"The truth is overrated. Once you open the door to that dark room, getting out is damn near impossible."
"I’ve been forced to handle things no human being should have to handle since I was thirteen years old."
"Do you really think you can handle the truth?"
"I could deal with anything you throw my way."
"Why keep me around for so long? Why didn’t you just kill me when you took me from my home?"
"I need that. It might be my only tool once this was underway."
"You seem to be clean. You say you need medical attention? I’ll call the emergency vehicle."
"The survival instinct is amazing in a human being."
"You figured a way out of an unwinnable situation. You're incredible."
"I’m far from the good in the world, Melanie."
"You are everything good in the world, Jonah."
"I wasn’t thinking at all. I was acting. I was surviving."
"Looking death in the face makes you rearrange your priorities quickly."
"I love you, Jonah. You don’t have to say it back. I don’t expect it."
"This was now. This was one moment—one I wanted to cherish."
"If it's stuck together but isn't supposed to be, you use WD-40. If it's not stuck together but it's supposed to be, use duct tape."
"The way you react after such a trauma doesn't define who you are, Melanie. It's perfectly normal to want someone with you."
"You’re always safe from me. I would never hurt you."
"Melanie, you can stay here as long as you need to. Take this day by day."
"This is your closet. He had no right to be here, but you do."
"You don’t have to decide that right now. Who knows when the police will release the area, and it will take a few weeks for your insurance company to settle your loss anyway. But you do need to take some time to pick out all the stuff you want."
"I could feel his heartbeat thumping as he held me."
"Whether you think so now or not, Gina, it is better that you remember. Blocking out painful memories comes with its own problems."
"Ignorance is not bliss. Perhaps a victim doesn’t consciously remember these things, but they are still inside, and they can manifest a thousand different ways."
"You don’t owe me anything for this, Melanie. It’s a small payment for everything you’ve done for my family."
"They gave me the necessities of life, and I never wanted for anything…except their love and affection."
"My body wasn’t perfect by a long shot, but it was mine. And that’s why Jonah loved it. Because he loved me."
"From now on, Melanie, you will stop thinking of yourself as average. You are smart, determined, hard-working, and you are a damned good therapist. Your body and your mind are beautiful."
"But luxury didn’t matter, not after Talon was taken. So much was more important than luxury."
"Every doctor loses patients. It’s a chance you take when you’re a healer. We’d all like to be able to heal everyone. Every doctor out there. But no one can."
"Once I was actually in that garage with that running car, things changed. I changed. For the first time, I truly understood the human instinct for survival."
"You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. Every day you amaze me more."
"I never thought of myself as strong. I never thought of myself as anything other than average in every way."
"I smiled. No reason in the world existed for me to envy this woman. She was living in the past, unable to accept that her modeling days were over. Clearly, she was lusting after Jonah. Could I blame her? The man was magnificent."
"Brooke Bailey was given the gift of beauty," Jonah said, "but so were you, Melanie. And you were given so much more than she was."
"I love you so much, Melanie. So fucking much."
"I will never, ever let anyone harm you again. Do you hear me?"
"The thing you need to understand about clubs like these, is they have a certain amount of members who are voyeurs. People who like to watch."
"Anything consensual is okay in my book, as long as others don’t get hurt. Sometimes, though, pain is pleasure."
"I want to ultimately bring pleasure, not pain."
"You could never disappoint me. And there is no right or wrong. This is just pleasure. Pure pleasure."
"I love you more than anything. You're everything to me, Melanie."
"That night when you were taken. I got your call, and I ignored it because I was angry with you for leaving me at my house that night, for not saying good-bye."
"The brother I love went through hell because I couldn’t be bothered to go with him when all he wanted was to investigate the disappearance of his friend."
"I was selfish. I wanted to keep you anyway. Even though I’d failed you. But I know I can’t."
"I had just walked into the cave-like cellar where my brother had lived for two months when he was a child of ten."