“Idiots are highly flammable, love. Let them all burn in hell.”

“I want to hurt people all the time,” he says. “Sometimes I can’t sleep at night because I’m thinking about all the people I’d like to murder.”

“Come back to life, love. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Sleigh the season with the most personal gift around. Get them a Cameo video!

“It’s not charity,” I snap. “He cares about me—and I care about him!” Warner nods, unimpressed. “You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.”

“I want you to know,” he says, pulling on the zipper holding this suit together, “how much I value your friendship.”

The reason he had to keep wiping their memories was because it didn’t matter how many times he reset the story or remade the introductions— Aaron always fell in love with her. Every time.

Enjoy the best experience on X.

And I realize then, in a moment that terrifies me, that I want this, forever. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want to build a future with her. I want to grow old with her. I want to marry her.

“Lift your hips for me, love”

I want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me.

“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend,” he says.

Trading stock options? Check out options on E-mini S&P 500 futures (ES), which offer nearly 24-hour access to liquidity no matter where you are.

“I am nothing,” I say to her. “If I manage to be anything, it is only because of you.”

Aaron Warner Anderson, chief commander and regent of Sector 45, son of the supreme commander of The Reestablishment. He has a soft spot for fashion.

My memories collect and expand, exploding with renewed meaning as they assault me, all at once— Ella through the ages. My childhood friend. Ella, ripped away from me when I was seven years old.

Killing my father has instilled in me an extraordinary serenity. It’s a perverse, horrible thing to celebrate, but to murder my father was to vanquish my greatest fear. With him dead, anything seems possible. I feel free.

“I do not have friends,” he says. “Why can’t you try?” He shakes his head. “Why? Why not give it a chance—” “Because I am afraid,” he finally says, voice shaking, “that your friendship would be the end of me.”

I want to remember, forever, this look on Aaron’s face, as he’s bullied into blowing out his birthday candles for the very first time.

The members of the Sanctuary that we’ve yet to meet, all come forward, gathered around a single, modest sheet cake. It reads— HAPPY BIRTHDAY WARNER in red icing.

“you have to have a birthday party. Everyone has birthday parties. When is your birthday?” Slowly, Aaron looks up at me. His face is blank even as he says, “April twenty-fourth.” “April twenty-fourth,” I say, smiling. “That’s great. We can have cake.”

“Liar.” He seems to consider that. Nods, just once. “Yes. Most of the time, yes.”

A betrayal that somehow seemed impossible. That she would leave me for a robotic, unfeeling idiot like Kent. His thoughts are so empty, so mindless; it’s like conversing with a desk lamp.