Jessica Marie Gilliland

“The cracks in the ground opened wider like hungry mouths with jagged teeth. They were eager for the soul that sat disconnected and unprotected in my meager body.This time I would let the fire have me.”

“I was the perfect tool of manipulation, built for deceit and complete with a hunger for immortal souls, but I would use these tools to hunt the souls of those who were already bound for hell.”

“It was a place that would normally be afraid of, but now I had no fears of the dark. I was the thing in the dark.”

“I hated and admired this hunter. I once gave him my heart and soul. Since then, I had given him more and more of myself, but I never forgot his true nature and what he had done to me.”

“Everything we were, and all of our wealth was a dark ruse. Shiny magic cards got us whatever we desired and the cloak of darkness that gilded our true intent was never pulled back. He would not allow us to be discovered while we did his work.”

“I look back every now and then and think, I should have known. He was too perfect to be anything but evil.”

“I learned that love wasn't a magical thing. It was something more like hormones and sensations. It was tolerance and patience. It was accepting one another despite our differences and forgiving each other even when the other didn't deserve it. Love, for Beau and I, was anything but easy. It boiled down to us understanding one another and learning to enjoy each other.Eventually, I loved him like I breathed air.”

“The downside of feeling again was that, along with compassion for others came the full realization of my feelings for Beau. I truly surrendered to my love for him; I let him in completely. It was the one thing that could hurt me if it went badly and it was the one thing I couldn’t stop.”

“His voice was terrifying and seemed to scrape across my skin as if it were a tangible thing. Something inside me agreed, as if it were even possible to give something like that. I didn’t even really believe in a soul, but in that moment I could feel it writhing inside me.”

“I didn’t know whether it was the wine or the night air that held its sway over me, but I felt alive. I looked up at Beau’s cloudy gray eyes and wondered what he was thinking. At the time, I imagined he was thinking what I was; that I was wrong about everything.If love exists, this is what it feels like.”

“As we flew down the highway I started to think seriously about what I was doing and what would happen. I felt Beau’s hand slide over mine, holding my hands tighter to his chest. It was then I realized that I didn’t care what was going to happen. I didn’t care that we had just left everything I knew or that we’d committed grand theft auto. It didn’t feel wrong to me. I felt like those moments were what life was all about; seizing the ones that make you feel alive and never letting go.”

“I felt electric when he touched me. I’d had crushes before; when your body melts and tingles but this was different. It was like a magnetic pull. Every cell in my body pulled toward him. It was almost uncomfortable but I found myself craving another touch.”

“Alyssa Montgomery was damned the moment she met Evan Beauman.”

“Let's do this thing!”

“Every word from Kismet’s mouth sounded like poetry spoken with the most fervent passion one could conjure up. I couldn’t understand how he could stand to have such intensity building inside him. I watched, captivated by each breath in between his words. I found myself tracing the lines of his face over and over and leaning into him.”

“When we were young his hands had been soft but now they were a man's hands, with rough palms and coarse fingertips, but they were still as careful as ever.”

“I could feel it then like I feel it now, like a palpable thing inside me, like a physical touch; what we shared was not accidental and nothing close to normal. It was not imagined or fabricated out of loneliness or the conditions under which we were brought to New Haven. It was given to us, meant only for us. It was a gift much like the "special gifts" that brought us to New Haven.”

“The underlying mechanics of the relationship between ACT and the Anomalies became perfectly clear:We were right to hide from them.And they were right to fear us.”

“Once more, we were to start anew in the world. I was afraid they would come back for me if they realized that their devices were faulty, so I played their game. I pretended to forget New Haven. I pretended to forget my friends. I even pretended to forget Chase. Most importantly, I pretended that I couldn’t feel the emotions of those around me or bend the laws of gravity with my mind.”

“I don’t remember my life before being brought to New Haven.”

“I realized then that it was a game we were playing; from the very beginning. But we weren’t playing the same game and when it came down to it, he wasn’t playing by the rules.”