1. She put their pain in a box embossed with her initials and rank. The price tag included a profit on his suffering.

2. She melted the bullets and swallowed her own lead weight.

3. She believed the only way to save herself was to eat the toxin, digest it, let her own lungs burn it to silver.

4. And if she held his lost feathers to the light they might be struck by the sun, steel needles in flight.

5. He saw the bones of the bird spit out by the satisfied cat.