Dark Violent Things

Prologue Midnight In The Gutter

Broken bottles and creaky floorboards almost always remind me of Thay.

The way his weight shifted as we got older, scraping through my unlocked window to disappear under my sheets from whatever monsters stalked his house that night.

Spine to spine beneath the same blanket. Heart to heart beneath the same bruise.

He is my gallows.

And if I were being honest, my heart is a stupid thing when it comes to him.

A stupid, dark, violent thing that beats and beats and beats… until it stops.

BANG.