Gansey turned the key. The engine turned over once, paused for the briefest of moments - and then roared to deafening life. The Camaro lived to fight another day. The radio was even working, playing the Stevie Nicks song that always sounded to Gansey like it was about a one-winged dove.

So here's my theory, and this is such crap science, I don't have to tell you. It's science without microscopes, blood tests, or reality.

I sat on the hill, the wind whispering through the long grass that surrounded me. I stared at the stars and wanted more than what I was and more than what the world was and just - wanted.

There doesn't seem like there should be an artful way to butcher a cow, but there is, and this is not it.

There was no sun; there was no light. I was dying. I couldn't remember what the sky looked like. But I didn't die. I was lost to a sea of cold, and then I was reborn into a world of warmth.

If Adam was stupid about his pride, Gansey was stupid about Adam.

Of course he would count the time that we'd been two entirely different species.