“We don’t really know if he’s a psychopath.”
Ronan gives his husband the mother of allget reallooks.
“If he’s a clone of Silas Blake, then it’s a given,” Ronan says, his voice low and hard, a tone Thane rarely hears. “You can see Silas Blake in those eyes. I watched the life fade from his father’s eyes, Thane. I felt his blood on my hands. And now that same blood is running through that kid’s veins.”
Thane wishes he could erase that horrible day from Ro’s memory. Scrub it from every synapse and molecule, freeing him, finally, from Silas Blake.
Unable to do that, he tries to soothe his fears. “Edison might be able to mentor the kid as he comes of age.”
Ro buries his face in his hands, his words muffled. The image of the blood pooling on the carpet of that nursery is seared into his brain. He can’t separate that horror from the child on the screen.
“Thane, I’m telling you right now. I don’t care if Ant and Erik end up being gold-medal parents and Edison is somehow able to neutralize whatever shitshow mentality that fucking evil spawn has.” Ro looks up to ensure he has Thane’s full attention. “That kid will never be a part of this family. And he sure asfuckis not going to hang around our kids.”
“Babe…”
“Over my dead body, T. Over. My. Dead. Body.”
“Baby, we don’t even know anything about this kid. Not really.”
“We already know that a five-year-old has been torturing animals. I feel bad for him, but he’s never gonna spend even asingle moment with any of our kids. Not a single second, you hear me?”
Ronan is one of the sweetest humans on the planet. He has never once asked for special treatment for their kids, but this is different. This isprimal. A fear in Ronan’s gut that he can’t—won’t—ignore.
The fear that the nightmare was never truly over. And now, it’s back.
“Promise me, Thane.”
Thane draws Ronan into his arms, feeling the fine tremor in his husband’s body. He knows this fear isn’t rational, but he can’t bring himself to disagree with Ronan’s assessment of the situation.
“Okay. I promise.”
ANT AND ERIK
“My name isn’t Jeremy!”
Ant and Erik share a look. When the Guardians approached them with Silas Blake’s kid, they said yes immediately. Hedy warned them to take a few days. Really think about it. They did and still came to the same conclusion.
There are times, like now, when they wonder if they should have taken a few extra days to consider what raising a child like this would cost them.
Their decision has already cost them two of their closest friends. Thane quietly shared that Ro has night terrors every time Silas, father or son, is brought up. It’s not cruelty. He simply cannot handle any association with the little boy.
Erik and Ant understand. Of course they do. Young Silas, however, is more than just a walking trigger. He’s genuinelydangerous. Not just creepy or off-putting or unsocialized.Silas speaks violence like it’s his first language, and he turns on a dime. Erik and Ant cannot guarantee the safety of their nieces and nephews.
That is a line in the sand they will never cross.
The team made sure Ant and Erik understood that they’re welcome at any activities that don’t involve the kids. Given everyone’s wildly busy and divergent schedules, and how central the kids are to the Guardians families, they don’t hold out much hope of seeing their friends more than once or twice a year.
Thankfully, Ant’s entire family lives on the property next door, but even those relationships have become strained since one of them always has to stay with Sy.
Erik and Ant know they’ve made the right choice, isolating Silas. But it means they’re isolated too.
Tears form in Ant’s eyes. This latest battle is entirely his doing. He thought if he could get the little boy to accept the new name, it would somehow sever the association with Silas Blake, at least in his friends’ minds. Then, maybe one day, when the little boy could self-regulate, they’d be able to fully rejoin the Guardians family.
For the first several months, it seemed to be working. The little boy let them call him by this new name:Jeremy. But as he got stronger, as he began to regulate, as he began to talk about the few details he remembered, he wanted to be called by his real name.
It isn’t an unreasonable ask. But Ant knows that if the little boy insists on being called Silas, Ronan will never, ever be able to accept him as part of the family. If they can’t get him to a place of stability, they will lose the rest of their friends too.
Ant had been ripped from his own family by human traffickers, sold by his grandfather. He’d been forced to endure so many years being abused and sold, lonely. So fucking lonely.
