On the night of the exhibition tour, a rare blizzard descended upon Kingsport. Heavy snow fell in thick flakes, quickly covering the city in a bleak white blanket. In the plaza outside the art museum, the snow was already ankle-deep.
Ezra stood barefoot in the freezing cold. He had stripped off his tattered jacket and wore nothing but a thin dress shirt, carrying a bundle of thorny branches strapped to his back in a desperate act of penance as he knelt rigidly outside the museum's glass doors. Snow piled up on his shoulders and hair, and his body turned a sickly purple from the freezing cold, yet he didn't move a muscle.
Every few minutes, he slammed his forehead viciously against the hard ice. Each impact split his forehead open, blood streaming down his face and splattering bright red
