When she fell asleep, she dreamed of death-- not just for her, not just for her species, but for every living thing she had ever known. The earth was flat and brown, a field of dirt as barren as the moon, a single road stretching in the distance. the last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. Then they disappeared, and there was nothing left but nothing.

This is life...Not a peace treaty, not an idealistic dream, but a grim dance of death and survival. The strong live on while the weak--the ones too small or too foolish to fight back--die in agony and blood.

I didn't know how to explain what I meant; sociopathy wasn't just being emotionally deaf, it was being emotionally mute, too. I felt like the characters on our muted TV, waving their hands and screaming and never saying a word out loud.

Jayden laughed grimly. 'Press the attack and hope for the best.' 'Hope is not a strategy,' said Kira 'It's not plan A,' said Jayden, 'and it shouldn't be plan B, but it is every plan C that has ever been made.

If you want to survive in this world, you need to stop asking why people work together, and just start working together.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Manhattan was a no-man's land, empty, an unofficial demilitarized zone between Partials and the human survivors. No one was supposed to be here, not because it was forbidden but because it was dangerous. If something happened to you out here, either side could get you, and neither side could protect you.