“All I cared was that she had never lied. She was honest in a world just the opposite, and a cool oasis in my life. She was who she said she was, and everything Sophia, my mother, the pathologically manipulative liar, had never been.”

“All of his life had been about making sure I kept mine.”

“Niko caught my hand and slapped it lightly down on the bar. “Pistol whipping elderly women isn’t precisely our mission statement, Cal.” I hadn’t been going to pistol-whip her. Yell at her a little more, then pick her up and toss her out into the street. Some risk of a broken hip there, but that wasn’t pistol-whipping… unless she tried to come back in.”

“Why is it always the world? Why is it never just half a block? Or Jersey? You know, something we could live without?”

“It is now. It is always now. Now is good. Now could be the best. My name is Catcher. My name was Catcher.My name...my name...I am...I am lost, I am found and then I am free and I am happy.When I jump over that edge, someone leaps with me, shoulder to shoulder. I smell kinship on him. Kinship is all. I'm not alone. Never alone.I land, earth below me, moon above. I am wolf. We are pack.And that is all I need.”

“The front door had been secure at some point in time, I suppose, but now it usually hung ajar by a few inches, the gap‐toothed grin of a dirty old man.”

“Anyone with less intestinal fortitude, inhuman or not, would've been curled up on the floor sucking his thumb. I basked in the attention and took it as my due. I'd always known I was a star. Without me, the Auphe were nothing. I was the key, and the gate was a lock only I could open. At this moment I was, as I'd always suspected, God. Spreading my arms, I let my head fall back and closed my eyes, my streaming hair a silk touch on my shoulder blades. "Suffer the little children to come unto me." Opening my eyes, I smiled gently at the Auphe.”