Below I've compiled some snippets I wrote for the Rage and Ruin manuscript that will be in the beginning of every one of Jake's chapters. But because that version will likely never be on Wattpad, I've decided to share them with you so that you can gain insight on the things pre-Blood and Bone that Jake would never bring up during the events of the trilogy.

I hope you enjoy reading about how our favorite gangster became the terrible person we know and love/hate.

1. On Accepting Abuse

The boy was six years old. The kind of boy to lurk behind his father's legs when others were in the room—not because he was fearful, but because he would give them what they wanted to see while he lay in wait.

And that was what he did on the day his father took him on a visit; who they were visiting, the boy did not know. But he watched his father's tightened lips, his furrowed brow. This was not a visit with one of his father's cowering men. This was an equal outside of his father's fist.

His father spoke in his strong voice, the one that left the recipient with no choice but to bend to his own will. But the boy knew his father did so first so that the other man would not bend him instead. It struck him as odd. His father was not the type of man to lower his head in reverence to anyone.

The boy did not know what the men were speaking about; it was too veiled for his young mind to comprehend. But he saw his father's struggle to remain the master of the conversation, and it was enough.

There was a break in the conversation as the boy's father refused to budge. The other bigger man paused, knelt, and met the boy's gaze as he stood behind his father's strong legs. "Scrawny little thing, aren't you?" the man asked, and the boy wished his father would make the big man back away. But he did not. So the boy did what his father would have done and raised his chin to stare back. He was aware of the effect he had on some older people, could note the difference in his own face compared to the other childrens'.

"But vicious," the man added once he had seen it too. "I like that."

The boy's father still would not save him. "Tell me," the man asked, his tone gentler, "do you love your father?"

The boy took a moment to think. He loved it when his father gave him sweets when he was obedient. He loved that his father took him on work outings while the other children he knew were left to kick cans in the alleyways. He loved when his father told him he was meant for greatness.

"Of course I do. He took me in when I had no one."

"Well then." The big man was not looking at him anymore. He faced his father. "I'm sure your father loves you very much. I'm sure he would protect you with everything in his being."

The boy's father was not pleased, but the boy didn't know why until they were safe and alone. Until his father's iron grip had him pressed against the wall.

"Stupid boy, do you see what you've done?" he asked. "You made yourself something to be taken away from me."

The boy did not like it when his father was like this.

His father struck him once so that his point would be painted as a reminder across his son's face. "I took you as my son because I saw myself in you. Raw strength. Grit. Intelligence." He shook his son's thin body to show him just how small he was. "Instead, you've made us appear lowly and weak. Do you understand what you've done?"

Though he did not understand the logistics of the situation, he understood that he wanted his father to go back to telling him how special he was, how strong he would be. Still, his lip quivered.

His father struck him again. And again. He held back any cry that might squeak out, for he knew how his father would hate it. Men like him did not waver, much less tolerate others who wavered.

"All that power, and you will squander it by being the kind of man the world overlooks." Against his own wishes, the boy's eyes filled with tears. "Now look at you, weeping like a girl. Did I make a mistake adopting you as my own from that weak woman? Perhaps you have her instability in your blood. Surely I did not raise my protégé to be a pussy."

The boy did not know what that word meant, only that it was a bad thing. And he did not want to prove his father right by showing the imperfections in his heart. He refused to have his true mother's instability, only his adopted father's strength.

He took all those feelings—the traitorous fear that made teardrops wobble on his lashes, the feeling of helplessness, of insignificance that enveloped him as his father loomed over his form—and shredded them with his fingernails.

Every time after that, he took his father's blows with triumph tucked neatly in his heart. Not a triumph borne of planned retaliation or simply of a refusal to break. He was truly glad to accept his father's fists. For what was more of a gift than having your weakness taken away?

2. On Selfishness

The boy was eight years old. The kind of boy who learned to let the world burn if it meant keeping himself safe.

