27
" Yeah, that’s what Jeffrey said too. Oh, wait … Jeffrey said something about a Sacred Abil and the Trophy of Stavlini, or Stavriti, or Stav … something.”“Staviti?” The hysteria in Emmy’s voice was definitely becoming prominent now. “The Trophy of Staviti? You stole the Trophy of Staviti?”I clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to muffle her shriek. “No!” I answered reflexively. “Or yes. Kind of. Maybe. Why?”She gave a muffled answer, and I realised that I was still holding my hand over her mouth. I pulled away, allowing her to speak again.“You don’t know who Staviti is, Willa? Seriously? You couldn’t pay attention in class even for that much?”“I knew it sounded familiar,” I grumbled, feeling defensive. “Is it the god of … um … food or something? "
30
" In the years that I could not see him, I came to know my father through the medium of photography. My perceptions of him were forged on black-and-white squares that stole an instant out of history and immortalized it between the pages of a family album. When I summoned up the image of the man, it came to me frozen, black-bordered, flat. He stood pale above the creases of his uniform, framed in the foamy wake of some ship, drops of sunlight caught in the buttons on his jacket. He winked at me from the liberty ports of countless exotic places. In an atrocious hand he scrawled stilted, affectionate words to the stranger that bore his name and his features, telling of adventures far away, misbehavings under suns hotter than that which shone over the Greater German Reich. "
― Miles Watson , Shadows and Glory
31
" He was a musician of the best nature, with guitar string fingertips and soft flute lips that could tighten in a trumpet's purse. Every movement was perfect, every breath filled with purpose. Whether close or open, his eyes seeped ambition and his body burned with chaotic passion. I was his instrument and he played me so well. His fingers fashioned a tune of ecstasy while his lips felt the reed shudders of my skin. He stole my breath and made it his own, using my lips to create his climactic song. A symphony of electricity and orgasmic bliss, he played me so well his fingers never did miss. Half-circles and hooks with my parted lips as his speaker, I never knew another musician so ruthlessly eager. To finish his song, to hit every note, elongating the melody of every sound from the depths of my throat. He was ambitious, pushing my limits, tearing my reservations and destroying my thresholds, all I could do was phase in and out, my ears ringing from the ballad I was made to produce. "
33
" Paul D did not answer because she didn't expect or want him to, but he did know what she meant. Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon - everything belonged to the men who had the guns. Little men, some of them, big men too, each one of whom he could snap like a twig if he wanted to. Men who knew that their manhood lay in their guns and were not even embarrassed by the knowledge that without fox would laugh at them. And these " men" who made even vixen laugh could, if you let them, stop you from hearing doves or loving moonlight. So you protected yourself and loved small. Picked the tiniest stars out of the sky to own; lay down with head twisted in order to see the loved one over the rim of the trench before you slept. Stole shy glances at her between the trees at chain-up. Glass blades, salamanders, spiders, woodpeckers, beetles, a kingdom of ants. Anything bigger wouldn't do. A woman, a child, a brother - a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia. He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose - not to need permission for desire - well now, THAT was freedom. "
39
" I’m trying to help,” Albert said.
“By paying him with beer?”
“I paid him what he wanted, and Sam was okay with it. You were at the meeting,” Albert said. “Look, how else do you think you get someone like Orc to spend hours in the hot sun working? Astrid seems to think people will work just because we ask them to. Maybe some will. But Orc?”
Lana could see his point. “Okay. I shouldn’t have jumped all over you.”
“It’s okay. I’m getting used to it,” Albert said. “Suddenly I’m the bad guy. But you know what? I didn’t make people the way they are. If kids are going to work, they’re going to want something back.”
“If they don’t work, we all starve.”
“Yeah. I get that,” Albert said with more than a tinge of sarcasm. “Only, here’s the thing: Kids know we won’t let them starve as long as there’s any food left, right? So they figure, hey, let someone else do the work. Let someone else pick cabbages and artichokes.”
Lana wanted to get back to her run. She needed to finish, to run to the FAYZ wall. But there was something fascinating about Albert. “Okay. So how do you get people to work?”
He shrugged. “Pay them.”
“You mean, money?”
“Yeah. Except guess who had most of the money in their wallets and purses when they disappeared? Then a few kids stole what was left in cash registers and all. So if we start back using the old money we just make a few thieves powerful. It’s kind of a problem.”
“Why is a kid going to work for money if they know we’ll share the food, anyway?” Lana asked.
“Because some will do different stuff for money. I mean, look, some kids have no skills, right? So they pick the food for money. Then they take the money and spend it with some kid who can maybe cook the food for them, right? And that kid maybe needs a pair of sneakers and some other kid has rounded up all the sneakers and he has a store.”
Lana realized her mouth was open. She laughed. The first time in a while.
“Fine. Laugh,” Albert said, and turned away.
“No, no, no,” Lana hastened to say. “No, I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s just that, I mean, you’re the only kid that has any kind of a plan for anything. "
― Michael Grant , Hunger (Gone, #2)