"Sam sent me to give you a message, Edilio. He said, 'Tell Edilio I couldn't kill the bugs.'"The things that came out of Hunter? Howard asked.Taylor closed her eyes. Tears squeezed out and rolled down her cheeks. "Yes. The things that came out of Hunter. Sam shot them, you know, with his light. But they're like, reflective or whatever. Anyway, it didn't kill them."

"Guilt was a fascinating thing: it seemed not to weaken over time. If anything it grew stronger as the circumstances faded from memory, as the fear and the necessity became abstract. And only her own actions stood out with crystal clarity."

"Albert, I don't know how long we can keep Sam involved at all, she said."You're upset, Albert replied."Yes, I'm upset. But that's not the point. Sam is out of control. If we're ever going to have a working system we may have to find someone else to play the role of savior.Albert sighed. "Astrid, we don't know what's out there in the night. And maybe you're right that Sam is out of control. But me? I'm really glad it's him out there getting ready to face whatever it is.Albert picked up his omnipresent notebook and left.To a now empty, silent room, Astrid said, "Don't die, Sam. Don't die."

"That's your solution? Have a cookie?"

"She collapsed at the bottom of the trail, at the edge of the ghost town. Dekka sat on Edilio and pressed down on the wound. The force of the blood was weaker now. She could almost hold the blood back now, not a good thing, no, because it meant he was almost finished, his brave heart almost done beating.Dekka looked up straight into the glittering eyes of a coyote. She could sense the others around her, closing in. Wary but sensing that a fresh meal was close at hand."

"Brianna dropped the skateboard in front of Sam. "Don't worry: I won't let you fall off." "Yeah? Then why did you bring the helmet?" Brianna tossed it to him. "In case you fall off."

"I'm getting my stuff, he said, and bolted for the steps."You don't have to move out, Astrid called after him.Sam stopped halfway up the steps. "Oh, I'm sorry. Is that the voice of the council telling me where I can go?"There's no point having a town council if you think you don't have to listen to it, Astrid said. She was using her patient voice, trying to calm the situation. "Sam, if you ignore us, no one will pay attention."Guess what, Astrid, they're already ignoring you. The only reason anyone pays any attention to you and the others is because they're scared of Edilio's soldiers. He thumped his chest. "And even more scared of me."

"You May Now Leave The FAYZ."

"Have a seat with me, Caine said, hopping down from the wall. "How have you been, Taylor?"Life's one big party, she said.He laughed appreciatively at her joke. "Things must be pretty bad for Edilio to send for me, huh?"Things are always pretty bad, she said. "We're at a new level of bad. I saw those bugs.Caine mustered all his sincerity. "I have to go and fight these creatures. But I don't know much about them.Taylor told him what she knew. Caine felt some of his confidence drain away as she laid out the facts in gruesome detail and with complete conviction."Well, this should be fun, Diana said dryly. "I'm so glad we came back."

"Who am I? I'm the Breeze, bitch!"

"Brianna! Is Sam okay? Astrid cried."No. Drake tore him up. She wanted to sound tough, but the sobs came bubbling up and overtook her. "Oh, God, Astrid, he's hurt so bad.Astrid gasped and covered her hand with her mouth. Brianna put her arms around Astrid and sobbed into her hair."Is he going to die? Astrid asked, voice wobbly."No, I don't think so, Brianna said. She stood back and wiped her tears. "I gave him something for the pain. But he's messed up, Astrid."

"Endgame, Sam muttered, not really expecting Caine to hear."Yep, Caine said. "That's right. Endgame. The FAYZ barrier is coming down; at least that's mybet. But there's also a ninety percent chance you and me both end up dead. Ten percent chance weboth actually get out of here alive. In which case we end up sharing a cell somewhere. He laughed."Kind of unfair, really, what with me being evil and all, and you just so darned virtuous and heroic."

"I've never been able to grow an organ back," Lana said. "Last time I tried... Let's just hope you don't end up with whip eyes."

"Delay of pain: that was the meaning of life, wasn't it?"I've made some bad decisions, Caine said, not really meaning to say it out loud."

