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Alek was right behind her now, his body pressing close as he adjusted her sword arm. She hadn't realized this fencing business would be so touchy. He grasped her waist, sending a crackle across her skin. If Alek moved his hands any higher, he might notice what was hidden beneath her careful tailoring. “Always keep sideways to your opponent,” he said, gently turning her. “That way, your chest presents the smallest possible target.” “Aye, the smallest possible target,” Deryn sighed. Her secret was safe, it seemed.
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Nature didn't need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.
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Out here, you find out that the city fools you about how things really work.
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Never give us what we really want. Cut the dream into pieces and scatter them like ashes. Dole out the empty promises. Package our aspirations and sell them to us, cheaply made enough to fall apart.
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I kissed him once," she whispered. "Well done. What did he do?" "Um..." Deryn sighed. "He woke up.
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Haven't you ever known someone rejected by a lover, who, consumed by rage and jealousy, never lets go? They look on from a distance, unseen but boiling inside. The emotion never seems to tire, this hatred mixed with intense obsession, even with a kind of twisted love.
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Didn't this beat everything? A pretty and an ugly taking a stroll together. The warden came closer, confusion all over his middle-pretty face. Tally smiled. At least she was causing trouble to the end. "I'm Tally Youngblood," she said. "Make me pretty.
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But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.
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Once we turn, it’s new pretty, middle pretty, late pretty.” Shay dropped her arms, and her board stopped drifting. “Then dead pretty.
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What about a hoverboard?" "It's waiting on the roof, of course." Dr. Cable snorted. "What is it about you miscreants and those things?
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Tally sighed, tipping her feet again to follow. "Maybe that's because they have better stuff to do than kid tricks. Maybe partying in town is better than hanging out in a bunch of old ruins." Shay's eyes flashed. "Or maybe when they do the operation-when they grind and stretch your bones to the right shape, peel off your face and rub all your skin away, and stick in plastic cheekbones so you look like everyone else-maybe after going through all that you just aren't very interesting anymore.
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Nature was tough, it could be dangerous, but unlike Dr. Cable or shay, or peris-unlike people in general-it made sense. The problems it threw at you could be solved rationally.
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Tally turned away. Five minutes was suddenly too long to stand here, eyes burning, unable to cry.
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"Clear-cutting" was the word for what the Rusties had done to the old forests: felling every tree, killing every living thing, turning entire countries into grazing land. Whole rain forests had been consumed, reduced from millions of interlocking species to a bunch of cows eating grass, a vast web of life traded for cheap hamburgers. "Look, we're not clear-cutting. All we're doing is pulling out the garbage that the Rusties left behind,” David said. "It just takes a little surgery to do it."
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When she awoke, the world was on fire.
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God, you mean I lost my virginity to the apocalypse?" Morgan sighed again. "The whole thing was really embarrassing; my parents sent me to Brooklyn when they found out." She shrugged. "I thought I’d be safe in a gay bar, okay? What were you doing in there anyway?" Lace looked at me sidelong. "You were where?" I took a sip of beer, swallowed it. "I, uh, hadn’t been in the city...very long. I didn’t know.
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You fiddle lucker!' she cried.
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She turned to Frizz. "So you understand the problem? You can't let Tally know about Radical Honesty. There's no telling what she'll do if she finds out you could ruin her plans." Frizz's eyebrows rose. "So let me get this straight, Aya-chan. You want me, a person who can't lie, to lie about the fact that I can't lie?" "We need another plan," Hiro said.
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All that glitters is not hovery.
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Come on, it's almost midnight. Let's go watch them cut the cake.
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I'm Tally Youngblood. Make me pretty." -Tally Youngblood
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That's how things were out here in the wild, she was learning. Dangerous or beautiful. Or both.
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One of the most common questions writers are asked is "Where do you get your ideas?" But the sad truth is, we don't know. Ideas can come at any time and from any direction: in the shower, waiting for an elevator, or while bouncing across Wikipedia pages.
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Humanity is a cancer on the body of the world