They love video games and pasta.

Nate looks over at me from the other side of the couch and just rolls his eyes. We’re out at his farm. We had this whole outdoor trek and meet-the-animals thing set up for the four boys who were stuck in that strip-mall basement, but they haven’t gotten past the sweet setup in the living room.

Cruz shovels spaghetti and meatballs into his face like he’s never eaten before in his life. Knox groans. “You’re getting tomato sauce on the controllers.”

“Got you!” One of the kids—Harley—blows up Grayson’s guy. Grayson’s laughing, working the controls, vowing to get them all back. Being the baby of the group, Grayson connects with the kids best.

Miles—he’s maybe thirteen—plays with sullen determination. He reminds me a lot of me. Angry. Hard-eyed. Zero trust. He was the oldest one, too.

The four of them know we were inside like they were. Years longer. They know we got them out, but we’re not here for a thank you or some big fucking emo moment. We’re giving them what we wanted when we got out. A place to be kids. To be their own kids.

Child protective services almost didn’t let us take them out of the group home for this day-on-the-farm thing, but Rivera and Brooke’s dad intervened. They got a child psychologist on the case who told the authorities how healing it would be for them to hang out with guys who came out the other side of what they’d been through.

And the boys, they weren’t talking. I mean, even more than they aren’t talking here. They were clammed up hard, not trusting any adults. It didn’t take a genius to realize we could reach them.

They sent a social worker along. He’s reading in the corner.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen them smile,” he told me fifteen minutes after they got here.

The room explodes in laughter when Grayson goes down. I clap a hand on his shoulder. “Too slow, old man.”

The kids laugh at him. They sound like…kids.

They’re looking for homes for them. Two of these boys were orphans; two were runaways. Throwaway boys, all four of them. Just like us. Except they’ll get lots of therapy and hopefully a stable place to grow up, unlike us.

I thought about taking them for like two seconds, but we don’t have the life for raising kids. Not yet, anyway. I don’t know whether we ever will. For now they deserve a stable life, not an abandoned hotel or a hidden cabin in the woods.

Nate wanders over to Miles, sitting beside him on the sofa, all nonchalant like he’s not observant as fuck. He’s got something in his hand. A book. I can’t read its title from this far away, but there are enough glossy pictures as he flips through the pages to show me it’s about animals.

The animals gave him a purpose.

Miles passes the controller to one of the other boys, then scowls down at his hands. But even from here, I can see his gaze shifting to that book with every turn of the page.

Nate’s a gentle man, something most of us can’t really claim to be. Maybe he could end up adopting one of them.

In a few minutes the book is half in Miles’s lap. He’s silent as they turn the pages, but it’s something. God, it’s something.

Knox takes over for Grayson, running the games. He’s talking trash.

I have to hand it to Detective Rivera—he took point on the investigation. Dozens of guys have been arrested beyond what we saw that day at the club. City leaders. Business luminaries. Dirty cops. Wealthy heads of Franklin City’s oldest families.

The arrests have torn the city apart. Good. Most of the men have been denied bail. They tried to get special treatment. No-go. They’ll be heading into the general population of a prison with child-predator signs on their backs.

I won’t be losing any sleep over it.

Ryland comes in and collects the plates, offering fourth servings to anyone, but we’re full. Beyond full. The pasta, it was a little overcooked; the sauce, a little too salty, but that’s not the point. The point is that it was cooked with love by someone who gives a shit about these kids. That’s what made it fucking perfect.

There’s a hole in my chest, like there always is when Brooke isn’t near me. She offered to skip class for this, but I don’t want to be a bad influence. Well, not too bad. She has important shit to learn. About government and fucking society.

The kids are going to have a lot more meals like this, wherever they end up. No more stale pizza. No more crumbs.

The gaming winds down. Nate manages to get the group of us outside to kick around the farm.

It’s a nice evening, with one of those sunsets where the light feels glowy and soft. There are different fenced-in pastures here, and rolling hills beyond. We stop at the goat pen. I suppose we’re quite a sight, the seven of us older guys like battered Vikings watching four boys feed the goats.

I put my hands over the length of the wooden fence. Watch them laugh. Watch them forget themselves for a while. Nate’s laughing, keeping the goats in check.

The oldest one—Miles—comes out and stands next to me.

“That brown one almost took your thumb,” I say.

He shrugs. He’s so like me, it kind of hurts. He doesn’t even want to say that much. He doesn’t think anyone gives a shit. It’s cool. I get it.

He’s staring at my arm. He looks away when he thinks I’m noticing. I’m not sure what the fuck is up with that until I realize it’s the scarification he’s eyeing. “It’s axes,” I say.

“I thought it was just an X,” he says.

I hold it out. He’s curious to touch the thing with its raised white lines, but I won’t invite him to. It’s not what he needs. “Double-sided axes. We all have them.”

“You did it…”

“Yup.” In the basement. That’s what he’s asking. “With a sharpened nail we pulled out of the wall. Scratched the hell out of each other.”

“They musta been mad,” he says.

Nobody likes marks on the merchandise. “They were mad, but it was too late because we had a plan to get out. Got out a few days later.”

“And you killed the fuck out of them,” he growls.

I nod, glad the social worker isn’t nearby. We promised we’d be positive role models. I trace the X that the axes make. “Old-style battle-axes. We found the design in some moldy book down there.”

“And you scratched it in. Like war paint or some shit,” he says.

“It goes with our vow to each other,” I say. “‘One blade to protect my brothers, one blade for vengeance.’”

“That’s your vow?”

“That’s our vow,” I say.

“You have a vow.” He stares at my arm a long time. I let him. “I wish we’d got to kill them.”

“Nah, it’s better this way,” I say. “Way worse for them, too.”

“You think?”

“I know,” I say.

“I wish we at least had a vow,” he finally says.

“You do have one.” I wait until he’s looking up at me, and I repeat it. “This vow of ours? It covers all four of you. You’re my brother same as Nate or Knox over there. One blade to protect my brothers means you. It means you’re not alone out there. It means you have somebody to reach out to. Okay?”

He touches his own arm. I don’t know whether he believes it. “I want one, too. I want you to make it on me.”

Grayson catches my eye from the other side of Miles. How long was he listening? A glimmer in his eyes tells me he must’ve heard that last part, anyway. “Let’s all think about it for later,” he says. “Okay? Don’t go doing it yourselves.”

Pretty sure the caseworkers would be mad, too.

Somebody finds a Frisbee, and we throw it around awhile. And then the farm dogs get involved and it’s a party. It feels good. I don’t know who’s helping each other more—are they healing us or are we healing them?

But the answer doesn’t matter. With brothers it goes both ways.