"What we control," Juliette said, "is our actions once fate puts us there."

Statistics were magic like this: they could tell you with near-certainty that a thing would occur, without a hint of when or where.

There were certain things, learned so young and remembered so deep that they felt like little stones in the center of her mind.

He’d only ever seen a gun once, a smaller one on the hip of that old deputy, a gun he’d always figured was more for show. He stuffed a fistful of deadly rounds in his pocket, thinking how each one could end an individual life, and understanding why such things were forbidden. Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one’s conscience to get in the way.

Even in the darkness, his smile threw shadows.

It turned out that some crooked things looked even worse when straightened. Some tangled knots only made sense once unraveled.

That's the problem with the truth," Darcy said. "Liars and honest men both claim to have it.