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22bf383
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It took five minutes for the barkeep to come around. He was an old salt--tall and thin. So grizzled he looked like he'd been here back when Ponce de Leon first showed up. Letty ordered a vodka martini. While he shook it, she eavesdropped on a conversation between an older couple seated beside her. They sounded midwestern. The man was talking about someone named John, and how much he wished John had been with them today. They had gone snorke..
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Blake Crouch |
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7410ffe
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It begins to go so fast," Fitch said. "What?" "Time. You cling to every second. Savor everything. Wish you'd lived all your days like this. Excuse me."
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Blake Crouch |
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ec8f423
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May a pack of blessings light upon thy back.'" "Ah, Shakespeare. Lovely."
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Blake Crouch |
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33d56b8
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Given for me to confirm I had removed the chip. The first at 1400 on Day 5312. The next at 1500 on Day 5313. If I failed to remove the chip by Day 5313, we would have no further interaction.
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Blake Crouch |
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3e447fc
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There are similarities between you and Van Gogh, Letisha. Both fiery redheads, with a nasty predilection for self-injury. Suffering from what the psychoanalysts would best describe as 'daddy issues.' And, perhaps most pityingly, both masters of a trade you would never be appreciated for. At least, not in life.
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Blake Crouch |
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5247a9a
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Something niggled her. A seemingly small fact she was overlooking. A rodent scurried through some leaves nearby. A mosquito whined in her ear. What was it? No flashlight. That was it. Fitch hadn't brought a flashlight outside with him. When she'd glimpsed him walking down the steps, she'd expected to see a light wink on. But it never did. And then he'd just strolled up that path in the dark like-- Her breath caught in her chest. --like he c..
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Blake Crouch |
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6ab561d
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Isaiah said, "I'll need access to Richter's phone for one hour. This is his replacement." "Does it work?" "No. It was impossible for Mark to replicate his contact list, apps, texts, call history. Safer play to swap it for a nonfunctioning phone. It'll power up and display a black screen. What I'm asking isn't easy. I need you to swap his current phone out for this one. Then you're going to have to hand off his phone to my contact at the clu..
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Blake Crouch |
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0cf1c33
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But like every important, defining moment in his life, it had all roared by too fast.
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Blake Crouch |
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2231e31
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Next morning, Letty cabbed out to an IHOP in the xeriscaped burbs, several miles west of the glitz of the Strip. The emotion of the previous night still clung.
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Blake Crouch |
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2f22948
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The funny thing is, as bad as I am, I don't have it in me to murder her husband. Is there a fate worse than being halfway evil?
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Blake Crouch |
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fabe7e8
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He grabbed her hands and turned them over. Exposed her wrists. Traced a finger down her scars. Suicide hickeys.
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Blake Crouch |
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1f7e52d
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My life is over," he said. "But it's still yours." "I don't want it."
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Blake Crouch |
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7f0e12b
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Sure, I flip people off in traffic on occasion, but that's just Chicago. My
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Blake Crouch |
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2305dc1
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The residence sat toward the back of the property, which sloped up across a masterfully landscaped yard shaded with maple and spruce trees, dotted with stone sculptures--fountains, birdbaths, angels--and not a leaf to be seen on the pockets of lush green grass. An engine turned over near the house. Letty stepped off the drive and crawled into a thicket of mountain laurel as a boxy Mercedes G-Class rolled past. Through the branches and tinte..
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Blake Crouch |
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2146d30
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Remember how it's a right-then-and-there, in-or-out, yes-or-no proposition?" "I do." "Well, this is exactly like that. I need a yes or no right now. And before you answer, I have to be straight with you. This is beyond dangerous. If it all comes off the rails, you could be killed. If we're caught, you could go to prison for a long time." More silence."
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Blake Crouch |
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c6a4aa2
|
Did he also instruct you not to bother calling me ahead of time to let me know the feds would be rolling up in my world? Or was that all you?" "You think I had some obligation to--" "Courtesy, Ethan. Courtesy. Then again, being a fed, maybe you aren't familiar with that concept." --
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Blake Crouch |
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f051116
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And the hair on his arms stood erect and some primal siren sounded in his brain, but mistaking terror for adrenaline, he walked down into the darkness because he'd never felt more alive.
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Blake Crouch |
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fd6cb7a
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I would rather die today than live in that sick illusion of a town for one more hour. Like prisoners. Like slaves.
