“No.” Never would he betray one of his children. “I’ll teach you to hide the truth better, until no one will ever again find you out.”

“Why?” A flat question.

“Because you deserve to live without fear or pain. I can’t give you that—but I can give you a weapon, show you how to use it so that you can fight when the time comes.”

“Yes, I remember Aden.” As he remembered every single child he’d taught in the Arrow school; every single bruise and broken bone he’d witnessed; every complaint he’d made as a wet-behind-the-ears teacher to the “protective” branch of the training squad, to his superiors, even to the Council itself, before coming to understand that no one was listening.

It could’ve broken him, but Walker had refused to buckle…because he did have the ability to give his charges psychic weapons, and sometimes, he’d even been able to protect them, if only for a short while. He’d kept more than one student after school, ostensibly for detention or extra tutoring—only to tell that child to sleep, to rest, to heal as much as he or she could, safe in the knowledge that no one would drag them out of sleep to face some dark horror meant to turn a child into a perfect killing machine.

So many of the youngest, their emotions not yet crushed under the weight of Silence, had ended up sobbing in his arms at the small kindness. He could still feel the weight of their tiny bodies against him, their tears drenching his shirt, their nascent conditioning fracturing inside the telepathic wall of protection formed by his mind…freedom for a fleeting instant.

Aden, he remembered, had never cried, never broken…and never lost his soul. “He used to shake his head at me when I attempted to keep him back after school”—because the boy had bruises no child should have, his arm showing signs of having been broken and reset over and over—“and tell me to keep one of the younger children.”

“I’m stronger. I’ll survive. They need the rest more than I do.”

Judd turned to face him, his expression intent. Walker rarely spoke of his time in the squad’s schoolroom, and his brother had never pushed. He didn’t tonight, either.

“Aden’s doing the same still,” he said instead. “Leading the squad, protecting the ones who are broken, watching over the children.”

Walker felt a quiet burn of pride for the boy he’d known.

“He asked me to thank you,” Judd continued, “and to tell you that what you taught him has helped save the life, and the mind, of more than one Arrow.”

The words meant everything. “I’d like to speak to Aden when it’s safe for him.” See the man the child had become.