Vicious

“You don’t understand,” gasped Eli. “No one understands.”

“When no one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong.”

“It’s why I let you stay,” said Victor. “Why I liked you. All that charm outside, all that evil inside. There was a monster under there, long before you died.”

Victor had never been good, or sweet—he’d always had a sharp edge; Eli had been drawn to the metallic glint of it

“If I’m missing something, then so are you. Life is about compromises. Or did you think because you put yourself in God’s hands that He would make you all you were and more?”

important had been carved out.

but there was this gap between what he felt and what he wanted to feel, a space where something im

He appreciated Mitch’s incongruities. They made him interesting.

Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human

The absence of pain led to an absence of fear, and the absence of fear led to a disregard for consequence.

The sound carried like wind through the dark.