“It wasn’t about who had dibs now or who was sitting next to whom in the cinema. The game had changed; or rather, it wasn’t a game at all anymore. It was a matter of making it through the night, which is often harder than it sounds, and always a very individual business.”

“It had been a little over a year since the last murder; moreover it had been a year since I had run as quickly as legally possible from whom I had been. It had taken almost that long to become a legal adult, get the money straightened out and get my name changed. Who was Abigail? Who was Vera? I felt as though I was neither person. I felt like I wasn’t a person at all anymore.”

“It wasn’t enough that I had to worry about playing well and winning the game, but I also had to deal with possibility that one of my teammates could be dragged off the field by the inhabitants of the mental hospital.”

“I knew from Brianna that being beautiful wasn’t all great. Brianna had changed in middle school. One day we were both seventh graders and the next, she was a supermodel who had a seventh grader for a best friend.”

“Brendon wasn’t exactly surprised to find Mitch sitting by the lake at three in the morning, staring out over the still water. Of course, he would have much preferred if he wasn’t sitting with a crocodile next to him. It was one thing to enjoy a predatory game of tug with him, but it was another to treat him like the family’s pet dog.”

“My therapist shared a theory she had come across, and I liked it. It held that before making your next journey in this life, your soul sits at a large, circular conference table and chooses the souls who are going to be a part of your life. As for which particular people would be chosen, I figured they would be individuals from previous lives with whom there was still unfinished business.”