"It takes me a while to figure things out, doesn't it?" Edilio grinned. "Do me a favor. When you find Astrid, repeat that to her, word for word, the part about how it takes you a while. Then remember her exact reaction and tell me."

"Stay in your boats, Dahra said. "We're still going to need food. Throw your fish onto the dock. I'll get Albert to send someone here to collect it. Then go back out, row up the coast a little ways, and camp out."Camp out? Quinn echoed."Yes!"You're serious."No, it's my idea of a joke, Quinn, Dahra snapped. "Pookie just coughed up a lung and fell over dead. You understand what I'm saying? I mean he coughed his actual lungs out of his mouth."

"Where's Dekka? Astrid asked."In the basement, Edilio said. "She kept going for a long time. Her and Orc and Jack. But she's sick. Tired and sick. And she got a bad burn on one hand. That was it for her. I made her go to Dahra. Lana will, you know, when she's done with Man, I'm sorry, he said as he began crying again. "I can't be digging graves. Someone else has to do that, okay? I can't do that anymore."

"Three hundred and thirty-two kids between the age of one month and fourteen years had been confined within the FAYZ.One hundred and ninety-six eventually emerged.One hundred and thirty-six lay dead.Dead and buried in the town plaza.Dead and floating in the lake or on its shores.Dead in the desert.In the fields.Dead of battles old and recent. Of starvation and accident, suicide and murder.It was a fatality rate of just over 40 percent."

"He didn't mind Drake so much. Drake was a creep.It was the girl who made Orc want to cry.She was a monster. Like Orc. Begging for death. Begging for someone to let her go to her Jesus.Kill me, kill me, kill me, she begged every day and every night.Orc took a deep swig.Tears seeped from his human eyes and fell into the rocky crevices of his face."

"They said a lot of things to each other that night, but nothing that involved words."

"I'm sorry for hurting you. I know I did. I'm most likely dead now, and I guess if there's any kind of fairness in the afterlife I'm probably in hell getting roasted. But if that's where I am, I want you to know, I still love you. Always did. Love, Caine."

"Where was Sam?It hit her full force then, the shocking realization. Was this how Sam felt? Was this how he'd been feeling since the beginning? All eyes on him? Everyone waiting for a decision? Even as people doubted and criticized and attacked?She wanted to be sick. She had been there for so much of it. But she hadn't been the one. She hadn't been the one making those choices.And now, she was."I don't know what to do, Astrid said. "I don't know."

"In the land of the blind, a one eyed man is king."

"He found a set of encyclopedias-like Wikipedia, but paper and very bulky."

"Beautiful songs could sometimes take a person out of themselves and carry them away to a place of magic. But when Jill sang, it was not about the song, really. She could sing the phone book. She could sing a shopping list. Whatever she sang, whatever the words or the tune, it was so beautiful, so achingly lovely, that no one could listen and be untouched."

"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. In the darkness the man with a candle is an easy target."

"Sam. Brianna is dead.He just stared at her. Then, in a soft, almost childlike voice, he said, "Breeze?"She stopped Gaia. It looked like Brianna almost killed her. The second time she . . . But this time . . .There were tears in Sam's eyes. "My God. How is Dekka?"Like you'd expect. Destroyed. Roger's dead, too, so Edilio . . . It's been really bad, Sam. Really bad. It's like we're in a war."We are."

"There is no always," I say. "Nothing persists forever.""Nothingness persists," she says. She is testing me."No. So long as anything exists, nothingness is impossible. In fact, it's nothingness that cannot persist. Nothingness gives way to somethingness. The nothingness that preceded the Big Bang was obliterated. Nothing became something."

"You're staring," Lana said."Yes. I am. I'm a teenage boy. Beautiful girls in wet underwear have a tendency to cause staring in teenage boys."

"Sam, there comes a time when the world no longer needs heroes. And then the true hero knows to walk away."

"But hey this was the FAYZ, where all you could really hope was to delay the pain."

"I need you both to trust me," Vincent said. "I don't mean that I would like you to trust me. I mean that I need you to trust me."

