"The abandoned crying children, the dumpsters picked clean of anything with value." That was the West District, a place of hard living, of violence, hopelessness. The world had birthed Rat into a different life, but all hope for it had died with his old name.

It was a weakness, the way he craved Marius next to him. In sane moments, he knew the whole thing was doomed. He didn't care. He just wanted to curl up for a moment, to forget the things he'd seen.