Elizabeth

“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“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, In the Afterlight

“Miss Vida" Liam said "has anyone never told you that you are positively the whipped cream on the sundae of life?"
She glared at him."Anyone ever told you your head is shaped like a pencil?"
"That is physically impossible," Chubs groused."He'd be__"
"Actually Liam began, "Cole once did try to__ What?"
"Oh,I'm sorry," Chubs said, "apparently the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning of yours. Do continue.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade