“Bethany blinked. "Did you just hit me?" she asked, disbelief coloring her every feature.Skylar raised both hands, palms outward. "I come in peace!""You do not come in peace. You hit me.""I hit in p...”

“This was our language: half-truths, obvious lies, accusations neither one of us would ever make. It was a system eery bit as complicated as Morse code or the dancing of bees. Don't ask, don't tell,...”

“Most of the time, it felt like my father and I were completely different species. Possibly literally, depending on the day and whether or not I actually qualified as human at the time.”

“What I really needed wasn't a dose of school spirit; it was a glass of water, an aspirin the size of my fist, and the answers to the history exam that I hadn't studied for the night before. "As lon...”

“Well," a female voice said. "What have we here?""Here," Bethany said, responding to the woman's rhetorical question, "we have a teenager. And she's pissed.”

“If we can become still and open-minded we might all feel that unseen hand on our shoulder, letting us know we are not alone.”

“If we an become still and open-minded, we might all feel the unseen comforting hand on our shoulder letting us know we are not alone.”

“It was the sort of bone deep emotion that made him want to hold her tighter with one hand, and draw a sword against the world with the other.”