Born of Fire

Sighing, Digger raked his hand through his hair. “Put him in prison. They said he might as well get used to it since he’d most likely end up there anyway.”


She set her fork down in stunned shock. “At ten?”

He nodded darkly. “And not kiddie jail. They sent him to maximum security.”

“At ten?” she repeated.

“At ten.” His tone was ice cold and brutal. “There’s your League justice for you. Put an innocent kid in with the garbage and see if he survives. But that was all right. His father had taught him well on how to hide, fight, and take as much pain as anyone wanted to give to him. As you’ve seen. He don’t go down easy.”

Still . . . he’d been a baby. How was that even possible? How had he survived? “Someone had to get him out. Did they release him?”

He laughed. “You have to remember, Sheridan was big for his age and precocious as hell. That resourceful little bastard escaped within a year and went out on the streets by himself. He managed to stow away on a ship that came here and he made a home for himself in the gutter.”

Shahara tried to imagine it. She knew how hard it’d been to survive without her parents and she’d been almost twice his age when her father died.

And though her condo wasn’t much, at least it was one of the few things her father had paid for before his death.

“Where was his mother then?”

The look he gave her killed the words on her tongue. “He went to that bitch when he was twelve and she threw him out into the street like he was trash. Said she was back where she belonged and she didn’t want nothing to do with the past. Said she never wanted to lay eyes on him again and that if she did, she’d put him in jail for the rest of his life. Then she called the pinchers to come pick him up.”

Shahara swallowed in horror. How could a mother react that way? Why? It was so cold and needless.

If she could only have a child, she’d make sure no one ever hurt it.

“And his sister?”

Tears welled up in the old man’s eyes. “She was an angel. So gentle and timid. Never once raised her voice or said an unkind word about anyone. Sheridan loved that girl like you wouldn’t believe. He would have slit his own wrist if she’d just asked him to.”

“Surely she helped him?”

He shook his head. “She killed herself the day before Indie was arrested.”

She gaped at that unexpected bomb.

Talia had killed herself?

Please don’t leave me, Talia. I won’t let him hurt you anymore. I promise. Syn’s pleading tone tore through her. She knew how much he’d loved his sister. He must have gone crazy with her death.

And suddenly she knew why he’d turned his father in . . . No doubt he blamed him for it and had wanted revenge. It made perfect sense and yet . . .

How had Syn survived?

He’d been just a baby when everyone in his family had deserted him. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the fear and pain he must have felt. No matter how bad her life was, she’d always had her family. A family who, even with their problems, protected her to the bitter end.

“What did Syn do after his mother . . .” She couldn’t even bring herself to say what the bitch had done.

Digger shrugged. “I don’t know how he survived. Worst of all, I don’t know what was done to him either in jail or after. He never would talk about it. But I thought about him the whole while I was in prison. I was sure he’d get killed in no time . . . or something much worse. He was such a smart little thing and so good-looking. I just knew if he managed to survive he’d fall prey to some slaver or pervert. And I still don’t know if he did.”

He gave a sad laugh. “But I guess living with Indie had taught him how to suffer in silence. How to go a long while between meals. How to move like a ghost around people so they wouldn’t see or hear him.” He looked down the hallway to where Syn was sleeping. “How to take a beating that would kill most people and not surrender to the pain.”

And that explained it too. No wonder Syn didn’t react.

He was used to it.

Digger took a sip of water. “One of the few times Sheridan talked about being on the street, he told me that he used to crawl up under Dumpsters to sleep and keep the scum away from him at night. Can you imagine? The filth, the smell . . . The rats?” he shuddered. “Sheridan either ate out of the garbage or stole what he needed to eat and, when he was old enough, he took up Indie’s primary occupation.”

“Murder?”

Digger snorted in indignation. “Sheridan would never kill anyone what didn’t try and kill him first. I told you, he ain’t his father.” He gave her a nasty glare. “Filching was what started Indie off on his criminal career. He was the best at it. He could hack into any security system, and he designed them so well that no one could even begin to breach his codes . . . except for Sheridan, and that used to make him insane. He never could keep Sher out of whatever file he wanted.”