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the boy in the
    hospital bed. He’d do anything to keep Brian from being that boy…
    anything.

    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    35

    “OH GOD, Dr. Sutherland. Do I have to finish it? You know what
    happened. I told you what happened our first day, right?”
    They’d gone over session time, but then, they had
    Sutherland’s last session of the day. Talker was starting to think he’d
    planned it that way so Talker wouldn’t have an excuse to stop
    dumping out his spleen on the doctor’s coffee table.
    “You said the word, Tate, but you didn’t connect it to yourself.
    You’ve been in here for six months, talking to me about The Worst.
    Date. Ever. Now for some people, that means the conversation was
    boring and they got stuck with the tab. For you, it means you could
    barely sleep, you started acting out in bizarre sexual ways, and the
    guy who loves you has lost twenty pounds.” Tate sucked in his
    breath and looked at Brian with tortured eyes.
    Brian grimaced. “I haven’t lost weight, dammit!” he snapped.
    Then he looked disgruntled, which was something that happened
    when he couldn’t control his circumstances and was not exactly
    sure why. “But my chin got sharper. I think it’s a baby-fat thing. It’s
    like I turned twenty-two and my face grew up.”
    Talker grinned at him softly and Brian grinned back. “It suits
    you,” Tate murmured, and Brian blushed, completely undone in that
    one small compliment.
    “I aim to please,” he said, blushing harder. The doctor let them
    have their moment. Maybe he was as smart as he seemed, and he
    knew those little good moments made all the hard bad ones worth
    it.
    But all moments had to end, and Sutherland’s voice was the
    sinuous voice of the serpent-traitor.
    “You love Brian, Tate?”
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    36

    Tate frowned at the intrusion, and he and Brian turned to face
    the doctor together. “More than anything,” he answered back,
    absolutely sure it was the easiest question ever.
    “Even your pride? Even your pain? Are sure you really love
    him?”
    Talker’s shoulders got tight, his skin stretching tautly over his
    right shoulder blade just to make the whole moment more
    uncomfortable.
    “I’d die for him!” And he would. Say the word, there’s Tate
    Walker, lying down in traffic and throwing his worthless life away so
    someone as good as Brian could cross the street.
    Dr. Sutherland nodded. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. Now would
    you tell the truth for him?”
    Talker’s lungs turned to ice, and he fought off a terrible urge to
    pee.

    “KID, are you all right?” This was the officer with the fair-colored
    hair, the taller one. He looked younger than the dark-haired one, a
    family man, maybe. Maybe Talker reminded him of a son or
    something, but that was unlikely, since Talker had never really been
    anyone’s son, not since he was six, and wasn’t that a blessing?
    “I’m fine,” he croaked, trying to focus, focus. When he was six,
    he’d learned to go to the place with the music in his head, thanks to
    that nice nurse with the Walkman, and the music was playing now,
    now that he was talking to the policemen who weren’t ever really his
    friends.
    Jeremy spoke in… class today….
    “Back off him and he will be!” Lyndie’s voice actually made Tate
    spaz again, and his head cracked audibly against the plexiglass this
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    37

    time, and he saw stars. That black, festering nausea was back and
    Talker started shaking with the need to throw up.
    The cops looked up, looked at her, and for a minute there, he
    thought he could breathe.
    “Ma’am, we’re just trying to find out what happened to your
    son.”
    “My nephew was beaten by some thugs in a back alley—as
    awful as it is, it happens all the time. What he wouldn’t want is for
    Tate here to be bullied by a couple of cops who think they know
    every goddamned thing!”
    Tate looked at Lyndie through a haze of dark vision. She was
    lying for him. All this woman had ever done was be nice to him, but
    she was lying for him, so he didn’t have to tell the truth. Jed had lied
    for him, Brian had fought for him, oh, dammit, couldn’t Tate Walker
    with the punk hair and the BAMF tattoo protect himself?
    “Lady, he looks guilty!” the dark-haired guy said, and Tate
    whimpered.
    “I’d die before I hurt Brian,” he whispered, and the two cops
    were all about him again.
    “Yeah, so why the flop-sweat, ace?” It