“I feel as though I'm a storm inside and the waves of it can be seen in my eyes.”

“Always," I tell him. He catches his breath and I lean away until I can see his eyes. "I'm scared of losing my heart to you. But I think it's a risk I'm willing to take.”

“They're endless, stretching beyond the horizon and spreading around me like forever. They heave and moan, frothing over each other, cresting and falling. The pure depth and vastness of it all beyond comprehension, my eyes unable to focus on any individual. Instead I'm drowned in their need. They ripple and swell, the bodies of the Mudo, like the ocean. Like the dead-tossed waves.”

“I sit with my knees pulled in tight and my arms wrapped around my shins. I can no longer feel my feet, as if blood refuses to spread so far from my heart.”

“It wouldn't have mattered if they were scratches or not," he says, his voice like liquid. "I was bitten during the escape from the house." My limbs go weak, everything inside me folding in collapsing on itself."I was already dead," he says, opening his eyes.”

“I know,' Jed says. I'm thrown over his shoulder and I can feel how his body shakes and I know that he is crying. For me, for Beth. And I wonder if there was ever a crueler world than this one that forces us to kill the people we love most.”

“But I don't know how to tell him all this. That I'm scared and I don't know how to be normal. I'm broken, just like him, and I'm not sure I can fix myself.”