“My father despised me. I was different, even then, even as a child. He wasn’t in the least bit logical and half the time he didn’t make sense. He hated the very sight of me and Dru took to stepping in front of me when he was around, because the moment he laid eyes on me, he had to beat the holy hell out of me.”

Trap shrugged, the movement casual. “I didn’t understand what I did wrong and poor Dru tried her best to shield me. I was so young, but already too old in my mind.”

Wyatt understood that. Trap’s IQ rivaled some of the greatest IQs in history. Wyatt was intelligent, but like many others he was especially gifted in certain areas. Trap was just plain gifted at everything. Along with the brains, he had the fast reflexes and superb body of a warrior.

“My father wasn’t proud of me for being gifted. If anything he took it as an affront. Dru always said he felt threatened by me, but I was a little kid and I didn’t see how I was a threat to him.”

Wyatt didn’t make the mistake of letting compassion or anger show in his expression. Trap would shut down immediately. Trap kept his emotions under tight control and Wyatt realized why. There was rage coiled deep. So deep that it was never—ever—going to be purged.

“We never told Mom about the beatings, but one day she saw the bruises and the swelling. He’d broken my arm and a couple of ribs. She took me to the hospital and he was arrested. While he was in jail, she packed us up and moved us out of the city. I was eight. Dru, ten. We went clear across the country. His family bailed him out. He had two brothers, both as worthless and as vicious as he was.”

The chair never moved, remaining balanced on two legs as Trap took another long pull of his beer. He put the bottle down on the table with deceptive gentleness. The movement was precise and deliberate. Just like Trap. Just like everything Trap did.

“They found us when I was nine. My father came into the house late at night while his two brothers poured gasoline up and down the walls inside and outside the little house we rented. He dragged my mother out of bed, down to the room where my little brother and sister slept. He shot them both and then shot Mom in the head.”

Trap’s expression didn’t change. His tone didn’t change. He might have been reciting a story he’d read in the papers. Wyatt’s fist clenched beneath the rickety table but he didn’t allow his expression to change either.