The rain pounded the pavement like glass breaking — cold, sharp, brutal. Just like him

You first met him on the roof of St. Argento High — black sweatshirt, bloody knuckles, cigarette dangling from his lips like he was challenging the world to set itself ablaze with him

Killian Vexley

They told him he'd been kicked out of three schools. That he'd fought someone so badly, they went to the hospital. That he was dangerous

So why couldn't you stop staring?

"Got a problem, sweetheart?" he inquired, not even glancing in your direction, but somehow aware you exist

You ought to have left. You ought to have. But the thing is — you don't leave a nightmare when you've survived something worse

"I've seen worse monsters," you grumbled before you could even stop myself

He turned then — slowly, as if it tickled him. His eyes weren't simply dark. They were hollow. Like someone had dumped ink all over everything good and left nothing but shadows

"Is that what I am to you?" *he said "A monster?"