Downstairs, Grandad's warning Barron about something. His voice swells, and I catch the words, "In my day we were feared. Now we're just afraid.

in her dreams, blood tasted like fizzy strawberry soda. If you drank it too fast, you got brain freeze. When she was older, after she'd licked a cut on her finger, the taste of that became the taste in her dreams: copper and tears.

More and more I feel like the boy who cut off his nose to spite his face.

He let out a hiss of pain,then smiled that crooked, sheepish smile he always fell back on when he was caught doing something bad. "Sorry. I-I didn't mean to. I just- I've been lying here for hours, thinking about blood.

You said you were allowed to lose it,' some part of her reminded herself. 'Not yet, not yet.

You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat.

I like all the things that make you monstrous.