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Blake Crouch |
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24f3d4d
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The sun was gone, and in the wake of its passing, mountain ranges stood profiled against the evening sky like a misshapen saw blade. There was nothing to see of the pine forest a thousand feet below. Not a single speck of light anywhere that existed because of man.
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Blake Crouch |
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ce35182
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You'd like for me to show you?" "What do you think?" "All right, Ethan. All right. But I have to warn you...I'm going to ask for something in return."
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Blake Crouch |
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68e1c82
|
A tenet of stoicism advises to live according to your nature. If you try to be something you aren't, you'll self-destruct.
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Blake Crouch |
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6236d93
|
Nature doesn't see things through the prism of good or bad. It rewards efficiency.
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Blake Crouch |
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f58b075
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They say that what you mock Will surely overtake you And you become a monster So the monster will not break you.
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Blake Crouch |
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a2674d0
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This had been her routine going on three years now, and she thought it had been wise not to break it tonight. When your world falls apart, cling to the familiar.
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Blake Crouch |
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d7d0def
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Glimpsed something catching sunlight straight above. Froze. Looked down.
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Blake Crouch |
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a5b9cd9
|
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth; 'Then took...as just as fair and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted...the passing there had worn them really about the same, 'And both...in leaves no step had trodden black.
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Blake Crouch |
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ed64ccf
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People leave. They die. Their dwellings crumble. That's the storyline, the only plot there will ever be.
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Blake Crouch |
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eeebb29
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I think he's trying to preserve our way of life." "For who? Us or him?"
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Blake Crouch |
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ef9d245
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No socks. No briefs. Guess I'll roll commando.
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Blake Crouch |
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1a89f27
|
I don't know what you want anymore. You murdered an entire town. Your own daughter. Years ago, your wife. Where does it end? Where's the line?" "There is no line." --
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Blake Crouch |
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1150298
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What about the abbies?" Ethan asked. "As a food source?" "Yeah." "First off, gross."
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Blake Crouch |
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ed81c46
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I said this is Boise, but it's not. There is no Boise, no Idaho, no America. Names no longer mean a thing.
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Blake Crouch |
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1d38923
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At least there was another human being to share the weight of this crushing knowledge.
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Blake Crouch |
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607e111
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The most dangerous adversary you'll ever face is an opponent who's skilled with a knife. Avoid these confrontations at all costs.
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Blake Crouch |
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96acce6
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As you'll find with your son soon enough, letting go is the hardest, greatest thing we can do for them.
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Blake Crouch |
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dc13066
|
The noise that had drawn him up the ladder was screaming. Human screaming. And what he saw, he didn't know how to process.
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Blake Crouch |
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66f0b03
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I have everything I need here," he said. "Warmth. Drink. Food. Books."
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Blake Crouch |
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ccf7c13
|
Last year, the morning of the day he died in a nursing home, wasted from age and pneumonia, his father asked Ethan in a raspy voice, "You spend time with your son?" "Much as I can," he'd answered, but his father had caught the lie in his eyes. "It'll be your loss, Ethan. Day'll come, when he's grown and it's too late, that you'd give a kingdom to go back and spend a single hour with your son as a boy. To hold him. Read a book to him. Throw ..
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Blake Crouch |
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e34d362
|
The idea of Wayward Pines was always more important to him than the people who called that town home, and I'm sorry to say, it was more important than any of you.
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Blake Crouch |
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99718e5
|
Never saw our friends or family. We were forced to marry." "That didn't turn out so bad," she said. Bob held his tongue as he drove through the heart of the curve."
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Blake Crouch |
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68938cd
|
Run," Scott hissed. "They're coming."
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Blake Crouch |
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c524d51
|
He growled, "Because I could. Because I am their fucking creator, and creations don't get to question the one who made them. Who gives them breath. And who can, at any second, snatch it all away."
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Blake Crouch |
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eaf4ef4
|
Pope just smiled. "Don't even think about leaving town."
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Blake Crouch |
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4184b43
|
There is a tactile ache, kneeling here in the dark by the bed of his soon-to-be-six-year-old son in the wake of another day he's missed completely. His boy is the most perfect and beautiful thing he's ever laid eyes on, and he feels, acutely, the inexorable passing of a thousand moments with this little person who will be a man sooner than he can possibly imagine.
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Blake Crouch |