DJ closed his eyes, hand still pressed tight to his mouth, muffling the cries that continued to spill from his throat.

It had hurt. God, how it had hurt.

And when he’d told Pastor, the bastard had smiled.

He’d smiled. And told DJ that he’d been honored by the love of a Founding Elder.

Love. There was no such thing as love.

DJ knew this, because he’d gone to his father, still bleeding. Still in shock, but believing that his father could fix this. That he’d help. That he’d make this right.

Waylon’s fists had clenched as DJ had haltingly told his father what Edward had done, every one of his father’s considerable muscles hardening as his body seemed prepared to rip someone up. But then Waylon had exhaled.

And told DJ that it was something to be accepted. That there wasn’t anything he could do. That Edward would tire of him and there would soon be another.

DJ had left his father’s house that night, never to return until four years later when he’d killed him. He’d gone back to Pastor’s house, because he’d had no other place to go.

And the next day he’d gone back to Edward. To work. Because he was Edward’s apprentice, and that was what apprentices did. They worked.

But work wasn’t all they did.

Waylon had been wrong. Edward hadn’t tired of him. Not until Gideon had turned thirteen, four long years later.

It was finally going to be over. There would be a new apprentice. DJ would be a blacksmith.

Edward would take Gideon to his bed. He’d said so. He’d said DJ was now “too old.” He’d even said that DJ could participate, if he wished.

DJ hadn’t wished that. But he had been happy that someone else was going to have to take it from Edward.

But that didn’t happen. Gideon had happened. Gideon hadn’t been raped, because he’d fought back.

Gideon had killed Edward. And he’d gotten away with it.

Because of DJ’s own piece-of-trash father. The howl clawing from his throat had subsided, leaving whimpers in its place.

He hadn’t understood when he’d witnessed Waylon in the bed of his truck, a steel claw gripped in his fist, hastily ripping at the face of a dark-haired kid. Only slivers of tattooed skin on his chest remained, tendons and bone mostly visible. The kid’s eyes were gone.

Now, seventeen years later, DJ understood why his father had been doing that—because Gideon’s were green and Waylon hadn’t found a boy with eyes to match. Now, seventeen years later, DJ realized that his father must have tattooed the nameless boy’s chest to make it look like Gideon. His father had been the first tattoo artist in Eden. He’d done DJ’s tattoo, after all.

Now, seventeen years later, he knew it had all been a farce, because Gideon was not dead. He’d escaped.

But then, DJ had been so shocked that all reason had fled from his mind. It had been the first time he’d seen the claw, which he’d later learned was responsible for all the mutilations of Edenites who’d been “devoured by wolves” because they’d “strayed too far from the compound.” In reality they’d questioned, dissented, or tried to escape.