Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)

by Mira Grant

The best predators always learned how to masquerade as things that wouldn’t seem threatening. That was how they got close enough to strike.

The girls were healthy, happy, and well adjusted; the family had already lived near a good Deaf school when they were born. The question of cochlear implants had been left until Holly and Heather were old enough to answer it for themselves, and by the time they’d been asked, they hadn’t wanted the surgery. They enjoyed themselves and their reality as they were.

Asking scientists not to look into an open box was like asking cats not to saunter through an open door. It simply wasn’t practical.

The seas did not forgive, and they did not welcome their wayward children home.

Sadness was tempting. Sorrow held more charms than most people liked to think, and it would swallow her whole if she let it. She had been dancing with sorrow since the Atargatis. But that was what made it so important that other things happen even when the sad things were already going on.

Every person on this vessel was a story in the process of telling itself, and all of them were fascinating, and all of them deserved to be heard.

There are some challenges that are worth risking everything. —Heather Wilson Nothing is worth the risk of being lost at sea. —Dr. Holly Wilson

Humanity was cruel, and if you were prepared to try to find a bottom to that cruelty, you had best be prepared for a long, long fall.

They were good people. Not dolphin-good, but human-good, which was almost good enough.

The smarter you are, the more likely you are to want to eat the world.

The most skilled makeup artist in the world couldn’t have fabricated the delicate texture of the skin, the gleaming pallor of the exposed musculature, the yellow shine of the fat. It was too imperfect and hence perfect, crossing the line between artifice and reality without any hesitation.

“Because they represent something otherwise unknown to science, and studying them could tell us things about our planet that I never thought we’d have the opportunity to learn. But most of all, we protect them because it’s our job. We don’t just conserve the things we like, or the things we find adorable. We conserve everything. We take care of the planet. We’ve been doing a piss-poor job so far, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get better.”

“Soon, Michi, soon,” Jacques breathed, and began firing.