The things you think about when you're a hair's breath away from getting yourself killed.

Obeying orders just to obey is the mark of a person who has ceased to think. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.

What's the point of not taking chances? I don't know if I could stand living my whole life afraid.

Why can't you like me?" he said, his voice breaking. His scent steamed then, hot and heady with a welter of contradictions: apples and fire and electric roil of those cold, black shadows. "Why can't you like me just a little?" She would never know how she might have answered, because he never gave her the chance. Instead, he kissed her.

The grief in her green eyes slips then hardens and, for an instant, Pendleton sees the woman she has become and has no right being, not at sixteen.

So I need the story, Jenna. I need the truth. Right, like the two are the same thing.

Everybody breaks sooner or later, Bob. Anyone can drown. Sometimes you see it. Most often, you don’t because the body protects and the skin hides, so drowning doesn’t look like drowning and some people scar so nicely. Take it from an expert.