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“Oh yeah. Jed. I
    forgot.” Talker swallowed and felt his Adam’s apple bob. “Last names
    don’t come up a lot in restaurant work, you know? I mean, I don’t
    think half the people there know my real name. So yeah. Jed. You
    talked to Jed. He was there. He’ll know.”
    Talker half waited for Brian’s subtle touch on his shoulder or
    his hand, but it didn’t come, and… and… thereyago. He twitched
    hard enough to jerk his hand from Lyndie’s and bang his head
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    against the plexiglass. He had to work hard to focus through the
    stars to see the detective with the fair hair who was looking at him
    with more concern than scorn.
    “Kid, what are you on?” the dark-haired guy asked, and Talker
    twitched—less violently, but it was still a twitch.
    “Nothing,” he muttered. “They’ll take away my track scholarship
    if I do drugs.”
    “You got a scholarship? You must run like the fucking wind, do
    you know that?” The dark-haired cop sneered, and Tate felt his face
    twist into a grimace in return.
    “I had to dodge a lot of foster parents to get this fast,” he
    snapped, and it was only partly a lie. He’d really only needed to run
    from the one.
    But the anger was good—the anger kept him from wilting like a
    limp dick, letting down Brian, letting down Lyndie—hell, letting down
    Jed and even the nurse who’d seemed to feel like he’d be there for
    Brian when he was needed.
    The cop rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, cry me a river. You want
    me to feel bad for you, or you want me to feel bad for the poor meat
    sack hoping his kidneys didn’t pulp when he got beaten?”
    The idea that Tate was responsible for Brian’s still body in the
    next room sucked all the marrow right out of Talker’s spine. “I want
    you to make sure that never happens again,” Tate said hollowly, and
    his vision went gray around the edges. He remembered what it felt
    like to be the boy in the hospital bed. He’d been the boy in the
    hospital bed. He’d do anything to keep Brian from being that boy…
    anything.

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    35

    “OH GOD, Dr. Sutherland. Do I have to finish it? You know what
    happened. I told you what happened our first day, right?”
    They’d gone over session time, but then, they had
    Sutherland’s last session of the day. Talker was starting to think he’d
    planned it that way so Talker wouldn’t have an excuse to stop
    dumping out his spleen on the doctor’s coffee table.
    “You said the word, Tate, but you didn’t connect it to yourself.
    You’ve been in here for six months, talking to me about The Worst.
    Date. Ever. Now for some people, that means the conversation was
    boring and they got stuck with the tab. For you, it means you could
    barely sleep, you started acting out in bizarre sexual ways, and the
    guy who loves you has lost twenty pounds.” Tate sucked in his
    breath and looked at Brian with tortured eyes.
    Brian grimaced. “I haven’t lost weight, dammit!” he snapped.
    Then he looked disgruntled, which was something that happened
    when he couldn’t control his circumstances and was not exactly
    sure why. “But my chin got sharper. I think it’s a baby-fat thing. It’s
    like I turned twenty-two and my face grew up.”
    Talker grinned at him softly and Brian grinned back. “It suits
    you,” Tate murmured, and Brian blushed, completely undone in that
    one small compliment.
    “I aim to please,” he said, blushing harder. The doctor let them
    have their moment. Maybe he was as smart as he seemed, and he
    knew those little good moments made all the hard bad ones worth
    it.
    But all moments had to end, and Sutherland’s voice was the
    sinuous voice of the serpent-traitor.
    “You love Brian, Tate?”
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    36

    Tate frowned at the intrusion, and he and Brian turned to face
    the doctor together. “More than anything,” he answered back,
    absolutely sure it was the easiest question