He did not have many friends. The other children did not have a parent or a home as he did, and it set him apart from them. Besides, he played too rough, and they did not find enjoyment in his contrastingly quiet nature. Though having heard of his otherworldly power, they all hung around the circle of his presence anyway. They did not want a friend. They wanted a spectacle.

He refused to be anyone's show pony. He was fated for much, much more.

There was one boy who did not demand to see the ice simmering under his skin, a child equally as quiet. The other children often did not include him in their games, so he had to entertain himself alone. But the boy saw the way he became enveloped in his own world, not caring if the other children lived or died. He saw himself.

Perhaps he would have one friend.

The two kept to themselves while the other children played their loud, violent games in the alleyways. They talked sometimes; the boy liked to speak of his dreams and have them fall upon someone who was actually listening. They mostly went to the harbor to throw rocks into the sea when the boy's father did not need him. It was difficult work getting by the dock workers and fishermen without being caught, but they both enjoyed a challenge.

On the fateful day, they were doing just that—trying to see whose stone could make the biggest splash. The friend threw his first. A mediocre attempt. The boy went second, only to find his had been even sorrier. He insisted upon a rematch.

On his second throw, the water frothed up in the largest splash yet, undeniably winning the game. His peals of laughter were nearly washed away by the sound of the sea when he saw the soggy front of his friend's threadbare clothing. He did not feel sorry for letting himself be different here, for it was the only place he truly felt like a real person. The only place it was even acceptable to be a real person.

On the way back to the tight corners and dark crevices of their home, they were still laughing and shoving each other along as real little boys do. The sunset was beautiful that day. The gold of it shone in the boy's eyes and made him feel as if he was full to the brim with glittering, untouchable light. It was a feeling he was not accustomed to, and something about the weightlessness made him wary because he knew everything had to face gravity in the end.

Gravity came in the form of two boots blocking their path in a particularly narrow alleyway. He looked up from those two scuffed boots to see a barrel chest, then higher to see the red-bearded face of one of his father's friends. One of Father's men, he corrected himself. His father did not have friends. He had inferiors.

"We were looking for you," he said to the boy, "You're needed for a job." The inferior's eyes flickered to the friend in a way that made every shred of caution in the boy stand on end.

"Hello, sir." His friend stuck out his hand hesitantly, made minuscule by the amount of space the man took up. "I know you from the big white building by the river." Fear made his words fall from his mouth like the stones by the harbor, only these fell and rolled with no concern for where they landed.

They both knew it had been a mistake when the man's mouth tightened in malignant surprise. "Stupid boy, how much did you tell him of our business?"

"Let us be," the boy demanded, alarm bells swinging in his head.

"How much did you tell him?" the man shouted, frightening both boys. Still watching the boy, he gripped the friend by the collar of his damp shirt. "Talk."

It was a very clear message. The boy could not be hurt by one of his father's inferiors. Even if he could be, he would not care. But his friend did not have the same protection, so his well-being was on the line.

Having heard silence for too long, the man flipped out his tiny blade and carved a piece from the friend's skinny arm. He howled, whipping his entire body about as he tried to run.

The boy thought of his father. Real men do not flinch, he always said. Real men did not break. They found a way to gain undisputed power over their opponent, because being frightened would never serve them.

He knew what his father would have done, so he did the same. He receded back behind the walls of his mind and let the man see that regardless of what he did, the boy would not budge. He was stone, he was the boulders by the harbor that refused to be broken by the swells hurling themselves upon them day and night. Though he may have been clothed in a boy's body then, he was ready to be a man.

"Tell me our secrets that you foolishly told him," the man demanded every time. And every time, the boy remained perfectly still, his lips sealed for good. No matter how his friend squirmed and screamed, no matter how much of a raw, red mess his arm was becoming, the boy would not help him.

His friend's begging pleas fell upon deaf ears. The boy and the man were locked in a battle of wills now, and it was too late.

When his father's man finally realized the boy was hidden safely behind the bars in his mind, he gave up and let the boy's friend go. The boy never saw him again, nor did he seek him out.

