The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, #2)

by Patrick Ness

Mr. Hammar’s close enough so I can see the smile, a smile I know full well, a smile that clubs, a smile that beats, a smile that dominates.

“If you ever see a war,” she says, not looking up from her clipboard, “you’ll learn that war only destroys. No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors.

“War makes monsters of men,” I say, quoting Ben from that night in the weird place where New World buried its dead. “And women,” Mistress Coyle says.

The Devil tells the best stories. Didn’t your mama teach you that?”

“There’s so much life here, Viola. So much, in every corner of every forest and stream and river and mountain. This planet just hums with it.”

“If I can prevent the taking of a life, I will do so, even one as irritating as yours.”

We are the choices we make. And have to make. We aren’t anything else.

She betrayed me– She betrayed me again– And then there’s darkness.

“Me and Todd? Together against the Mayor?” She smiles. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”