One Word Kill (Impossible Times, #1)

by Mark Lawrence

My father used to say that she knew everything about everything. He died when I was twelve. He also had cancer, but an oncoming train cured him.

I looked away, up toward the painful brightness of the ceiling. The chemo bag hung there like an evil yellow raindrop, like those big teardrop vases full of different coloured liquids that they used to put in chemists’ windows.

John sat to my right, annoyingly blonde and chiselled. Money, charm, and looks. Two out of three might be forgivable, but the whole set is bound to breed a little resentment.

In hospital they ask you to rate your discomfort on a scale of ten. I guess it’s the best they can come up with, but it fails to capture the nature of the beast. Pain can stay the same while you change around it.

didn’t make it to school again that week, but I made it to D&D at Simon’s house that weekend. I took a bowl with me to be sick in, in case I couldn’t reach the bathroom. Truth may often be the first casualty of war, but dignity is definitely the first casualty of disease.

My highlighting skills were off

He was burning his bridges just for the joy of seeing the flames take them.

I looked back a few times, but in London there’s always someone following you by chance, so picking out someone doing it on purpose isn’t exactly easy.