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prologue

Now

“My lovely jellyfish shines best in cold waters.” — K

Khaos

Lovesick fools love to romanticize winter.

Pine-scented candles. Cozy sweaters. Songs about jolly fat fucks breaking into people’s houses.

It’s all bullshit, if you ask me.

Winter meant hunger.

It meant pain.

It meant falling asleep cold and waking up even colder.

Lonely streets.

Empty stomachs.

Nights so hopeless they felt endless.

Yeah…winter never felt magical.

It never looked like some Hallmark fucking movie.

To people who grew up like me, winter only meant survival.

Which is fucking funny.

Because the second worst night of my life was also the night I met her. The night I wandered alone through a blizzard with blood on my hands and nowhere left to go.

That night the world tried its hardest to freeze me out…but Artemis Volpe handed me a reason to stay.

And from the very second I laid eyes on her…I never really belonged to myself again.

Khaos (10 years old)

“Please, God. Let this night end.” The words slip through gritted teeth before dying in the freezing wind.

No answer comes. Not that I expect one.

God and I haven’t spoken much since He took my mother.

He hasn’t done a damn thing for me since.

“Fuck this.”

I keep walking through the cold with nowhere to go because if I stop now, I’m not sure I’ll live to see the morning.

The holes in my worn-out socks scrape against the frozen ground as sharp bursts of pain shoot through the bottoms of my feet.

Damn it. Everything hurts.

My feet.