Humans waste words. They toss them like banana peels and leave them to rot. Everyone knows the peels are the best part.

Growing up gorilla is just like any other kind of growing up. You make mistakes. You play. You learn. You do it all over again.

You can't have real pain without real love. You can't feel grief and loss and hurt without real love. Love is the only way you can ever be really hurt deep down.

Full emergency power to the engines. Ram the Blade ship.

And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning. I tried to smile. For him.

But hunger, like food, comes in many shapes and colors.

I was Jake's insurance policy. He thought maybe he wouldn't have to use me. He hoped, anyway. But down deep he knew, and I knew, and we both hid the truth from the others because Cassie couldn't let Jake make that decision, and Tobias couldn't let me, and those two, by loving us, would have screwed everything up. It was a war, after all. A war we had to win.