He lunged for the maps. I grabbed the chair and hit him with it. He went down. I hit him again to make sure he stayed that way, stepped over him, and picked up the maps."I win.

I'll call you," he repeated."If you call me, I won't pick up the phone.""You will wait by the phone for my call, and when it rings, you will pick it up and you will speak to me in a civil manner. If you don't know how, ask someone.

Secret to what?""Secret to shutting you up," he said. "I just have to beat you till you're half-dead, then give you chicken soup and"--he raised his hands--"blessed silence.

I'm counting to ten in my head.""Is it helping?""No.""It doesn't help me with you either. I used to life weights to alleviate frustration, but someone blowtorched my weight bench. How did you do it, by the way?""I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you.

Who snitched?""We have people monitoring police radio frequencies. They gave Jim a heads-up in case our security had to storm PAD offices and bust you out of there. I found out when I saw Jim walking down the hallway snickering to himself.

Kate Daniels, deadly swordmaster. Fear my twitching pinkie.

You sure you don't need your Prince Charming to come and save you?" The knot in my stomach evaporated. My Prince Charming huh. "Sure, do you have one handy?

I know you'll tell me to fuck off, but I think Curran loves you. Truly loves you. And I think you love him, Kate. That's rare. Think about it--if he really stood you up, why would he be so pissed off about the whole thing? You both can be assholes of the first order, so don't let the two of you throw it away. If you're going to walk away from it, at least walk away knowing the whole picture.""You're right. Fuck off. I don't need him," I told her.

They had picked up Julie's scent hit wolfsbane lost her and found her trail again at the crumbling Highway 23 except it was two hours old and mixed with horse scents. She was hitchhiking. Great. Awesome. At least she always carried a knife with her. When I relayed this to Curran he shrugged and said, "If she kills anybody we'll make it go away.