" I had called Brooke 'it'. That was stupid. That was...horrifying. I was better than that...
...Calling human beings 'it' was a common trait of a serial killer - they didn't think of other people as human, only as objects, because that made them easier to torture and kill. It was hard to hurt 'him' or 'her', but easy to hurt 'it'. 'It' didn't have any feelings. 'It' didn't have any rights. 'It' was just a thing, and you could do whatever you wanted with it. "
― Dan Wells , I Am Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver, #1)