31
" The hit-woman opened the door. No dead body on the floor. Thank God.
I heard an unearthly roar and then Jordan charged Liz from where she’d been hiding beside the door. She tackled her to the floor and stabbed her through the wrist with a small switchblade. The hit-woman shrieked and let go of the gun, allowing Jordan precious seconds to bat it across the room. She landed a couple hard punches to the assassin’s nose, bloodying it, before the other woman got the upper hand.
She grabbed a handful of Jordan’s ponytail and slammed her head into the edge of the coffee table. Jordan cried out, but didn’t let go of the knife. She withdrew it and held it against the assassin’s throat, shouting, “Move again and I’ll kill you, puta!”
Liz panted madly, but stayed put. Jordan glanced up at me. “You okay?”
“Alive,” I said through a grimace. “Not okay.”
“Good enough.” She returned her gaze to the woman pinned beneath her and glared.
“The police are on their way. And not the nice, human police. Angels. Get any ideas about trying to kill me again and you won’t even get to deal with them.”
“I’ve been in jail before,” Liz said, attempting to recapture her former arrogance. “I’ll get over it.”
Jordan leaned down a few inches, lowering her voice. “Really? How’d you like to return without your tongue?”
Liz’s eyes went wide, as did mine. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You shot my best friend. Multiple times. Lex talionis.”
“You can’t kill me. You’re not a policewoman. You’re just a girl.”
“No. I’m a Seer. You and the rest of your friends had better learn the difference between a sheep and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Until then…”
She lifted her fist and punched Liz hard in the temple. The assassin went out like a light.
“Vaya con dios, bitch. "
― Kyoko M. , The Deadly Seven (The Black Parade, #1.5)
36
" The things of your life arrived in their own time, like a train you had to catch. Sometimes this was easy, all you had to do was step onto it, the train was plush and comfortable and full of people smiling at you in a hush, and a conductor who punched your ticket and tousled your head with his big hand, saying, Ain’t you pretty, ain’t you the prettiest girl now, lucky lady taking a big train trip with your daddy, while you sank into the dreamy softness of your seat and sipped ginger ale from a can and watched the world float in magical silence past your window, the tall buildings of the city in the crisp autumn light and then the backs of the houses with laundry flapping and a crossing with gates where a boy was waving from his bicycle, and then the woods and fields and a single cow eating grass.......
.....Because sometimes it was one way, easy, and sometimes it was the other, not easy; the things of your life roared down to you and it was all you could do to grab hold and hang on. Your old life ended, and the train took you away to another... "
― Justin Cronin , The Passage (The Passage, #1)