Painted Devils (Little Thieves, #2)

by Margaret Owen

There are moments when, as divergent as our lives are, I still see something in him so familiar, it might be cut from my own heart.

I want him, pure and simple, in a way I haven’t wanted anyone else. It’s somewhere between hunger and curiosity and something else entirely, and it wakes in me even when he’s not here, like a memory written in my bones.

this overgrown love child of a beanpole and a dictionary still has my hand in an iron grip,

If you want me to chase you, I will chase you. If you want me to find you, I will find you. “I want you to keep this, so anytime you feel that way, you will know I couldn’t disagree more,” he says fiercely. “I want you to remember that, as long as you’ll have me, I will choose you every time.”

for so long I have lived afraid of feeling like this, like roots might grow through my skin instead of thorns, and I wonder if roses, too, fear the moment the petals break through the bud.

Some part of me has always held back, clinging to the fear that I cannot be both known and wanted, that I will always have to surrender to one.

But justice can’t just be an axe; it can’t just be about punishment. Someone has to close the distance between the letter of the law and its execution. Someone has to find where people are falling through the cracks and mend the gaps.

The little girl played quietly in a corner the rest of the morning; even her rag doll made barely a sound. There was no crash nor crackle; she was sure to stay out of her mother’s way and not make noise, not make trouble.

The little girl had nothing to say, because she had done her best to be good.