First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016
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Text © Kimberly McCreight 2016
Cover images © Rubberball/ Mike Kemp/ Getty Images (Burnt matchstick type); Shuttercock.com (all other images);
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2016
Kimberly McCreight asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
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Source ISBN: 9780008115067
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008115074
Version: 2016-04-01
FOR HARPER AND EMERSON,
THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE
K. M.
Contents
Why are the bad things always so much easier to believe? It shouldn’t be that way. But it is, every single time. You’re too sensitive and too worried, they say. You care too much about all the wrong things. One little whisper in your ear and the words tumble through your head like you’re the one who thought them first. Hear them enough and pretty soon they’re etched on the surface of your heart.
But right now, I’ve got to forget all the ways I’ve come to accept that I am broken. As I sit here in this cold, dark room, deep in the pitch-black woods, staring into this lying stranger’s beautiful eyes, I need to think the opposite about myself. I need to believe that I am a person I have never known myself to be. That in my deepest, darkest, most useless corners lies a secret. One that just might end up being the thing that saves me. That saves us.
Because there is a lot that I still don’t understand about what’s going on. So much, actually. But I do know this: despite all the fear in this woman’s eyes, we need to convince her to help us. Because our lives depend on it. And on us getting out that door.