Page 1088 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"Why do you hate me for that?" said Novinha. "Maybe it's true, but that's my life, to lose and lose and lose."
"Just this once," said Valentine, "why don't you set the bird free instead of holding it in the cage until it dies?"
"You make me sound like a monster!" cried Novinha. "How dare you judge me!"
"If you were a monster Ender couldn't have loved you," said Valentine, answering rage with mildness. "You've been a great woman, Novinha, a tragic woman with many accomplishments and much suffering and I'm sure your story will make a moving saga when you die. But wouldn't it be nice if you learned something instead of acting out the same tragedy at the end?"
"I don't want another one I love to die before me!" cried Novinha.
"Who said anything about death?" said Valentine.
The door to the room swung open. Plikt stood in the doorway. "I heard," she said. "What's happening?"
"She wants me to wake him up," said Novinha, "and tell him he can die."
"Can I watch?" said Plikt.
Novinha took the waterglass from beside her chair and flung the water at Plikt and screamed at her. "No more of you!" she cried. "He's mine now, not yours!"
Plikt, dripping with water, was too astonished to find an answer.
"It isn't Plikt who's taking him away," said Valentine softly.
"She's just like all the rest of them, reaching out for a piece of him, tearing bits of him away and devouring him, they're all cannibals."
"What," said Plikt nastily, angrily. "What, you wanted to feast on him yourself? Well, there was too much of him for you. What's worse, cannibals who nibble here and there, or a cannibal who keeps the whole man for herself when there's far more than she can ever absorb?"
"This is the most disgusting conversation I think I've ever heard," said Valentine.
"She hangs around for months, watching him like a vulture," said Novinha. "Hanging on, loitering in his life, never saying six words all at once. And now she finally speaks and listen to the poison that comes out of her."