"It couldn't last. Everyone was just killing time. But if all they did was kill time, time would end up killing them."

"At the moment that target was eating tacos his mother had brought in despite hospital orders against outside food."Oh, God, this is good, Sam said as juicy beef and crisp lettuce dribbled out onto the tray on his lap."Still not tired of eating? Connie asked him."I will never be tired of eating. I'm going to eat until I'm huge. Food, hot water, clean sheets. At least I'll get those three in prison."

"The balance of this world is not upset by accident. It is not upset by those who blunder accidentally into wrong. Evil comes when those who know better, who have seen the pain they cause, nevertheless cause more pain."

"It's Sanjit. It's a Hindu name. It means 'invincible.'""That's great," Lana said."Invincible. I can't be vinced.""That's not even a word," Lana said."Go ahead: try to vince me," Sanjit said."

"What do you think that fish is?' Sam asked Astrid.,' she said.'Yeah?' Sam made a face. 'Do you think it's okay to eat?'? Inedible? Joke, duh. Try to keep up, Sam, I made that really easy for you.'Sam smiled. 'You know, a real genius would have known I wouldn't get it. Ergo, you are not a real genius. Hah. That's right. I threw down an 'ergo.''She gave him a pitying look. 'That's very impressive, Sam. Especially from a boy who has twenty-two different uses for the word 'dude."

"Sam, can you, you know, like burn that concrete off her hands?"No. I can't aim that precisely."I don't even know what can be done, Edilio said as he fed the girl another microscopic bite of food. "You try and break that stuff off with a sledge hammer or something, or even a hammer and a chisel, it's going to really hurt. Probably break every bone in her hands, man."Who would have done this to her? Lana wondered."That's a Coates Academy uniform, Astrid answered. "We're probably not far from there."

"How has he moved so quickly from childlike naïveté to existential panic?"

"Don't jump to-"I'm not, Dekka said. "But if that's what it is, if it's those things, I'm going to ask you to take care of me."We've been over this, Sam said, pulling his hand away."If I tell you it's time, you do it, okay, Sam?He couldn't answer."I'm not afraid to die, Dekka said."

"But first things first. First, to escape this shell, this egg in which I have gestated, all eyes will be on the fire, all eyes blinded by the smoke, and when I walk out of here, out into your large world with its billions, no one will even see. It's the beauty of light, don't you see, Sam? It reveals, but it also distracts and blinds. It's even better than darkness."

"A man without pleasure is a man without any idea what life is about."

"Don't want no more rock, Orc repeated.The bleeding stopped almost immediately."Does it hurt? Lana asked. "I mean the rock. I know the hole hurts."No. It don't hurt. Orc slammed his fist against his opposite arm, hard enough that any human arm would have been shattered. "I barely feel it. Even Drake's whip, when we was fighting, I barely felt it.Suddenly he was weeping. Tears rolled from human eyes onto cheeks of flesh and pebbles."I don't feel nothing except, He pointed a thick stone finger at the flesh of his face."Yeah, Lana said. Her irritation was gone. Her burden was smaller, maybe, than Orc's."

"Come live with us, Diana. Don't argue. Just say yes."Diana looked at the ground to hide her emotions. Then she said, "Would I have to be hearing you two going at it night and day?"

"And then the turbines generate electricity that goes into the whole town.""You mean they aren't powered by giant hamsters on wheels? I was misinformed."

"Lana's going through them one at a time. Healing them. She's amazing."Sam thought he heard something extra in Edilio's voice. "She's cute too, huh Edilio?"Edilio's eyes went wide and started blushing. "She's just...you know..."Sam slapped his shoulder. "Good luck with that.""You think she...I mean, you know me, I'm just..." Edilio stammered his way to a stop."Dude, let's see if we can stay alive. Then you can ask her out or whatever."

"I had a polynomial once. My doctor removed it."

"The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph."

"I am too perfect for Evening," Adam volunteers. "But that's all right." He smiles shyly at Aislin. "I am not too perfect for Aislin."

"If there was ever an example for redemption, it's you."