Take away someone’s fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty . . . and you take away their compassion. Take away someone’s aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation.

The man running toward me is not a man, he is a boy. A shaggy-haired boy with a crease between his eyebrows. Will. Dull-eyed and mindless, but still Will. He stops running and mirrors me, his feet planted and his gun up. In an instant, I see his finger poised over the trigger and hear the bullet slide into the chamber, and I fire. My eyes squeezed shut. Can't breathe. The bullet hit him in the head. I know because that's where I aimed it.

Now she looks pale and small, but her eyes make me think of wide- open skies that I have never actually seen, only dreamed of.

Sometimes drastic change requires drastic measures.

Candor does not provide us with protection, sustenance, or technological innovation. Therefore you are expendable to us.

He is strong, and lithe, and certain. And he is mine.

He looks like a man who has spent most of his life frowning.