Steeling himself, he reached down to check the boy’s pulse. When skin brushed skin, he was engulfed with the sense-memory of sunshine on clean cotton. It made him think of bright, blue skies and wispy clouds. Made him think of… Mom?

Before he could cling to the forgotten memory, he was swept into another memory. He was high in the air and felt like he was flying. His small hand reached forward to steady himself, and it met his father’s head. Together they ran down a hill at breakneck speed, but instead of being afraid, Fourteen felt safe and confident. As long as his father was around, nothing bad could happen to him. They were a team.

Peace stole over Fourteen’s body, temporarily rendering him insensate to the outside world.

If an attack came now, he would be defenseless, but in that moment, he didn’t care. Walls that had taken years to forge through unbearable pain and anger had vanished. More suffering than most people saw in a lifetime had gone into building his barriers. And now they were gone.

He snatched his hand away from the boy’s skin, and the sensation disappeared. Hesitantly, he reached out and touched the boy’s cheek. It felt like his entire body had been plunged into warm sunshine after being cold for far too long.

It burned.

He wanted more.

Who was this boy?

Chapter 3The Boy

When The Boy opened his eyes, he was facing an unfamiliar wall. He could see a heavily chipped, ancient porcelain sink with exposed piping underneath that was more rust than it was metal. Normally, waking up in an unfamiliar room would be cause for alarm, but the shabbiness of the room let him know his family didn’t have him. If they had, he either would have woken up in the suffocating luxury of his bedroom back home, or he wouldn’t have woken up at all.

Closing his eyes again, he listened to see if he was alone in the room. He couldn’t be sure, because even though he didn’t hear anything, it felt like he wasn’t alone.

With effort, he managed to get his mind to cough up a memory of the strange man from last night. He’d only gotten fleeting impressions of the man in the gloom and chaos of the night, but the feeling he inspired in The Boy’s gut was concrete.

Safe.

From the day he’d been stuffed into his gilded cage, to the moment he’d found himself running into a gunfight, safety had been as mythical to him as Santa Claus. The fact that his gut had decided to feel safe in the middle of a shootout next to a stranger told him that he needed his head examined.

He wasn’t even sure he knew what the stranger looked like. It had been too dark to know for sure.

He did know one thing. The man had shown no signs of the fiery anger The Boy was used to inspiring in others. Instead of coldly ignoring him or yelling at him or, even worse, attacking him like The Boy had grown accustomed to, the man had actually tried to help him. Twice.

Being close to him in the abandoned house had been intriguing. The gentle buzz of the man’s aura rubbing against his own had intensified his sense of safety, and—exhausted as he’d been—it had been tempting to stay with him.

But he couldn’t; he had needed to get away from the stranger. In his experience, there was no such thing as a safe person. If by some small chance of fate, the stranger was safe, The Boy didn’t want to bring the wrath of his family down on him. As capable as the man seemed, he wasn’t prepared for that. Even with The Boy’s untrained senses, he could tell the man was just a norm.

So The Boy had left him, intending to blend in with the crowd, but his growling stomach overrode his better judgment. Instead of taking a more populated route that would have taken him an hour to traverse, he’d chosen a shortcut that would get him to his last stash of supplies quickly.

His body had been shouting at him, using every available method to convince him it needed the contents of that backpack ASAP, and it had convinced him that as soon as he got a granola bar inside his belly and shoes on his feet, he would be able to think his way to freedom.

The fifty-dollar bill he remembered putting in there wouldn’t hurt his chances of escape either. And, of course, a change of clothes. He needed that the most.

That lapse in judgment had cost him, and now it would cost the stranger, too.

What he didn’t understand was why the stranger had followed him and saved him again. How had the man survived the spell Astin had thrown at him? The insane amount of power his cousin had used should have destroyed the stranger instantly. Instead, the spell had merely hovered around him for a moment like a confused dog, looking for the ball its owner had only pretended to throw.

“I know you’re awake.” The low voice of his savior broke him from his reverie.

The Boy gave up all pretense of sleeping and rolled over to examine his surroundings. The bed under him was a futon kept off the floor by old pallets. When he shoved aside the army-green wool blanket, he noted with relief that he was still fully dressed. So often in the stories he read, for some weird reason, people felt compelled to undress someone after they passed out. It was good to know it wasn’t a common practice in reality.

He wasn’t ready to look at his savior yet—wasn’t prepared to put on the mantle of boy on the run again, so he continued to inspect the spartan room to buy some time. It might have been an office or an apartment at some point in the distant past.

Two walls were lined with windows that looked out into complete darkness, and the other two were brick and unadorned. On either side of the bed were industrial shelves neatly arrayed with guns, ammunition, grenades, and other lethal-looking items he had no name for.

He probably should have been frightened or appalled by his circumstances, but the simple room felt honest to him. The plush décor of his own bedroom had always suffocated him, but this felt safe.

He shook his head at the fanciful thought. It was time to interact with his host so he could dispel the illusion of safety his mind kept taunting him with.

Across from the bed, the stranger sat perched on the edge of a small desk in front of a window. A battered, bronze clip-lamp illuminated a strong, European brow furrowed over storm-gray eyes that focused on him with an intensity that brought heat to his cheeks.

The Boy fought the urge to shrink back from the intense regard. Instead, he stuck out his chin and asked, “Why am I here?”

The stranger’s gaze didn’t waver as he answered. “No one knows about this place, and it doesn’t have many neighbors. We should be safe here.”

The Boy felt as though the man expected him to do something and didn’t want to miss it. Was he waiting for him to try to escape?

The Boy sat up and asked, “Am I your prisoner?” He might as well start with the basics.

“You can leave if you want.”

Good. That cleared that up. The unflinching regard made him feel awkward, but awkward he could do—anything was better than the unprovoked violence he was used to.

“Why did you follow me?”

“Gut instinct. Other than that…” The man shrugged, and the black leather of his jacket creaked with the movement.

The Boy pulled his legs against his body and hugged them. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you did, but you didn’t have to. I wasn’t asking for your help.”

“If you had, I probably wouldn’t have helped.” A minute crease formed between the man’s eyebrows before smoothing away.

Silence filled the air. “You shot my cousin,” he said, trying to fill the void.

“The guy in the floating circle?” A brief smile escaped the man, lending a brief hint of warmth to his previously expressionless face. “I’m pretty sure he had that coming.”

The Boy glanced at the man’s eyes, pleasantly surprised by his levity, but saw no humor there. “It wasn’t a complaint. I’m just trying to process what happened.”

“You and me both, kid.” The stranger sat back but didn’t break eye contact.

The Boy’s eyes darted away, intimidated by the scrutiny, and fell silent as he tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do next. What was he supposed to do with this guy?

If The Boy left, would he follow him again? Would it be a bad thing if he did? He wasn’t acting like anyone The Boy had ever interacted with—most people couldn’t wait to get away from him. Was it because the stranger was a norm?

The Boy had kept all contact with norms as minimal as possible. And, for the most part, they hadn’t been too keen about him either. The last time he’d stood in the checkout line at a store, one by one, everyone had gotten out of line, as though standing near him was physically uncomfortable. The guy behind the counter had avoided eye contact with him and threw his change down so he didn’t have to touch him.

Finding out more about his new companion—the only person who seemed unaffected by his power—was tempting. The Boy hesitated but ultimately decided that bringing an innocent person—a norm, no less—in on his problem would be a crummy way to repay him for helping. Well, maybe not entirely innocent. The small armory surrounding them proved otherwise.

The Boy’s stomach growled painfully.