Book excerpt: I wasn't always in love with Nell Hawthorne; I was in love with a girl named India before I ever met Nell. India? She was my first love, the girl who made me want to be better than my past, better than the blood and violence. Live by the sword, die by the sword, that's what they say, right? It should have been me, that day. But it was't. It was her. And that changed me. Sent me down an even darker path than I'd been on before. Until I met her. Nell Hawthorne. The girl who changed everything. You know that story. But what you don't know is everything that led up to that rainy day under a tree, at a funeral.