I start trying to stay unconscious. The problem with this is that no amount of willpower can change the reality.

who once had dreams of saving the world, now laughs at anyone who tries.

You can't be afraid. You can be sad if you like. You can be angry. But it's the fear that'll freeze you in place.

And everywhere girls, tumbling from trees like orange blossoms and hitting the earth with sickening thuds. They crack open.

Real’ is a dirty word in this place.

I've done it all before, I tell myself, and I can do it again. Trust is the strongest weapon.

We were his disposable things. Brought to him like cattle. Stripped of what made us sisters or daughters or children. There was nothing that he could take from us—our genes, our bones, our wombs—that would ever satisfy him. There was no other way that we would be free.