Still, he had refused to lower his chin, had denied the deep-down urge to avenge the mutilated boy. It did not matter that a simple denial would have saved the boy; he truly had not told him anything.

3. On Patience

The boy was nine years old. The kind of boy that took worms from puddles and pulled them by either end to see how far they could strain before they broke.

The boy was much younger, and therefore smaller than the rest of the children in the area. They are vagrants, his father told him. Not meant for greatness as you are. But the children did not see it that way yet. They were just as brutal as the boy, years on the streets having made them cruel much too young.

They had him on the ground with his spine pressed against a wall, mocking him relentlessly. Every time he attempted to rise, the larger boys kicked him down. They'd done something to his arm to make it not work, broken it perhaps. He could not save himself. And he deserved it, because he'd gotten caught.

So he simply made himself the perfect punching bag and watched. Watched the way they spoke their words to belittle him. Watched the exact movements they used to keep him under their feet. Watched as they made him remain cornered with specially-aimed fists. He let them, for they would be his teachers. They would give him the knowledge he would use to rule them all one day.

That day came when his arm was still bandaged and not yet healed. He remembered how he'd fallen prey to their greater strength, so he turned to his mind. The boy lured them into a dead end with promises of free ice cream. And then he struck, showing them the same kindness they had shown him.

He would not unleash the ice in his veins. It was an advantage only to be used when needed, not to prove points. If he won with his ice, they would see him as a cheater, not as a superior.

So he used his fists and feet, not crying out even as it worsened his own injuries. It was messy, but he remembered exactly how to do it, what had hurt the most, what blows would make them scream.

When he was done, his arm had gone numb with agony. Red dripped from his knuckles to the ground. But his own injuries were meaningless, because he had won.

They were not cruel or brutal or scary anymore. They were crying. It made him choose to be worse than them. He splintered both of each boy's arms.

4. On Ambition

The boy was eleven years old. The kind of boy who looked at what his father had built and salivated for more.

He did not spend much time with the other children anymore. Instead, he chose to surround himself with the kind of men he wanted to be like. Observing them and what made them mighty so that he might fashion something alike it for himself.

But there was one man in particular. He did not know the man's name, nor who he was; sometimes, his father only allowed him to watch from the sidelines, nothing more. He often had no questions after seeing his father's displays. But this man...interested him beyond the others. He was the same height as the boy, who was beginning to grow into a man, and not much heavier. A plain face, mousy brown hair. Nothing about the way he looked was impressive.

But the way he was was different. The way every head in the room turned to look at him when he entered, the way he held himself as though he were a king of legend. He did not have to do anything but exist to command their respect. That caught the boy's attention.

Most men his father worked with—though used was perhaps a better term—were loud and built like bears and swamped themselves in jewelry and fine clothing. It was a front, the boy had come to realize. Money talked. But true power did not have to say anything.

Forget the loud voices, the flaunted money, the protective men standing at their backs. He wanted to be impressive on his own.

Being impressive, he imagined, would finally take away that feeling of sickness that sometimes wormed its way into his chest when he thought of leaving the city to flee far, far away.

I will not flee, he always corrected himself. I will become something for them to flee from.

Watching that particular man and knowing he would be like him someday gave him the same sensation of supremacy.

But that day, he heard his father's cruel words as they cleverly stripped the man of his only source of income, damning the man and his family to starve. In mere moments, the impressive man was nothing.

The boy never forgot that. One should never bear one's teeth if one couldn't bite. True, wieldable power is nothing compared to an illusion of it. Any man was capable of falling.

His father, who had felled many powerful men, was testament to that. But the boy no longer longed to measure up to his father. He wanted to be better.

5. On Manipulation

The boy was thirteen years old. The kind of boy that snuffed out laughter because he would never experience it and crushed flowers growing out of the cracks in the sidewalk because he could not stand the sight of them.

He was officially one of his father's men now. He had killed for him and bled for him, which he was proud of. Thirteen years old. He'd heard them say he was on his way to becoming a crime prodigy.

That was why his father allowed him to accompany him on every outing now; there would be no insolence or mistakes on the boy's part. He was too well-trained.

