Inked Babies (Inked Brotherhood 6)

He’s right here and fighting back, fighting to win the crippling battle with his memories, and my chest swells with pride. Yeah, I’m so damn proud of this guy. My fairytale warrior, with his tall hairdo, the pretty uptilted eyes, the foul mouth and bad attitude, the many scars.

So in love with him.

We follow Officer Delaney’s car outside the clinic, somewhere in the outskirts of town, and park.

Officer Delaney—she hasn’t told us her first name, and the guys seem too distracted to strike a conversation with her—leads us inside, flashing her badge to the guard at the door and then talking in a low voice to the uniformed man behind the reception desk.

She motions at us to follow her, and we hurry down long hallways, silent, as if bracing for this meeting.

And yet, when we enter a room and I see them, I find I’m not prepared. At all.

They’re sitting in a small group on two beds facing each other. They glance up as we approach, and their wide, wary gazes remind me of the basement and how they looked when we found them. I’d been too worried about Zane then to pay much attention. He’d zoned out completely, lost inside his head.

Now here they sit, real blood and flesh, the five teenage boys we freed.

My first thought is that they aren’t as young as I’d originally thought. Not as young as Zane had been when he was abused. Though skinny and hunched over, their hair cropped short and their eyes huge in their thin faces, they seem to be closer to fourteen or fifteen.

I wonder if that means Kenneth Shaw’s tastes changed, or that he took what he could, and holy crap, my thoughts are turning my stomach.

“Hey, guys,” Officer Delaney says cheerfully, “remember me? I was here yesterday, talking with the doctors. I am Officer Delaney, and these people here are your rescuers.” She glances at us. “Some of them, anyway. From what I understand, they want to talk to you, make sure you’re okay. One of them in particular—”

“I remember you,” one of the kids says, a dark-haired boy with bright blue eyes, pointing at us.

At Zane.

“Yeah,” another says, in a lower voice, peeking from behind the first one’s back. “That Mohawk. I remember you.”

Zane steps forward, his dark eyes hooded. “I’m Zane Madden. I was fucked over by Kenneth Shaw, too.”

Officer Delaney gasps. “Mr. Madden—”

“Literally fucked over,” Zane goes on, ignoring her, and I see the kids leaning forward to see him, hanging on his words. “I was younger than you were. Maybe eight or so. Lived with the motherfucker for months. Still dunno how I made it out of there alive, but I’m here now, and I wanna know that you guys are gonna be okay.”

“Boys,” Delaney turns toward the kids, “is this okay? Do you want to talk to these people? I could escort them back out.”

“No.” A boy with short blond hair and a sore on his cheek nods at Zane. “I wanna hear what he has to say.”

I fight a smile.

Officer Delaney slumps back on one of the other beds, folding her arms over her chest, huffing. I want to tell her I understand her concern, that she cares for these kids, too, and I’m sure she won’t budge from her position, guarding them in case we say or do anything to upset them.

But they’re gazing at Zane like he’s their leader or their long-lost brother, and the way they lean into each other tell me he was right in thinking they’d want to stick together after their ordeal. Their experience bonded them in deep ways we can barely understand. Pain, it seems, can be stronger than blood.

They shouldn’t be separated, thrown b

ack into a system that will spin them around, then deposit them far from one another. I remember how close Zane was to his adopted sister before she died—a girl he spent part of his tortured childhood with, a girl who stood by his side. How devastated he was when he lost her.

These kids have never known a real family—until now.

“This is my girl, Dakota.” Zane tugs on my hand, and I wave at the boys. Not sure I should bother. They’re outright staring at him, eating up every word falling from his lips. “And this is Rafe and Megan, and their baby Zay. Well, his name’s Zane, too, but apparently we look too damn similar, the baby and me, so they changed it.”

Impossibly, that gets laughs from the boys.

Officer Delaney’s eyes are about to bug out of her head.

Yeah, Zane doesn’t look cuddly and nurturing, but she doesn’t know him. Under that hard, bad boy façade there’s a warm, sensitive guy who cares for everyone around him. He’s the soul of the Brotherhood for a reason. He convinced Rafe to take in the Damage Boyz because he knows what it feels like to be alone in the world, with nowhere to go.

And he’s here, pushing down his own pain, using it as a stepping stone to reach these boys and help them, tell them they’re not alone.