The kid who didn't go back when he should have and now goes back when he shouldn't. The kid called Zombie, who made a promise, and if he breaks that promise, the war is over - not the big war, but the war that matters, the one in the battlefield of his heart. Because promises matter. They matter now more than ever.

Our enemy is fear. Blinding, reason-killing fear. Fear consumes the truth and poisons all the evidence, leading us to false assumptions and irrational conclusions.

It's almost dawn. You can feel it coming. The world holds its breath, because there's really no guarantee that the sun will rise. That there was a yesterday doesn't mean there will be a tomorrow.

I am a shark, Cassie," he says slowly, drawing the words out, as if he might be speaking to me for the last time. Looking into my eyes with tears in his, as if he's seeing me for the last time. "A shark who dreamed he was a man.

The world is a clock winding down.

There was, like, this black hole where the world used to be, and we were both falling toward it. What could we hold on to?

There's the bullshit you know that you know; the bullshit you don't know and know you don't know; and the bullshit you just think you know but really don't.