“Them's wolves, not girls.”

“This group is known as the watchers. And to be a watcher is a woman's fortune."He said that last bit as though it was the greatest honor girls like us could ever attain. My thoughts turned grim. It was once considered an honor to be a sacrificial lamb, too.”

“You were banging hard enough to wake the dead.""And you're lovely enough to rouse them.”

“Stand warned, lovelies. Initiates are encouraged to teach you cruelty. An you should thank them for it. For to understand cruelty is to know strength.”

“He had dirty-blond good looks to match a dirty-good smile. Yes, dirty. There was just enough twinkle in his smiling brown eyes to suggest there might be all manner of naughty-guy impulses rattling around that cute body of his.”

“I was leaving.Finally.For good.There was only one way I'd ever return to the town of Christmas, Florida, and it involved my dead body.”

“The faint bruise on the side of her cheek had paled to a sickly yellow.Imagine that. She'd fallen in the shower. Again.Just ask Daddy.”