“Everything is in the process of becoming something else. It’s the law of change.” I briefly kissed Livvie’s eyelids before she could open them. “I’m in the process of becoming something else, Livvie. I hope it’s something good, something far removed from the monster you knew.”

“You’re worse than those bikers,” she spat, her body tense and coiling, ready to attack. “At least they knew they were monsters. You’re pathetic! You’re a monster who imagines he’s something else.”

“I was as real to him as he was to me and it struck me just then that I meant something to him. In whatever capacity he was able, I meant something. The irony of that epiphany made my gut twist.”

“I miss the restraints. In a way, they allowed me the freedom to writhe and flail. They gave me something and someone to fight against. Without them… I feel like a traitor. No longer a prisoner, I seem to be allowing them to keep me here.”

“I can’t keep you, Livvie. Stop trying to make me.”

“Mine.The word was a declaration. It rocked him to his very foundation. It was a truth he’d kept hidden for far too long. Caleb didn’t know anything about love, or loving anyone, but he knew… Livvie was his.”

“Caleb was a strange person, cruel and inhuman; a monster, and yet, at other times, he seemed so capable of something like caring. He made me cry and scream and shake with fear and nearly a split second later he could make me almost believe he wasn't responsible for any of it. He could hold me and make me feel safe. How was that possible?”