They were on a particularly odd outing. Odd in the fact that the boy's father needed something from their opponent. He rarely needed anything, and made his need clear even less. So the boy knew this must have been desperate.

He resisted the urge to curl his lip—men weak enough to reveal their desperation did not deserve whatever they desired.

They all watched on as their opponent turned the boy's father down. Their men. The boy's rival, a boy on the cusp of manhood with dark hair and eyes like a shark's. They just...watched the father's shame.

But the boy was watching their opponent, waiting for a way in.

His father and his men left, claiming they would one day get what they wanted from the man. The boy remained. Alone, as always.

"What is this?" the man asked of the boy. The boy raised his face to the light, subtly letting it display the cut on his lip, the purple under his left eye.

The man's jaw worked. "Did...is your father kind to you?"

"No," said the boy. "You've seen it yourself. My father isn't the sort of man who can be kind." It is true, everything in him sang.

"Be careful around him." It was a dismissal.

But the boy had watched the man and how his face twitched when his father insulted his soldiers earlier. The man had become angry at the idea of his comrades being mocked because he had let himself feel too much. He loved them, the boy could sense it. There was compassion hidden inside.

"I don't want to go back," the boy said, and it felt both like the truth and a lie.

His father's opponent was quiet for a long while. Then with the jerk of a chin, he beckoned for the boy to follow into a locked office. Keys jingled. He meant to patch the boy's wounds before turning him loose again. The boy allowed him to put salve on his swollen cheekbone and swab the blood from his lip.

"There," the man said, patting the boy's shoulder to show him it was finished.

He rewarded the man by gripping his wrist tight enough to break skin. "Where is the prize my father wanted?"

The man blinked several times. The boy put ice into his grip. His father never repeated himself, so neither would he.

For the merest second, the man's gaze flitted to a seemingly empty wall. The boy released his freezing victim and pushed on the wall until a part of it gave way. They had a hidden door where he lived too. He retrieved his prize.

"What are you doing?" the man asked, more taken aback than he ever would if the boy's father or his rival had stolen it.

The boy's only answer were the icicles growing on his fingertips. He did not do it to avenge his father or to save face. He did not do it for his father at all. He did it because the man's gentle touch made him wish for someone he would never have.

He tore the man's throat out.

6. On Arrogance

The boy was sixteen year old. The kind of boy to demand even the sun and moon rise and set at his own command and expect it to be done.

Against the odds his age set for him, the boy had moved up the ranks of his father's men rapidly enough to have rightfully become his right-hand man. He had worked hard so there would be no rumors of nepotism. Either way, there would be no scoffers; everyone had watched as he made himself worth his position. Sacrifices had been made—the buzz of power made him unable to find sleep at night, and much blood had been shed, many bridges burned. But they were of no consequence to the boy. He was exactly where he had always wished to be since he was a trembling child.

He knew the whispers about him. There was no doubt in their minds he was a prodigy now. He had built that reverence in his father's—no, his—men through every small slice and every cutthroat order. That same sentiment spread to all their enemies and allies alike that slunk in the depths of the city, only theirs was edged with something like terror.

Sometimes, he wondered if that was what divinity was like, straddling the knife's edge between exalted and dreaded. If so, he felt the part. When he strode through the lines of his domain and even outside of it completely at ease, he was a god.

His father was singing his praises again, but he let the sound drone in one ear and out the other. What had used to be such a coveted gift was now commonplace. Gone were the days in which his father had written his love on the boy in black and blue, because now he had the son he wanted at last. All he did was brag of his genius son, the boy he had plucked from nothing and created into everything. Finally he was proud. And it was still not enough for the boy. He was bored.

The boy caught a glimpse of his rival shifting his weight out of the corner of his eye. He knew the man, not much older than himself, but with enough of a gap to make it humiliating, had craved the second-hand position. But the dark ways of their world had never come as easily to his rival. Though his father had been something of a mentor for both of them, it was always evident who the true victor would be.

