I knew he wouldn't come, but I howled anyway, and when I did, the other wolves would pass images of him to me of what he looked like: lithe, gray, yellow-eyed. I would pass back images of my own, of a wolf on the edge of the woods, silent and cautious, watching me. The images, clear as the slender-leaved trees in front of me, made finding him seem urgent, but I didn't know how to begin to look.

Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern? It wouldn't be escapism.

Once upon a time I would’ve leaped at the rare opportunity of curling up with Mom on the couch. But now it sort of felt like too little too late. I had someone else waiting for me.

When does it happen?" "It already has," Calla replied. Her eyes opened and fixed on Blue. "And it hasn't yet. Time' circular, chicken. We use the same parts of it over and over. Some of us more than others.

It occurred to me then that I was the opposite of my father. Because I was very, very good at destroying things.

As I handed her the bag, the old scars on my wrist throbbed with buried memories.

The best-case scenario here is that you make friends with a boy who's going to die." "Ah," said Calla, in a very, very knowing way. "Now I see." "Don't psychoanalyse me," her mother said. "I already have. And I say again, 'ah'.