Tearing down the rest of the world won’t make you happy. Look inside yourself. Because finding who you were meant to be? What you were put into this world to do? That’s what fills the emptiness. It’s the only things that can.
And there, in the midst of blinding orange, yellow, and white flames, our forever begins.
Another thread snaps loose from my heart, the pain precise and acute. I embrace it, because it reminds me I’m still here. I’m alive. I’m empowered.
Behind every wall and every mirror and every vent, I hear sounds: breathing, rustling, footsteps, and murmurs. I try to tell myself it’s just mice making their nests behind the barriers, but since when do rodents whisper?
An old childhood playmate once told me ‘second guessing every step prevents any forward momentum. Trust yourself. Forgive yourself. And move on.
What went on between you and my mom? Did you seduce all the Liddell women? Did you tell them the same pretty words you told me?” I curl my legs beneath my dress, feeling small and vulnerable for even a
We have regiments as innumerable as the sands…And arsenals as uncountable as the stars.
They have both loved you with a child’s love, and now a man’s. It is the child’s love that holds you together . . . cemented by the moments you shared with them that they treasure most.
Memories, real and irreplaceable, all of them. The happy ones, the bitter ones, the terrified and the poignant.
A muffled curse comes from the doorway. I jerk my head to find Jeb there, blood drained from his face. His gaze is fierce yet dejected, a deep and gut-twisting wound I haven’t seen since his dad was alive and tormenting him.
When he opens his mouth to speak, I place a finger on his
Guard your throats and hide your eyes. He’s not dead, you fools. Legends never die.
How do you hate someone who pulled you from the brink of death, not once, but twice?
This can’t be a coincidence, and there’s no longer any doubt in my mind. I am in a horror story.
He raised his wine for a toast. “To the Exquisite Nightmare.
Maybe being here won’t be so bad after all… as long as I can avoid the music, the bloodthirsty diva duo, and the phantom’s shadow lurking around every corner.
He spins us both, wrapping us in his wings until I’m dazed and gig
The rabbit hole has collapsed, and my key is melded to a nugget of worthless metal.
You crave chaos. You’re happiest when the world is in an uproar. You thrive on madness. Even when your magic is at its best when it’s the catalyst to confusion. You still can’t admit this?
You understand the logic behind the illogical, Alyssa. It’s in your nature to find tranquility amid the madness. And that’s what we’re doing here. We are giving our food a fighting chance.
But I do, and the barbed wire tightens once more, until my heart is strangled and broken.
Now, you listen, Alyssa Victoria Gardner. Normal is subjective. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not normal. Because you are to me. And my opinion is all that matters. Got it?
Salty tears stream down my face—coating my lips as I mutter senseless apologies for so many things. So many irreversible things.Morpheus peels the vines off and lifts me, cradling me to his chest.
I don’t want to blend,” Etalon whispered. “I want to belong.
He’d walked as a ghost in the gloomy bowels of this opera house for so long, darkness had become his brother, which was fitting, since his father was the night, and sunlight their forgotten friend.
Hello, luv,” he says through a thick curtain of blue hair. “Hope I’m…interrupting.
It’s great to have him watching my back without standing in my way.