No. Aden’s gaze spoke to the seed of madness inside her, took away its loneliness. You’ve given me the answer.
I don’t think extra homework is always going to work. It wouldn’t have for me. At the start, she’d just have thrown down the organizer and stomped on it.
Aden came to stand beside her, the ankle-length leather coat he wore over a formal suit, blowing in the wind. The answer is that each punishment must be tailored to the child. Tavish doesn’t enjoy science and so it is a punishment. Another child may be changeling-like in enjoying outdoor exercise, so to be told to sit in a room inside during an exercise period will be sufficient. We’re used to rules, but children aren’t interchangeable and we can’t treat them that way.
Tavish looked up right then, saw Aden. His shoulders grew stiff, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “I broke the rules,” he confessed in a trembling whisper.
Aden crouched beside him. “I see Zaira has already meted out your penalty for that. Have you finished the paper?”
A shake of Tavish’s head.
“You will.” Pausing, Aden said, “Was the view worth the punishment?”
The boy took time to think about it before saying, “Yes. But only this time. I won’t do it again.”
“Good. Do you understand why we need to limit your teleportation right now?”
This time the nod was immediate. “I could go somewhere and not be able to get back. Or I could ’port myself off the cliff and not react fast enough to save my life.”
“Then you understand.”
As Zaira watched, Aden touched the back of the boy’s head with a gentle strength that did things to her heart she didn’t understand. “Finish your paper, so you can return to where you should be.”
A tremulous hope in Tavish’s expression, he bent his head to the organizer again.
• • •
ADEN and Zaira walked Tavish down together when he admitted he’d overstrained his psychic muscles and couldn’t ’port back. The boy kept sending them furtive hazel-eyed glances from under his eyelashes, as if waiting for them to change their minds, but he didn’t shake off Aden’s hand when Aden ruffled his hair as they reached the compound.
“Go and get some more nutrition,” Aden told the boy. “That trek and your ’port will have burned extra energy.”
Tavish began to walk inside the training facility, stopped after only a few steps. It was obvious he was building his courage. Then he blurted out, “Do we really get to live in the houses?”
“Yes.”
“You said we’d have families.” A quaver in the question, the hope in Tavish’s voice painful.
“Yes. Each child will be assigned to an adult Arrow or Arrows.” Aden would slowly bring in non-Arrows to help balance the population, but the vetting process would take considerable time. At least one empath was already happy to settle in the valley—Abbot’s Jaya. But as for the non-Es and those Es who didn’t have such deep connections to the squad, none would be permitted in until they’d been cleared by both the squad’s background checks and by an empathic panel.
Tavish’s shoulders fell at Aden’s answer. “Oh.”
Not understanding the reason for his distress, Aden went across to him and, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder, crouched down in front of him again. “You don’t wish to live with adult Arrows?”
“I’ll follow the rules.”
“Tavish.” Aden put a hint of steel in his tone, aware from watching Remi that giving affection and protection was only one part of being alpha; the children also needed him to continue being the person who had the final word in any given situation. “You mustn’t lie to me. Answer the question.”
Muscles stiff under his hand, Tavish looked him in the eye and Aden saw the strength beneath the fear, knew this child hadn’t been irrevocably broken. “The grown-ups hurt us.”
Sensing Zaira going motionless beside him, Aden continued to maintain the eye contact. “The ones who hurt you won’t be living with you.” The known child-focused sadists in the squad had been erased from the world; Aden had never trusted them and he’d had no compunction in taking care of the matter himself.
Those men and women had been beyond redemption.
A few others, like Blake, were on probation because they’d never harmed a child, but had other dangerous and possibly indefensible tendencies. Some might even be murderous psychopaths, but Aden needed evidence before he made that call. If he acted without it, he’d be no better than Ming. Regardless, he’d permit no one on that list near the innocent.
The third group was the most problematic: good men and women who hadn’t been strong enough to refuse to follow terrible orders. He had Ivy, Jaya, and his own senior people keeping a close watch on several, because now that Ming was gone and Silence had fallen, those men and women had begun to buckle under a crushing wave of guilt. Only two days earlier, Cris had stopped a suicide before it occurred and the Arrow in question was now in intensive counseling with an empath.
Tavish didn’t need to know all of that. He needed to know only that he’d be safe.
“You’ll be assigned to Arrows in the field.” Arrows who, even if they’d taken a class or two, had never tortured or otherwise harmed the children. “Like me and Zaira and Vasic.”
The boy’s eyes grew bright. “Vasic? But he doesn’t live here.”
“Some children may train here and live elsewhere.” Vasic’s teleportation skills made location a nonissue and the security at the orchard was even more airtight now because of Ivy’s position as president of the Empathic Collective. “Regardless, you’re to live with those of us who do not hurt our children.”