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"Good, hopefully that uy was--he was a ot his temper up Guess one of us was bound to be a chip off the old block I used to wonder, you know, if the abilities we have are so we already have inside us I thought, this fire--this is his anger This is , or at least reassurance had never done much when it was delivered to me, but I had to say it I had to tell him "You’re not a monster"

"Don’t doms and countries?" Cole sent me a wry smile "You call yourself that, too, don’t you? No matter how many times others tell you it’s not true, you’ve seen the proof You can’t trust yourself"

I settled back against , for the very first time, if he wasn’t just as desperate as the rest of us for a cure

"This isn’t about the camps for youis it?" I asked "It’s about the cure"

His throat bobbed as he sed "Got it on the first try Feel free to think I’m an assle"

"Why? Because you don’t want to suffer like this?" I asked sharply "Because you want to be normal?"

"What’s ‘normal’?" Cole asked "Pretty sure none of us remember what that feels like"

"Fine," I pressed, "then because you want a life where you’re free from all of this bullshit I want the cure more than I want my next breath I never used to I never let myself think of the future, and now it’s like a compulsion I want that freedom so badly, and it seems like the ets"

Cole rubbed his hand over his face, nodding "I underestiet, because you function, and each tie to pick yourself up But now, it’s starting to get harder, right?"

"Yes" It was the first time I’d admitted it The as as hollow as I felt

"It’s not that I don’t think I won’t be able to get up It’s that I’m afraid one day I’ll justexplode Combust Take out everyone I care about because I can’t stop ry all the ti it in front of his face, waiting for it to spasaze shifted down to Clancy "They keep thehts are on the whole time and there are voices Voices that don’t stop, that are constantly telling the so we can fix you They hurt the kids--they really hurt them, over and over It wasI could barely stand to see it, and I wasn’t the one getting beaten Was thatreal? Can he htened around the wheel "He can plant any ih that he doesn’t have to embellish it"