"Breathe." He dipped his head down so that his lips were right at my ear, his strong arm wrapped securely around my waist, molding my body into his. "If you're going to fall apart,." He starts, teeth gritted. "Now's the time. I'll be here to put you back together when it's over." I squeezed my eyes shut again, and I did just that. I fell apart. ******* Secrets. Lies. Deception. Murder. I'd seen and done it all. And not willingly. So I left. I sacrificed my freedom to save myself, and the only way to ensure my own safety was to start over. Clean slate. New people. New me. But the last thing I expected when I arrived at Manonwell Prep Academy was to be bombarded by a boy-no, a man who held some unknown vendetta against me. Call it obsession, infatuation, hatred. To me it was all one in the same. He was everywhere I turned, like a shadow. Watching me. Taunting me. Haunting me. And it was all because of something I did to him a long time ago. It was something so bad that he couldn't stand me, that he wanted me dead, and the idea of making my life a living hell was something that he took pride in. But I didn't remember. I had no clue what I could've done to him in the past, but he was hellbent on pushing me until I did. My plans on starting over were shattered the minute I stepped inside that school. He was the type of person that demanded your attention without having to speak. He was untamed and wild and unhinged. But what he didn't know was that the Winter Travers that he knew in past, the one I didn't remember, was no longer alive. I was different. She was gone and I was here. And he was everything I should've been afraid of. Sinister, quiet, manipulative, but I knew it would be a cold day in hell before I let him win. Ronan was like gasoline waiting to be doused on the fire that inside me, and if he was ready to burn, then so was I.

"You're atheist," I remind him. "You don't believe in god." "I believe in you," He murmurs, letting the cigarette hang from his lips. "I believe in whatever you believe." He says, letting the confession roll off his tongue as if it were that simple. As if god, the devil, heaven, hell-as if none of it really had meaning to him. "That's not how it works," I mutter as we walk down a few more alleyways-the city of Manhattan coated in a light blanket of snow. Henry Vitiello had never had anything to pray for, that is, until he met me-the only thing that had ever opened his mind up to the possibility of religion "Isn't it?" He argues, taking the cigarette by his middle and pointer finger before blowing the smoke out. "I'II dip my hands in holy water if it means I could touch you." "You'd probably burn." 𓆩♡𓆪 𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐘 𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎, the reaper. He's a prick. An asshole. A pretentious son of a bitch. He's not perfect. He's not even decent. But he's hers. She could be a bottle labeled poison but he was an alcoholic, and he had drunk her empty. Now he was hungover. 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐄 𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒, the healer. She's known to be the perfect good girl, with perfect grades and a perfect life with a perfect family. They didn't know that behind the gated doors of their billion dollar estate, she was strapped down to a chair every night and picked apart just to be put back together in time for supper. 𓆩♡𓆪 star-crossed; adjective (of a person or a plan) thwarted by bad luck. 'star-crossed lovers' and that, they were. So they fucked under those very stars that tried so desperately to break them apart. 𓆩♡𓆪 ‼️DISCLAIMER ‼️ BOOK REFERENCES TO MARA DYER, SHATTER ME, MIND FUCK, ETC ARE ALL INTENTIONAL SO DONT BE RUDE. AS FOR TRIGGER WARN