While his father was talking, the boy caught his rival's eye and gave him a rare smile full of sharp teeth. He could have laughed; the man was six years his senior and still he craved the praise that was only reserved for the boy. It was so pathetic the boy had half a mind to put him out of his misery. He had no room for weak men within his ranks.

His father's real laugh mirrored his phantom one. "With him at the helm with me, imagine how we will make our enemies bleed," he said, mouth twisted into a grin that promised violence. Hums of rowdy agreement ran through their men.

The boy did not even flinch when his father came close to him and leaned in. "There were times in the beginning when I doubted you, I'll admit it. You used to be a weak, flimsy little thing. Sometimes I thought you might even run back to your addict of a mother."

"Don't be ridiculous," the boy said back, hatred burning hot and clear at the mention of the woman that gave him up. "I know nothing about her and it will remain that way."

There was one faint memory, though. Her humming as she folded laundry on one of the good days. He must have only been an infant, and yet he remembered it like a vague dream from another life. He did not know why he lied. After all, he truly had no connection to that woman. The only good she'd done was send him into this new life.

"You never disappoint me. I am glad I picked you."

He was glad he had groomed his son into a protégé and not a rival. But the boy's attention flicked to the head spot at the table, wondering how long his father would still believe that.

Though his father had no idea, he knew how his father drank so much some nights that he could barely walk. He saw how his father had fallen into a pattern of making deals that benefitted his own personal interests, leaving their men in the dust. In fact, most of their men secretly wished for a new king.

His father had been great once. Perhaps he still would have been one of the greatest had he not made the grave mistake of raising a son that was better. But too much time had gone by with easy peace, and he had grown too complacent. It was time for a new king, one that would only sharpen with time. Powerful men only fell if they let themselves.

Once again, the boy looked to his rival who still panted disgustingly after his father's attention. He had heard the words said to the boy and wished they were for himself. You will never deserve it, his eyes said.

The boy thought back, I am the only one who does.

7. On Wrath

The boy was seventeen years old. The kind of boy to throw his own kin to the wolves.

When one of his men came to him while he was busy late one night with his newfound workload, he could sense the wrongness in the air. His men never showed anything on their faces, and yet here one was with large eyes and a mouth that pulled down at the corners.

"It's your father," was all the man said. "Follow me."

The boy knew what he meant. They had been ready for this for months.

They wound through the maze of their home, keeping to the shadows and the forgotten corners the boy knew so well. No one bothered them, even when they ventured outside of familiar territory. While the boy had made a name for himself, he had simultaneously made a safety net of protection. Anyone with half a mind would not challenge him.

"Up there," his soldier said, pointing. The boy did not stay long enough to thank him.

He hurried up into the space they thought themselves perfectly concealed in, silent and leering as an unseen spider over their group. It was just as large a congregation as he'd expected. And his father was at the head of it, talking in his deep, commanding voice that the boy used to fall into line under.

He listened as his own father made preparations to end his son's life. The day had come. He was no longer a cherished son, he was a competitor to his father's mantle.

His own father was scared of him.

Perhaps he should have felt some sense of sorrow or loneliness or hurt at this ultimate betrayal—the very man raising him to survive this cruel world now working to take him out of it. But his father had helped him get rid of those things long ago. Only steel resolve remained. This, too, would bounce off the rocky shore of the boy's mind like harmless waves.

Satisfaction bloomed in the boy's chest as he watched his father unknowingly reveal his plan. He was caught in the spider's web and he had no idea.

The boy was determined to make his father suffer for being stupid and prideful enough to think he was above being eavesdropped upon. He would punish him for that tiny frailty that had somehow failed to flee throughout the years, the one that asked him why he had not left by now. The one that pushed against the barricade of his mind with things like the emptiness during long, sleepless nights, and the fear that he was something very wrong and twisted beyond repair. He hated every centimeter of his father for not beating that last scrap of weakness from him.

His father had once been a powerful man, it was true. And he had raised the boy into perfection. But he had finished being useful, and the boy always discarded what no longer served him.

He knew what he had to do.