhaled and let go co the current to take you under Like giving in

The pain claue feels thick in his e for their sockets There’s no pain worse than this There can’t be This is every cell in the body screa itself, total iuely aware that she’d collapsed, that Balthazar had her leaned against his chest and was saying so with her--but that was too far away to pay attention to any longer

The pain builds, and builds, beyond any endurance, beyond any i--

Until it turns inside out

The cells stop screa There’s no need for air any He’s coo so the pain could stop, and there’s nothing more joyous than that surrender The contentment he feels in the death of his huht feel when cuddled within a very snug blanket--war, but not any part of him, really

That makes it easy to throw the blanket aside

Skye opened her eyes She sat on the floor, legs twisted up, leaning against Balthazar He kept saying, "Stay with me, stay with me, stay--Skye?"

"Yeah" She breathed in, and the s was inexpressibly sweet Life is irreplaceable, Balthazar had said, and now she thought she understood soet you out of here It’s too hed once--how did even that feel good? Her pulse seeh, silvery sound of her nervous syste cyht Although she knew that there was no telling what other deathsBattlefield Gorge again--she understood instinctively that this death, in this room, wouldn’t overcome her in the sao," Balthazar insisted Still he held her close, and she realized one of his hands was stroking her hair

Skye jerked back from him The fast movement dizzied her, but only for a , and he pulled back, scooting farther away on the floor