The sky, rife with thunder clouds, is dark. She has no fucking idea exactly how much of the day has passed, but she also has no fucking memory of half the things that happened in between all the other goddamn things that happened and she's not going to stop to try to figure it out now. She's too tired for that; they've been at this for two days now ( Read more... )

Pointless, pointless: they've come all this fucking way and there's still no goddamn sign of Yorick.

Paris, my ass. She's sick of it, sick of every last minute of it. It's been so long since she saw him that she starts to question whether or not he's even fucking real. If it wasn't for the face on her niece, she wouldn't ever believe it ( Read more... )

Bon jour to you too, bitch.

Goddammit, Beth Deville: where the hell are you? It isn't supposed to be this hard for a chick to hide. We always make some stupid sentimental mistake and that's what gives us away, and it's always fucking sentiment that does us in. Flaw of the XX chromosome set, maybe, but we girls are such goddamn suckers. Deville -- ( Read more... )

"I don't know, Mamacita. It's like that shell game. You know, where you think you know what cup's hiding the button and no matter how many times you peek under and look, the thing isn't there." Looking for her brother in a city the size of Paris has proven fruitless and tiring. In the meantime, Beth Junior's getting big; it's a good thing they ( Read more... )

Every now and then, when the other girls are asleep or off doing some goddamn thing or other, I take out my pictures and look through them. There are three that always give me pause ( Read more... )

I think I'm losing my mind, going fucking insane. At first I thought it was Victoria, but she's not here. I'm not dreaming about her or anything; it's not her. Then I thought it was losing my escape, losing my way back to the bar. But that's just a pipe dream, thinking there's some way in hell that actually happened and actually matters. It did; ( Read more... )

"Yeah, more corn. Lots of it." She'll never admit it, but it's a fucking relief to be here, to have that last remaining sample of Ampersand's shit delivered, to have Beth explained. The only thing she left out for the Hartles and Natalya and Ciba was the shit about the bar at the end of the goddamn universe, because no one would believe her anyway ( Read more... )

It's been a goddamn fuck of a time. Most days, everything that happened after she and mamacita left that church in Vegas seems like it couldn't possibly be real. If it wasn't for the pictures she's looked at so much they're already worn away to almost nothing, she wouldn't believe it for a red hot second. But she remembers it -- not a goddamn thing ( Read more... )

When Hero walked from the east coast to the west, she had a receiver: she followed the path of a transmitter embedded under Ampersand's skin. It was the promise she made to her mother: I'll find Yorick. I promise, Mommy: I can do it, you'll see. And she did; she found him. And Ampersand, even though they've lost Amp since then ( Read more... )

It doesn't take long to pack: she's good at it after all these years. Heaviest shit in the bottom of the backpack, Amp's precious cargo in the dead middle, easiest tradeable commodities at the top and in the outside pockets. Her camera and film aren't packed, though: she has a few pictures to take here first... and one goodbye. After she rolls up ( Read more... )