P—Jamie!” I called. He waded back toward me. “I’m starting to think my name is Pajamie.” “Your name should be Pajerky. You said it wasn’t deep.” “Pajerky?” He gave me a skeptical look. “That’s Pathetic.” “We’ll see how smug you are once I’m on dry land.

Do you...want to grab a slice of pizza or something?” I blurted out.He hesitated. “You want to be seen in public with...” a microsecond pause, “...your face looking like that?” I cocked my head to the side.“The real question is, do you want to be seen in public with a face like this?”“I’d consider it.” He stood, his expression still wary.

Soze shook his head. “If someone checks our Internet search records, don’t you think it will look suspicious that before we called the police, we checked up on the evidence?”Poe laughed mirthlessly. “We’re Rose & Grave, junior. Everything we do looks suspicious.

I can’t tell my dad that there’s no way I’m crashing some collegiate party covered in sweat and dirt. I look like a ditch digger, not a Rose & Grave Digger.

He hesitated. “Nothing, man. What are you doing right now?”I looked down. “Petting my snake.”Malcolm laughed. “With anyone else, that would be a metaphor. Good thing I can always count on you.

Do you know what you need?” Malcolm was saying now.To get laid, I thought.“To get laid,” Malcolm said.Shocker.

It never ceased to amaze me how disinterested half the knights were in our own history, in taking advantage of the extraordinary gifts we’d been handed the night we were tapped into Rose & Grave. To them, it was just another privilege they’d been born into, like admission to Eli or their Long Island mansions. Did they have any idea how much more it was to…other people?

Why was he here? Why was he always, always, always around? Didn’t he have a life? Didn’t he have anything better to do?