Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. That is all she knows now.
"You'll become dizzy soon," he whispers in her ear. She smiles deliriously as he turns her around, spins her again. His hands, big and strong, fit around her waist perfectly.
"Spin," she tells him. "Spin." Again he twirls her. She is tiny in front of him. She smiles again.
The world has become a colorful blur around her. In this spinning she can forget everything. Maybe her past blurs behind her now, and all the lies blur into something deeper, into truth. Maybe this way everything can blur and blur till...
"Listen," I whisper. "Hear the waves crash."
She listens, head cocked to one side. Her beautiful golden hair cascades down her face, a blonde waterfall.
"They're telling you stories," I tell her. "And you can hear them, if you listen."
You can almost hear her, the force it takes for her air-filled brain to concentrate, and listen. Now, she is perfectly poised, on the edge of the cliff. The waves break below her, screaming in her ear. It only takes a slight shove, and she topples off the edge. Even in death she is picture-perfect. For a few moments she...
He watched from a distance, hidden behind a bush. The two tigers snarled at each other, circling around, judging each other's strengths, weaknesses. His camera was held up to his eye, and the only part of his body were his fingers: depressing the shutter, muffling the click, repeat. They were magnificent creatures and couldn't have been more than three years old. Most likely this was their first time encountering another, hostile male. This would be the fight where they proved their worth. Maybe they were fighting over a girl, the age-old battle. But msot likely it was territory: this is...
She pulled her head back from the binoculars, a scowl on her face.
The were all over the streets, and it was only a matter of time until the figured out which building she had entered.
Lissa tucked her hands into her trench coat pockets, feeling around for her flash gun. She hoped she wouldn't need it - it was so conspicuous, and a dead giveaway that she was part of the Blue Foxes.
The girl took a moment to swap her sunglasses, opting for a larger pair that obscured her face. Damn. She really loved those Lennon shades, too,...
All of a sudden, Mary had transformed. She had gone from a reasonably normal looking human woman to a ferocious tiger. She roared. I roared back. Wait, why did I roar? Oh no! I was a tiger as well. Well, this was unfortunate.
Now that we were both tigers, the argument we had been having moments before about who would do the dishes was rendered meaningless. Tigers can't do dishes, because they don't have thumbs. We were also a bit too large for our kitchen. I pushed past tiger Mary to escape the cramped space. Going down the stairs was...
You can count me out.
You can count me out.
How many times do I have to say it? Count me out of your scheme. I have no desire for riches, fame, or even immortality. Just life.
That's all I want. Just to live my life. My peaceful, ordinary life. And the only way I can do that is for you to count me out of this.
I wish you'd make the same choice, but as things stand, you had a good life.
Well, a decent life.
Oh, who am I kidding? When you meet Beelzebub, try not to give...
"Travel light, but take everything with you."
That was all the hastily scribbled note said. Now here I was, driving down the back roads of southeast Georgia, my eyes constantly darting to the rearview mirror, knowing someone - anyone - could be trailing me. What the hell had Erick gotten us into now? I wondered as I drove quickly, dust kicked up behind me as I sped toward the cabin. It was our agreed-upon meeting place in case trouble showed up.
My hands gripped the wheel tighter. Dammit! I swore to myself. I was happy, going to be married in...
"But I don't understand," said Marie, carefully patting her French-inspired doo. She had enough hairspray on it to make it impervious, not only to wind, but to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as well. "Why can't you explain this to me? What do you mean they've had enough cake?"
"Don't worry about it, Ms. Antoinette," said Katie Couric with a grin. "It's nothing to lose your head about."
*rimshot*
Idyllic farmhouse? Well, appearances can be deceiving, I suppose. If the For Sale sign in front had said, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," we might have been more wary. As things stood,, when we signed on the dotted line we had no idea what we were really buying into... or signing away. The funny thing about souls, you don't really notice them until they're gone.
Four minutes away from the burn point, one of the telltales switched from green to red. Tears streamed from my eyes, flowing back fast into my ears. The compression collar held my head in an unshakable grip. I flicked from gauge to gauge, moving only my eyes.
We were pulling seven Gs on the spinning turn, squeezing as much boost velocity as possible from the flyby. Apparently, the strain had been too much for the secondary backup fuel pump. The main primary pump and its backup were still reading green, and the main secondary was still green as well. The...