"We're not your dependents," Ward said, managing to pack a truly impressive amount of horror into his tone without actually raising his voice. "We're your accidentally married kung fu spouses or ... something."

"I want this day to not have happened," Colleen said, pressing her forehead against the bars.

I have NO CONTEXT for anything but this made me cackle as I scrolled through. Amazing snippet - makes me want to read the full 15k!

(Your writing is so good it just makes me happy to see it, really.)