“There were always choices. I’d made a string of bad ones myself. At least I could admit that.”

“I was always able to lose myself in reading. Books were a necessary escape I always gladly jumped into headfirst.”

“I admitted. If I was going to hallucinate, then at least it was some hot dude instead of something gross.”

“He wasa jerk. Moody. But there had been brief moments that I’d spent with him—like a nanosecond—when I thought I might have seen the real Daemon. Atleast a better Daemon. And that part made me curious. And the other side, the jerky one, yeah, that part didn’t make me curious.It sort of excited me.”

“I'm skipping, but Cam doesn't have a class until this afternoon, so he's a good boy.""And your a bad boy?""Oh, I'm a bad, bad boy.""Yeah, as in bad at spelling, math, english, cleaning up after yourself, talking to people, and I could go on.”

“We always have something running in the back of our thoughts. What's running behind yours?"Right now I was thinking about how nice his eyes looked, but I'd shave my head before I admitted that.”

“Listen to me, Ember. I couldn’t hurt you. I can’t.” Hayden settled his eyes on me. They were softer than I’d ever seen. “I love you— I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you.”