Live free or die.

That's the thing: We didn't really care. A world without love is also a world without stakes.

Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging up your back and runing its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-the only thing-is run.

It's the rule of the wilds. You must be bigger, and stronger, and tougher. A coldness radiates through me, a solid wall that is growing, piece by piece, in my chest. He doesn't love me. He never loved me. It was all a lie. "The old Lena is dead." I say, and then push past him. Each step is more difficult than the last; the heaviness fills me and turns my limbs to stone. You must hurt or be hurt.

Fourth period I have "life skills", which is what they call gym when you're old enough to be offended by forced physical activity (Elody thinks they should call it slavery instead, for accuracy).

Dystopian novels help people process their fears about what the future might look like; further, they usually show that there is always hope, even in the bleakest future.

No one had ever told her this basic fact: not everyone got to be loved.