The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)

by Dot Hutchison

“You really think broken children care about justice?”

I found any number of things, in fact, except a way to give her any shred of dignity.

“Some people stay broken. Some pick up the pieces and put them back together with all the sharp edges showing.”

For most of the girls, this was their first time seeing death firsthand.

but kids like me? We’re not lost. We may be the only ones who never are. We always know exactly where we are and where we can go. And where we can’t.”

“If you expect to be overlooked or forgotten, you’re always at least a little surprised when someone remembers you.

Whatever he did in those rooms, that was where we died.

The trouble with sociopaths, really, is that you never know where they draw their boundaries.

I guess I was the right kind of bitch after all. He called us Butterflies, but really we were well-trained dogs.

“Those who want to believe something badly enough generally do,”

“Not making a choice is a choice. Neutrality is a concept, not a fact. No one actually gets to live their lives that way.”

“The gifts we give say as much about us as the gifts we get and keep,”

With Avery he shared; with Desmond, he gave.

I couldn’t use him broken. I needed him brave. I didn’t think he ever would be.

“Give it enough time and it’ll kill me too. Cowardice may be our natural state but it’s still a choice. Every day you know about the Garden and don’t call the police or let us go, you’re making that same choice again and again. It is what it is, Desmond. You just don’t get to pretend anymore.”

You don’t learn to be brave. You just have to do what’s right, even if it scares you.

Avery had the room. A gun will do that.

“I think a trauma doesn’t stop just because you’ve been rescued.”