gritty

I would destroy the entire village if doing so meant keeping you safe.

I can__ believe it._ I whispered.__ou can__ let him lure you back in, Felicia. He__ wrong. He__ wrong!_ Vanian pleaded, I could feel the quiver of his magic, the wisps that were fighting against the iron burning into his wrists, I could feel the crackle as it fought in the air, against his emotions, against his pain. I shook my head, was about to speak but Adam grabbed him by the front of his shirt; as if a few more tears and shreds couldn__ go amiss. The tightness of his grip paled the Faerie__ cheeks, caused the blood to trickle down faster, dropping to the floor.__y wife._ He yelled, __he__ my wife, silverblood._ With each growl of a syllable he accented it with a punch to Vanian__ face.I couldn__ take much more. I jumped over and pulled at Adam__ shoulders, fingertips driving into the nook of his collarbone, pressing down with as much as I had in me, anything to break his hold. He recoiled and rose his hand to me, at first I flinched but I stopped. He wouldn__ hurt me. He wouldn__.

I stared down at my hands and saw the blood coat them, how warm and real something felt when it wasn__ just ink and stains. This was life and I was holding it in my hands. I drew my eyes back up and beneath the flickering streetlight and the throng of drunken cattle, I saw nothing else but the dead girl. Somebody out there had taken her life, her heart, and there I was with her warm, sticky blood. Feeling the most alive I__ felt in years.I had to find him. I just had to.

He was dropped under a streetlamp, the only person left on the bus. A patch of mauled light. Gritty pavement, scarred with a million cigarette burns. Weeds and spit and oil. Place like this, the only glitter was the knife just before it sank in. Place like this, there wasn't any gold.

I__ fading, Bethany, I know it. I think that__ what happened to my dad, that__ why I can__ see him. One day I__l be so see-through that you__l forget I was ever here, just like everyone else has.

It doesn't seem right to throw dirt at you when you're dead...

We are only victims if we allow ourselves to be.