Begged Quotes

“I’m killing Zil. Clear enough? I’m putting him down.”
“Whoa, man,” Edilio said. “That’s not what we do. We’re the good guys, right?”
“There has to be an end to it, Edilio.” He wiped soot from his face with the back of his hand, but smoke had filled his eyes with tears. “I can’t keep doing it and never reaching the end.”
“It’s not your call anymore,” Edilio said.
Sam turned a steely glare on him. “You too? Now you’re siding with Astrid?”
“Man, there have to be limits,” Edilio said.
Sam stood staring down the street. The fire was out of control. All of Sherman was burning, from one end to the other. If they were lucky it wouldn’t jump to another street. But one way or the other, Sherman was lost.
“We should be looking to save any kids that are trapped,” Edilio said.
Sam didn’t answer.
“Sam,” Edilio pleaded.
“I begged Him to let me die, Edilio. I prayed to the God who Astrid likes so much and I said, God, if You’re there, kill me. Don’t let me feel this pain anymore.”
Edilio said nothing.
“You don’t understand, Edilio,” Sam said so softly, he doubted Edilio could hear him over the roar and crackle of the fire raging all around them. “You can’t do anything else with people like this. You have to kill them all. Zil. Caine. Drake. You just have to kill them. So right now, I’m starting with Zil and his crew,” Sam said. “You can come with me or not.”
― Michael Grant, Lies

“Roscoe had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. He awoke to find persistent itching on his stomach. He scratched it through his T-shirt.
He went back to sleep. But dreams kept him from sleeping soundly. That and the itching.
He woke again and felt the itchy spot. There was a lump there. Like a swelling. And when he held still and pressed his fingers against the spot he could feel something moving under the skin.
The small room was suddenly very cold. Roscoe shivered.
He went to the window hoping for light. There was a moon but the light was faint. Roscoe pulled his shirt over his head. He looked down at the spot on his stomach.
It was moving. The flesh itself. He could feel it under his fingertips. Like something poking back at him. But he couldn’t feel it from the inside, couldn’t feel it in his stomach. And he realized that his entire body was numb. He could feel with his fingertips but not the skin of his stomach—
The skin split!
“Ahhhh!”
He was touching it as it split, and he shrieked in terror and something pushed its way out through a bloodless hole.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, no no no no!”
Roscoe screamed and leaped for the door. His hand clawed at the knob as he babbled and wept and the door was locked, locked, oh, God, no, they had locked him in.
He banged at the door, but it was the middle of the night. Who would hear him in the empty town hall?
“Hey! Hey! Is anyone there? Help me. Help me. Please, please, someone help me!”
He banged and the thing in his belly stuck out half an inch. He was scared to look at it. But he did and he screamed again because it was a mouth now, a gnashing insect mouth full of parts like no normal mouth. Hooked, wicked mandibles clicked. It was inside him, chewing its way out.
Hatching from him.
“Help me, help me, don’t leave me here like this!”
But who would hear him? Sinder? No. Not anymore. That was over. All over. And he was alone and friendless. No one even to hear as he screamed and begged.
The window. He grabbed the pillow from his bed and pushed it against the glass and then punched it hard. The pane shattered. He took off his shoe and smashed at the starred glass until most of it fell tinkling to the street below.
Then he screamed for help. Screamed into the Perdido Beach night air.
No answer.
“Help me! Please, please, oh, God, please help me! You can’t just leave me locked up!”
But still, no answer.
Fear took hold of him, deep crazy-making fear.
No. No. No no no no, this couldn’t be happening. He hadn’t done anything to hurt anyone, he hadn’t done anything awful. Why? Why was this happening to him?
Roscoe fell to his knees and begged God. God, please, no, no, no, I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t brave or strong but I wasn’t bad, either. Not like this, please, God, no no no, not like this.
Roscoe felt an itching in the middle of his back.
He sat down and cried.”
― Michael Grant, Plague

“Human Crew had been a group formed to defend the rights of normals against freaks. At least that was the Human Crew line. Most people now saw Human Crew as a straight-up hate group.
Lance grabbed Turk’s shoulder and practically yanked him up off the stinking couch where he lay. “Turk, listen, man, listen to me: don’t you see what this means?”
Turk did not see what it meant, or at least not whatever Lance thought he should see. Turk mostly disliked Lance. They were friends, kind of, but only because they’d both been with Zil and riding high. And now they were reduced to doing the worst work Albert could find for them: digging slit trenches for kids to go in, and then covering them up when they were full.
Cesspool diggers. The Crap Crew, kids called them.
And they had to kiss Albert’s butt because otherwise they didn’t eat. They’d been lucky they weren’t exiled. Turk had talked the council out of sending them off to live in the wild. He’d begged, that was the truth of it. He’d convinced them that it was better to find a place for him and the others from Human Crew.
He’d put all the blame for the fire on anyone but themselves. Kept saying, “It’s not our fault, guys, not me and Lance and all, we were forced by Zil and Hank. Hank was scary, man, you know that. You know he was a creep and he would have shot us or messed us up.”
Turk had whined like a baby. And wept. And in the end convinced that smug wetback Edilio, and especially Albert, that they wouldn’t make trouble anymore, ever again, lessons learned, their lives all turned around now.
The Human Crew became the Crap Crew. And harsher names as well. A laughingstock.”
― Michael Grant, Plague