Blaze of Memory

CHAPTER 49

Judd slipped into the child’s room without anyone being the wiser. The boy stared at him wide-eyed as he shifted out of the shadows twenty minutes after the boy’s parents had finally gone to bed. If Judd’s intel was correct, however, both of them would be back to check on their son within the hour.

“Have you come to take me?” The child sounded both terrified and strangely glad.

Judd understood—in a way William’s loving parents never would. “No. I’ve come to see if I can help you.”

“You can’t. I’m a monster.” A tear leaked out of his eye, a tear he brushed off with an angry fist. “I hurt Spot.”

Crossing the room to sit on the boy’s bed, Judd raised a hand. “I need to touch you.” This would have to be a very delicate telepathic investigation. If he activated the wrong trigger, the boy would try to strike out, and while Judd was well shielded, there was no need to make the kid feel worse about himself than he already did. “Will you lower your shields?”

“Okay.” Dull compliance. As if he hurt so much, he’d given up.

Judd touched his fingers to William’s temple, his psychic senses arrowed to a fine point. Then he went looking. According to the notes Ashaya had shared, the doctors at Shine had found an unusual version of the Tk gene, but what Judd saw was blindingly familiar. It seemed the Tk-Cell mutation didn’t discriminate against the half-blooded.

This boy, this bright, beautiful young boy, was a murderer waiting to happen.

Judd’s jaw set. No way in hell was that future ever going to be. “I want to tell you something and I want you to listen.”

William nodded, but his eyes were dull.

Judd took the boy’s chin in his hands, made him focus. “I can do what you can do.”

“No one—”

Taking a pocket knife from his jacket, Judd flicked it open and ran the blade across his palm, releasing a thick line of blood. “Watch.” Piece by piece, cell by cell, he closed the wound, until nothing remained but the blood. Using a tissue from the bedside table to wipe it off—and ensuring the tissue ended up in his pocket so he’d leave behind no trace of himself—he showed the boy his palm. “I can do what you can do.”

This time, William’s eyes were anything but dull. “Can you fix me?” he whispered.

Once, Judd would’ve answered with a yes or a no. That was before he fell in love with a woman who saw no evil in him. “There’s nothing to fix. What I can do is teach you to control it. So you can use it for good things.”

“Like what?”

“Like putting broken bodies back together.”

He saw the boy consider that, his teddy bear clutched tight to his heart. “That wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Actually,” Judd said. “It’s better than that—it’s pretty damn good.”

A shaky smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. So, you ready for your first lesson?”