Blood always came before silence.
That night, Ty sat in the corner of his room, shirt smeared with crimson that wasn't his own. His adoptive mother's muffled sobs rattled through the walls, while his father's sharp, panicked whispers hissed like snakes through the house. They thought they could hide their fear from him, but Ty drank it in like wine.
He'd always known he was different. While other children giggled and scraped their knees in play, he watched, waiting for the moment they slipped, fell, or cried. Pain fascinated him. Control exhilarated him.
And when control slipped into violence, he felt alive.
But they didn't see it that way. They called him dangerous. They whispered about doctors and help.
Ty would laugh at the word help. He didn't need help. The world needed help surviving him.
That night, when the police came and his adoptive parents handed him over with trembling hands, Ty only smirked. Let them try to contain him. He would break them too.