107
" Okay, okay,” I said. I should have known better than to talk comic books with Gabe. “What I’m trying to tell you is, the right thing isn’t always the easy thing.” “Do I get a cookie with that fortune?” “You might want to watch the way you talk to your elders,” I said sternly. “Yeah, right,” he said, and he smiled, and I smiled, too. "
― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)
109
" Burris answered with an obscenity, and suddenly he lunged at me. I saw him move a split second too late. He slammed me against the side of a building, cracking my head hard against the brick. With his right hand, he clamped my throat just below the Adam’s apple and pincered hard. He was strong, even stronger than I expected, and he put his whole overdeveloped body into it. At the same time, he pinioned my left arm with his right shoulder and grabbed my right hand, just above the wrist, and jammed his right knee into the inside of my leg. Now I knew for sure he’d really been a Navy SEAL. He was doing everything by the book. Which was good, actually. "
― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)
112
" Gabe was a strange kid, no doubt about it. He was fourteen, almost fifteen, and had only just entered adolescence. He was a remarkable artist, entirely self-taught, and he spent most of his time—when he wasn’t reading comic books—doing panel drawings with an ultrafine black pen. He was scary-smart, brilliant at math and science, and he affected a world-weary cynicism. But every once in a while a crack would appear in his brittle shell, and you’d catch a fleeting glimpse of the little boy. He didn’t seem to have any close friends. They called him a dork and a nerd at school, he told me once, and I felt bad about what he must be going through. Adolescence was hard enough for a normal kid. "
― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)