Your Cross To Bear Novels & Stories

He stopped his pacing and stared at me. “Do you know what this means?” His voice was lower, but he was staring daggers at me. I knew he didn’t want to be heard around the office now and I knew what that meant. I nodded. “Are you ready to burn those bridges?” Tommas asked. His eyes flashed fire but we both knew he wasn’t angry at me. Not directly at least, though he may be irritated that I had become involved with Beatrice to begin with. “I’ll do whatever is required to keep her alive,” I said.

I yanked the collar of my shirt up, pinning it tight with a small safety pin from the inside, hoping to God it would stay put. Ten minutes later, I was crossing the main campus courtyard, my hands gripping the straps of my backpack like a shield. The sun was blinding, making my eyes sting after barely getting two hours of sleep. "Well, look who finally decided to show up for air," a sharp voice cut through the morning air. I stopped dead in my tracks. Standing right in the middle of the concrete path was Maria Cole, flanked by her usual shadows, Gloria and Meg. Maria was wearing a crisp white designer jacket, a massive, iced coffee held loosely in her manicured hand.

No one wanted me here. So what’s the point in worrying about them? What’s the point of being good? I have to ask. Like the bear, my efforts here were going to nothing anyway. It doesn’t matter what I do. I’ve decided and give the bear a quick squeeze for courage. His plush body is almost too much for my hand, but that’s fine. I still have my right to open the door. The door creaks wider as I push to pour the music into the hall. It’s clear now without the wood to silence it. And it tickles my ears as I step in with one last push.

Unknown: “If you cross up there, you won’t come back.” I clenched my fists. Me: “Try and forestall me.” I joined the team. “Let’s cross scouse and borrow their goddamn sign.” And we ran in the direction of the release bay.

“What I’m saying is that you should just listen to your grandfather, son.” That’s exactly what Cross has been doing with his whole life—listen to his Grandfather, their family’s head. He’s been showing himself every Monday and makes sure to report everything that is happening to his life because that is the only way he could indirectly say that he doesn’t need to find a spouse.

"If you don't leave him—if you don't walk away and take that baby with you—I'll finish the job. I'll make sure neither of you survives to see your daughter born." The line goes dead. We sit there. Staring at each other. Both understanding what just happened. Richard Cross just declared war. Total war. No rules. No mercy. And we have forty-eight hours to stop him. Or we die trying.

I took a deep breath and stood tall On My Feet slowly stalking towards the bear. "We are going to die you need to shift" Rona yelled in my ear.

“And you mean exactly the same to me, Ethan. Whatever comes next, whatever Cross decides to finally reveal — we face it exactly the way we’ve faced everything else. Together, choosing each other, refusing to let fear be the only thing either of us carries into it.” We sat together for a long while after that, the war room’s careful preparations finally quiet around us, the weight of Cross’s letter settling into something we could carry forward together rather than simply be crushed beneath. Somewhere out there, a man who’d spent thirty patient years searching for an exception to everything he believed about the world was finally, according to his own careful words, preparing to see for himse

Without happiness we are nothing, like dying candles, disappearing in the night, and in happiness we Shine like stars, illuminating the path of others, remembering the birth of a child, the temple, the sky and the sun, - Mary reasoned, trying to understand what she would find, and moved on, as she said the voice. Maria was walking carelessly to her house along the beaten path, which was surrounded by trees: cypress, oak, Myrtle, Laurel, when suddenly a brown bear stood in her way, and at that moment she was paralyzed with fear. But the voice said to her again: Do not be afraid, Mary, go on!

I wrote back immediately. The list is done. Item forty-three is not on the list because item forty-three is the understanding the list was building toward. You found it. Dara Cross as Iron Crest's Keeper. Yes. This is right. More than right — it is the only correct answer and you found it yourself without me pointing to it, which means you understood it from the inside rather than receiving it from the outside. That is the difference between a designation that holds and one that is performed.