01c. 1962 ADI've always sucked at games of chance. Always hated them for that reason.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
03c. 1962 ADThey were afraid the longer we pretended to be human, the more human we would become.”“And who would want that?”“I didn’t think I would,” he admits. “Until I became one.”“When you…‘woke up’ in Evan?”He shakes his head and says simply, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “When I woke up in you, Cassie. I wasn’t fully human until I saw myself in your eyes.”And then there are real human tears in his real human eyes, and it’s my turn to hold him while his heart breaks. My turn to see myself in his eyes.Somebody might say that I’m not the only one lying in the enemy’s arms.I am humanity, but who is Evan Walker? Human and Other. Both and neither. By loving me, he belongs to no one.He doesn’t see it that way.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
04c. 1962 ADAnd John Kearns whispered into my ear: "Do you see it now? *You* are the nest. *You* are the hatchling. *You* are the chrysalis. *You* are the progeny. *You* are the rot that falls from the stars. All of us--you and I and poor, dear Pellinore. Behold the face of the magnificum, child. And despair."Though I was sickened by the sight, I looked. In the bower of the beast at the top of the world, I beheld the face of the magnificum, and I did not turn away.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
05c. 1962 ADI want him to touch me again. I want to feel his hands, as soft as clouds. But I’m afraid if he touches me, all seven billion billion billion atoms that make up my body will blow apart and scatter across the universe.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
06c. 1962 ADWe regarded each other across an expanse wider than the universe, within a space thinner than a razor's edge.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
07c. 1962 ADYou haven't heard a damn word I've said. See, this is why I can't stand your kinds. You light your candles and mumble your latin spells and pray to a god who isn't there, doesn't care, or is just plain crazy or cruel or both. The world burns and you praise the asshole who either set it or let it.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
08c. 1962 ADCrazy people. They never think they're crazy. Their craziness makes perfect sense to them.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
10c. 1962 ADI'm a little panicky when I realize he's not here. It's a lot easier to push down my doubt when he's with me. When I can see those eyes the color of melted chocolate and hear his deep voice that falls over me like a warm blanket on a cold night.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
11c. 1962 ADThe world is a clock winding down.I hear it in the wind’s icy fingers scratching against the window. I smell it in the mildewed carpeting and the rotting wallpaper of the old hotel. And I feel it in Teacup’s chest as she sleeps. The hammering of her heart, the rhythm of her breath, warm in the freezing air, the clock winding down.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
12c. 1962 ADLet’s establish a code for when you want to go all creeper on me. One knock means you’d like to come in. Two means you’re just stopping by to spy on me while I sleep.” His eyes travel from my face to my shirt (which happens to be his shirt) to my bare legs, lingering a breath too long before returning to my face. His gaze is warm. My legs are cold.Then he knocks once on the jamb. But it’s the smile that gets him in.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
13c. 1962 ADDo you know a way out of here?” I ask Ben. Sammy’s more trusting than I am, but the idea’s worth exploring. Finding the escape pods—if they even exist—has always been the weakest part of my getaway plan.He nods. “Do you?”“I know a way—I just don’t know the way to the way.”“The way to the way? Okay.” He grins. He looks like hell, but the smile hasn’t changed a bit. It lights up the tunnel like a thousand-watt bulb. “I know the way and the way to the way.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
14c. 1962 ADIt wasn't a good fake smile. You could always tell when she was faking, because she didn't look friendly; she looked like she was going to throw up.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
15c. 1962 ADThe cold stars spun to the ancient rhythm, the august march of an everlasting symphony. They are old, the stars, and their memory is long.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
16c. 1962 ADIt's always been this way, I wanted to tell him. We bear the unbearable. We endure the unendurable. We do what must be done until we ourselves are undone.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
17c. 1962 ADWe have survived the death of our childhood. We are soldiers now, maybe the last soldiers who will ever fight, the Earth’s final and only hope, united as one in the spirit of vengeance.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
18c. 1962 ADHe lays me on the bed. I say, right before he kisses me again, “If you kiss me again, I’m going to knee you in the balls.”His hands are incredibly soft, like a cloud touching me.“I won’t let you just…” He searches for the right word. “…fly away from me, Cassie Sullivan.”He blows out the candle beside the bed.I feel his kiss more intensely now, in the darkness of the room where his sister died. In the quiet of the house where his family died. In the stillness of the world where the life we knew before the Arrival died. He tastes my tears before I can feel them. Where there would be tears, his kiss.“I didn’t save you,” he whispers, lips tickling my eyelashes. “You saved me.”He repeats it over and over, until we fall asleep pressed against each other, his voice in my ear, my tears in his mouth.“You saved me.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
19c. 1962 ADAren’t you coming with us?”I feel his hand on my cheek. I know what this means and I slap his hand away.“You’re coming with us, Evan,” I say.“There’s something I have to do.”“That’s right.” My hand flails for his in the dark. I find it and pull hard. “You have to come with us.”“I’ll find you, Cassie. Don’t I always find you? I—”“Don’t, Evan. You don’t know you’ll be able to find me.”“Cassie.” I don’t like the way he says my name. His voice is too soft, too sad, too much like a good-bye voice. “I was wrong when I said I was both and neither. I can’t be; I know that now. I have to choose.”“Wait a minute,” Ben says. “Cassie, this guy is one of them?”“It’s complicated,” I answer. “We’ll go over it later.” I grab Evan’s hand in both of mine and press it against my chest. “Don’t leave me agaRick Yancey / quote ↗
21c. 1962 ADBeside me the monstrumologist murmured, "I believe I am in hell, therefore I am there.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
22c. 1962 ADHe didn’t like to see animals in captivity. When he looked into their eyes, something in their eyes looked back at him.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
23c. 1962 ADDespair is a wholly selfish response to fortune’s slings and arrows.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
24c. 1962 ADThen the door flew open and Mr. Faulks told us to head over to the gym. I thought that was really smart. Get all of us in one place so the aliens didn't have to waste a lot of ammunition.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
