Did you just call me BEATRICE?

Drink this," she says. "What is it?" my throat feels swollen. I swallow hard. "What's going to happen?" "Can't tell you that. Just trust me." I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.

But there's so much that was a lie, it's hard to figure out what was true, what was real, what matters.

I forgot my watch. Minutes or hours later, when the panic subsides, that is what I most regret. Not coming here in the first place - that seemed like an obvious choice - but my bare wrist, which makes it impossible for me to know how long I have been sitting in this room. My back aches, which is some indication, but it is not definite enough.

You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it.

Even though I am still injured, I had to fight again today.Luckily this time,I was paired against Myra,who couldn't throw a good punch if someone was controlling her arm for her.

When you're a writer, you hear your internal critic, and that's really hard to get over. And then sometimes you hear critiques from classmates and stuff. But when a book comes out, it's just hundreds of opinions and you have to learn to separate out the ones you want to listen to or figure out many you want to listen to.