Momentum,' She repeats. 'You can't just stand there if you want something to fly. You have to run.

It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.

Love is not enough to keep any of us alive.

I can hear my brother's voice in my head. Your problem is that you're too emotional. But how can I not be emotional, Rowan? How can I not care?

When I am writing anything in general, I just want to tell the story that exists in my head; I don't try to write a parable or make a point.

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.

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