If there had been another female for him since we arrived in Salvation, I needed to cut off all her hair and beat her half to death. The strength of that impulse scared me, and I took a step back. Deuce the girl was every bit as vicious as the Huntress, it seemed

So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.

With a polite smile, I decided she was insane.

Is that love? It seems like a pale word, too easily tossed about by people who don’t know the meaning of it, who twist it for their own ends. I’m afraid of it now, right up there with clowns, close spaces, and open flames.

He's earned a lifetime of peace and happiness, but some people never get what they deserve. That's why there are saints in gutters and sadists in palaces.

You ever have that feeling? Like you’ve known someone your whole life but you don’t know them at all.

I think my head's a minefield strewn with triggers, and maybe if I survive each explosion, what emerges from the wreckage will be me, really, truly me.