1
RONAN AND THANE
TWENTY YEARS PRIOR
Thane walksinto the dim living room, his phone casting blue light onto his handsome face. Buried in the details on the screen, he deftly avoids Amelia’s race cars, then nearly wipes out when his foot lands on Oakley’s picture book:Neurology for Kids.
Fitting.
Ronan chuckles softly, setting aside a freshly folded tower of kid-sized shorts. “It’d be funny if you survived years of special ops only to be taken out by your son’s favorite bedtime story.”
Thane, still looking at his phone, gives an absent-minded huff.
Ronan reaches into the couch cushions and tosses Amelia’s dinosaur stuffy at his massive husband. “What gives?” he asks, keeping his voice down.
Bedtime was a battle royale they’d barely won.
Thane startles, then sends Ro an apologetic smile. “Sorry.” Sitting next to his husband on the couch, he says, “Anders said we needed to see this.”
“Wasn’t he on an op earlier? Going after some…pharmaceutical asshole with a minor in genetic engineering?” He looks at his watch. “It’s almost midnight. Are they still going?”
“Yeah.”
Huh. Thane and Ro retired from the team when they started having kids, and frankly, they barely skim the reports anymore. What could Anders possibly have for them? Unease settles in Ro’s gut as Thane angles his phone to share the screen.
Ronan recognizes this as live helmet cam footage, and that’s Anders cursing under his breath. He appears to be in an office building.
No.
A lab.
“What am I looking at?” Ronan asks. “Why are we following Anders on a live op?”
“I dunno.”
“Over here!” shouts another familiar voice off camera. Omar, Anders’ husband, runs into view. Eyes round with fear. “We found a little boy. He’s dehydrated, underweight. Five. Maybe six. Lacs on his back, buttocks, torso, and thighs. It’s pretty fucked up,” he says, his chest expanding rapidly.
“Take me to him,” Anders says, following his husband. “We’ve got Thane and Ro on the line.”
Omar pauses to look into Anders’ body cam. “Remember Silas Blake?”
That name rips the lid off a box Ronan nailed shut years ago. For a split second, the cozy living room dissolves, replaced by another room.
The cloying scent of baby powder and diapers. The unending stare of a teddy bear, its right eye a camera lens. The cold circle of handcuffs around his wrists and the suffocating pain of a cracked rib.
He flinches at Thane’s warm touch, then grips hishusband’s hand.
“You’re safe. You’re home,” Thane says, his steady voice bringing Ronan back to the present.
Omar’s sympathetic expression fills the screen. He’s no stranger to grounding techniques. Everyone who is or was a Guardian has some kind of PTSD to work through.
Everyone except Anders.
Ronan’s trauma response is particularly insidious. It can go into remission for months, then comes roaring back for no goddamn reason at all. Omar has no idea what he’s done, simply saying the man’s name.
Silas Blake.
Ronan neutralizes his expression. Not wanting anyone to see him like this, he forces the memory down, back into the box.
