Maura whirled towards Blue. "Blue, if you ever see that man again, you just walk the other way." "No," Calla corrected. "Kick him in the nuts. Then run the other way.

This is about as comforting as a cold brick when you're lonely.

The piebald mare paws at the sand; I see her digging out of the corner of my eye and hear her grinding her teeth. That bridle's her curse, this island her prison. She still smells of rot.

I had this feeling that he and I , in this moment, were a car crash, and instead of putting on the brakes, I was hitting the accelerator.

Face flushed, I shook my head and stared at my white-knuckled grip on the bed. Of all my pet peeves, condescending adults were probably at the top of the list.

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

He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself.