by G. R. Lyons
“It means 'wolf pup',” Athan explained.
“Kuryavsu,” Colby whispered.
Athan smiled. At least, to the extent the Falsiner could show a smile with his marble features. “Very good.”
Colby relaxed slightly and smiled back.
“And Summer,” Vic said, “is part Tanasian, like you are.”
Colby looked over at Summer, who stood there silently for a moment, until Colby gasped. “She said something without moving her mouth,” Colby whispered in awe.
Summer laughed and clapped her hands as she bounced in place. “It worked! I wasn't sure it would but I've been practicing and it did! His head is open like mine so it worked!”
Vic looked from Summer to Colby and back.
“Vic?” Colby asked, tightening his hold on Vic's jacket.
“It's alright. She's just talking to you with her thoughts. It's called telepathy. It's the same thing that lets you hear Cam.”
“Oh.” Colby frowned, looking confused, and Vic wasn't sure he had any better way to explain it.
Patches jumped up and ran for the back door, and after Sharma whined and fidgeted for a moment as though reluctant to leave Colby's side, he did the same.
“Oooh!” Summer gasped, darting after the dogs and almost pressing her nose to the glass as she looked out at the backyard. “It's so pretty!”
Athan chuckled and shook his head. “I'd better let her go explore, if that's alright.”
“Yeah, of course,” Vic said, then looked down at Colby. “You wanna try coming outside with us?”
Summer gasped again. “Oh, please?” She beamed at Colby, then darted over and took his hand, tugging him toward the door. “Come on an adventure with me!”
Colby looked at Vic with wide eyes.
“It's alright, sweetheart. I'm right here. And Ryley spelled the backyard, too, remember? Bad Man can't get you back there.”
Athan opened the door, and the dogs darted out while Summer kept looking at Colby expectantly. With one more glance at Vic, Colby ducked his head and followed Summer outside, checking over his shoulder every few steps to make sure Vic was right behind him.
“Oh!” Summer let go of Colby's hand and ran to the nearest garden bed, then stopped and gently trailed her hands over every plant within reach. Then something else caught her eye and she flitted off to investigate that instead.
Athan chuckled. “She did the same thing just after we met,” he said, a hint of fondness in his voice.
Vic glanced at him. “Yeah?”
Athan nodded, never taking his eyes off his wife. “Her brother kept her so confined that she thought my backyard was a whole new world, even though it wasn't all that much different from her own.” He paused, his lips quirking into a hint of a smile. “I love how she loves the simplest things. Reminds me not to be too serious.”
Vic smiled and nodded along. Colby was the same way, now that he thought about it. Between his lessons and playing with Sharma, the boy had spent countless hours over the past few months just learning the various rooms and objects in Vic's house, studying the colors and shapes with his eyes and his hands, trailing his little fingers over every surface and exclaiming over the different textures. When Vic looked over to where Colby stood by Summer now, the pair huddled around a tree that dominated one corner of the yard, he found the boy gently fingering the leaves that hung down in front of him, his eyes bright and happy.
A quiet stillness washed over Vic even while that familiar, bittersweet sensation ran through him. He tried to see the yard from Colby's perspective, admiring it for the beautiful, miraculous wonder that it was, something created by the gods and then further shaped by human hands. The shades of brown, rough in texture, rising up out of the earth, branching off and exploding out in soft shades of green, shadowing gently over the springy grass and silky flower petals.
The sunlight danced over Colby's skin as the boy turned his face up toward a vine trailing along the fence just above his head. He reached out, brushing his fingers through the leaves, tracing the vine as it wound its way across the boards and then slithered down to the ground, bringing the boy's attention to a bed of wildflowers that grew there, his soft gasps carrying across the yard over the gentle sound of the breeze through the leaves.
Vic stared at Colby, utterly transfixed by the joy and wonder on the boy's face. Out there, amongst the soft sounds and colors of nature, Colby looked even more fae-touched than Vic had thought when they first found him. His bright eyes were wide as they took everything in, his body unfurling from its usual stooped, shy posture while his fingers reached out to touch everything around him.
Colby suddenly turned to look at Vic and gave him a brilliant smile, then went back to discover more.
Vic felt that smile like a knife right through his heart, the ache somehow both painful and beautiful. Being able to watch his sweet boy experience the beauty of nature for the first time in his life was both so utterly lovely and such a devastating reminder of just how much Colby had been denied.
And the brilliance of Colby's eyes in that moment was doing horribly delicious things to Vic's body. He could so easily imagine it: stripping his sweet boy down to nothing, laying him down on the soft grass, and worshiping every inch of him in a way that Colby had never known.
“If you don't mind me saying,” Athan said, cutting into Vic's thoughts, “you look unusually stressed.”
Vic went still, then gave a slow nod while trying to decide how to answer that. He wasn't ready to go into the complications of his attraction to Colby—talking about it all with Ryley had been difficult enough—so he grasped for the next thing on his mind and blurted out, “I ran into my parents today.”
“Oh?” Athan asked, his eyebrows raised just a tiny bit, probably as far as they could go. “I take it, from your tone, that it wasn't a good encounter.”
Vic shook his head. “I don't like to talk about it much, but…” He blew out a breath. “My father is the reason Cam died. He took Cam off life-support while I was out of town and couldn't stop him.”
Athan hissed. “Ax and fawn,” he muttered. “That man does not deserve to be called father.” He shot Vic an apologetic look.
Vic waved a hand. “No, I'd agree with you. I haven't spoken to the bastard since.” He forced his fist to relax, and reached for Cam's bracelet instead.
“I am so sorry,” Athan murmured. “Where I come from, a man would be sent to the wolves for such a thing.”
“Sent to the wolves?”
“Killed.” Athan smirked at Vic, gesturing at Sharma. “Our beasts are much more vicious than this pup here.”
Vic laughed. “I bet,” he said, watching Colby and Sharma roll around playfully on the grass.
Despite wearing a sundress, Summer threw herself down in an unladylike heap and giggled as she watched Colby play.
Athan muttered something under his breath and shook his head, but he had a fond smile on his face nonetheless. “My child wife,” he joked. “Twenty-eight years old, and she's still so innocent in so many ways.”
Vic chuckled as he nodded. Regardless of her genius intellect, Summer's deficiencies gave her an almost childlike mentality, making much of her behavior immature in comparison to her adult body.
Colby was the same, in a way. Adult in form, but still having a lot of catching up to do in terms of experience, learning, and mental development. Then again, that was part of what Vic loved about the boy. Even considering the horrors Colby had endured, he still had such a strong sense of innocence about him.
Summer hissed and shot out a hand, pointing at Colby. “You have hurts!”
Colby looked down, and quickly tugged his t-shirt back into place, hiding one of the many scars on his body. His laughter faded, and he curled into Sharma as the dog wrapped himself around the boy, trying to give him comfort.
Summer sucked in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut. “Too much. Too much…”
Athan was across the yard before Vic could even think about
moving. Not sure what was going on, Vic darted over, grabbed Colby under the arms, and lifted the boy to his hip. Colby instantly wrapped his arms and legs around Vic, and Vic rocked him, feeling all the tension inside that little body.
“Shhh,” Athan whispered. Vic turned and saw Athan gently rubbing Summer's back.
Summer took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, her eyes still closed. “I'm alright,” she whispered.
“I'm sorry–” Vic started to say, though he still had no idea what exactly had happened.
“No, it's fine,” Athan insisted, then looked down at Summer. “He didn't hurt her.”
Summer shook her head in agreement as she looked up at Vic. “He was showing me movies in my head. They were scary.”
Vic blinked. “Movies?”
Athan looked vaguely puzzled for a moment, then breathed a laugh. “Telepathy.” He nodded with his chin. “I think your boy there was projecting.”
“Projecting?”
“Thinking about what happened to him,” Athan said, “and projecting those images outward, so Summer was able to see them through the holes in her mind.” He paused, his eyes tightening in the slightest hint of a frown. “At least, that's how Uncle Beni explained it. Not really my uncle, just my stepmother's best friend, but he's Tanasian, as well. I'm not sure I fully understand all the aspects of telepathy myself, still.”
Vic hugged Colby tighter. “But it's part of how they can see ghosts, right?”
Athan nodded, and Summer took another deep breath before she looked up at Vic, her face showing its usual cheer again. “He needs a happy. There's too many scary movies in his head.”
Vic cringed. That was an understatement if there ever was one.
Summer gasped. “Maybe we can make his hurts go away?”
Vic and Athan shared a look, both of them clearly confused. “Go away?” Vic asked.
Summer nodded, an excited smile on her face. “I can talk to Deyn. She was really good at it. She can help Colby make the hurts go away.”
“Are you following any of this?” Vic asked Athan.
Athan shook his head. “Summer?”
Summer rolled her eyes in exasperation, then launched into a speech that included all sorts of biology jargon that went right over Vic's head, but he thought he got the gist of it once he mentally translated Summer's unique way of speaking: Tanasian telepathy could be expanded into telekinesis, which could be fine-tuned down to a form of internal bioengineering, allowing the practitioner to physically alter his or her body by seeking out some physical defect and then ordering the requisite cells to either die off or regenerate, thus correcting any number of ailments from simple blemishes to cancerous tumors.
In other words, Colby might be able to make all his scars disappear. Permanently.
“Does that really work?” Vic asked, his eyes wide, imagining his sweet boy free of the marks that all the bad men had given him.
Summer nodded. “Deyn was really good at it. She regrew her arm after it got cut off.”
Vic blinked, at a loss for words.
“Who are we talking about here?” Athan asked, his marble features pulled into a hint of a frown. “Who's Deyn?”
Summer brightened. “Oh! My great-great-great-grandmother's ex-husband's daughter's daughter-in-law.” She paused for half a beat, then added, “Or your stepmother's foster father's best friend's mother-in-law.”
Vic looked at Athan, who slowly shook his head and shrugged.
“So?” Summer asked, grinning with excitement.
Vic tilted his head, looking down at Colby. “What do you think?”
Colby frowned, clearly confused.
“Summer thinks she can find someone to help you make all the scars go away.”
Colby's eyes went wide. “Really?” he breathed, then looked at Summer, a smile of pure joy slowly taking over his face.
And Vic fell in love with him even more.
Chapter 21
VIC FINISHED packing and peeked into Colby's room. The boy had gone to bed right after dinner, the intensity of the afternoon having done him in. Besides having to deal with Summer's exuberance, there had apparently been a whole bunch of ghosts who showed up along with the particular one that Summer had mentioned, all of them wandering about the backyard and looking on as the one ghost helped Colby learn how to embrace his Tanasian abilities.
The poor boy looked exhausted by the time they called it quits for the day, but at least there had been some success. Colby had managed to make part of one of his scars fade away.
The joy on his face, once he realized he could do it, had been breathtaking. Vic smiled, just thinking of it.
He couldn't wait to see how happy Colby would look if the boy ever managed to get rid of all of them.
Colby stirred, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he peeked out at Vic over the blankets. “Vic?”
“Hey, sweetheart. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.”
Colby sat up, clutching the blankets, his eyes going wide. “Are you leaving?”
“No, not until tomorrow,” Vic told him, and Colby noticeably relaxed. “You hungry at all? You didn't have much for dinner.”
Colby nodded and slipped out of bed, then turned back and quickly put the sheets to rights even though he'd be diving right back into them in a couple hours. Vic smiled at the sight, and jumped in to help him.
Vic warmed up some leftovers from dinner and cleaned the kitchen while Colby ate. Afterwards, they curled up on the couch together, with the dogs nestled in close, and Vic showed Colby how to make and accept video calls on his tablet.
“So I'll call you from here,” Vic said, starting a call on his mobile, “and then…”
Colby's tablet displayed a notification for an incoming call. The boy was still learning to read, but the green and red buttons were easy enough for him to understand. Vic had him tap the icon to accept the call, and Colby gasped when Vic's face showed on the screen.
Vic smiled. “Just like that.”
Colby looked from Vic to the live video and back, then Vic showed him how he could see Colby on his phone.
“Now you try,” Vic said, ending the call and then taking Colby through the steps to call Vic from his tablet. “So if you get really scared, you can call me. Anytime, sweetheart.”
“Really?”
Vic nodded. “And I'll call you every day while I'm gone.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Colby smiled, then tipped his mouth up for a kiss.
Vic blindly set his phone aside and gave him just that, keeping it soft and sweet, both of them smiling all the while.
Gods, he was going to miss his sweet boy.
Vic double-checked that he had everything packed for tomorrow and got ready for bed. He was just about to switch off the bedside lamp when he spotted Colby huddling in his doorway.
“Hey, sweetheart. Something wrong?”
Colby fidgeted. “I don't wanna be alone,” he whispered.
Vic's heart clenched. “Come here.”
Colby darted into the room and scrambled up onto the bed. Vic switched off the lamp and lay down, then felt Colby burrow in close, resting his head on Vic's shoulder and letting out a contented sigh.
Vic couldn't help but smile. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
“Goodnight, Vic,” Colby whispered.
Vic closed his eyes, holding the boy close, committing to memory every little sensation of having Colby in his arms. He replayed that moment over and over in his head as he drove to the airport the next morning, then on the flight south, and again as he checked into his lonely hotel room and headed off to meet the agent in charge of Hunter's case.
Thank gods, he'd get to rescue another kid, but he couldn't wait to get back home.
* * *
COLBY OPENED the door to the backyard to let the dogs out, then hesitated. Everything out there was so beautiful, and he wanted to see it all again, but the thought of going outside without Vic made him nerv
ous. It was all just so open and exposed.
Then again, Bad Man wasn't out there. At least, the ghost couldn't get into the yard. As long as Colby stayed away from the edges, he should be safe.
And he really wanted to see the pretty flowers and hear the birds and touch the leaves again.
Taking a deep breath, Colby stepped outside and pulled the door almost shut, afraid he might get locked out somehow. He tucked his hands up under his chin and wandered after the dogs, slowly losing himself in the beauty and tranquility that surrounded him.
He went to what he decided was his favorite spot in the whole garden, though picking a favorite was difficult. It was all so beautiful. So comforting. Still, the little pond near the back corner, with its stone bench and surrounded by so many plants and trees that one couldn't see the fence to the next yard, kept drawing him back.
Colby stepped around the pond and climbed up onto the bench, hugging his knees to his chest as he watched the water flow. He took another deep breath, smiling as he let it out on a sigh. This place was so wonderful, so exquisitely different from everything he'd ever known. The colors. The sounds. The smells. The simple freedom to move about and get fresh air when he wanted, to put on clothes and watch the dogs scamper about while he sat there, just enjoying.
To say nothing of sleeping in a bed, or learning new things, or any of the dozens of other simple, wonderful experiences he'd had ever since Vic had brought him home.
He'd been so scared at first, so sure that Vic was going to ultimately hurt him despite all his promises, but Vic had stayed true to his word. Vic had given him life when all he'd known was fear.
Colby wasn't perfectly free—not yet—but it seemed more possible now.
Patches scrambled across the yard, yipping excitedly, while Sharma lay down in the sun. Colby giggled and shook his head. Cam's dog was such a handful. She'd gotten better, but still didn't behave quite like Sharma did.
Then Colby looked up and saw what Patches was heading towards.
“Hello,” Deyn murmured. The ghost peeked out at him from behind a tree.
Colby started to shrink back, startled by her sudden presence when he thought he was alone, then relaxed when he recognized her. She was the one Summer had called in, the one who'd sat with him yesterday, helping him learn how to do more special things with his mind.
