When he was maybe five, his family was killed. The police never caught the killer. They didn't believe the one eyewitness. No killer could appear, kill, then magically disappear. No killer could leave so much blood and one child still alive. It seemed impossible.

But this one did. This one was different.

This one had a vengeance to keep.

This one was a demon.

The kids in the orphanage thought he was crazy, babbling on about demons day and night…all the while, clutching that strange pendant around his neck. They'd dragged him off into a secret room when he'd arrived, the kids whispered, when he'd shown up on the doorstep with the police that night of the horrible storm. He'd shown up bloodied and bruised and crying in tattered clothes that, supposedly, amounted to pajamas. He'd shown up carrying a sword. They took it from him. He'd shown up wearing that pendant. The lady that tried to take it from him came back crying.

The kids talked about him behind his back, marveled at that platinum hair, those teal eyes. He never talked to them, they complained. He just sat in the corner staring off into space with those creepy eyes. When the owners took the kids to their weekly library visits, he never stayed in the kids' section with the others, never listened to the story the nice old librarian lady would read to them about the bowl full of mush and the red balloon. He wandered off from the moment they arrived, but he was always back with the group, silent as ever, when it was time to go.

Well, the owners said, he obviously wasn't causing trouble or making noise, and he did always come back on time, so they never asked. He wouldn't have told, anyhow. They wouldn't believe him if he told them. They'd treat him just like the other kids did, thinking he was crazy the second that horrible "d-word" slipped from between his pale lips, sending his eyes wide in terror.

Other kids came and went, rumors came and went, but no one ever wanted to take in that "creepy kid with the white hair." He just wasn't cute enough, or young enough, or talkative enough, or didn't have just the right button nose that the parents wanted. Sometimes they didn't want him just because he already knew his name, and they wanted to give him a new one. He'd have none of that.

Once, only once, one nice lady came in and said that he had pretty eyes. But she left without him, with another little girl instead, and he only sighed and shrugged and thought to himself, just another day.

When he got old enough, he stopped going to the library. He'd read all the books they had on what he was interested in. He, as well as a scant few other kids, was allowed to stay behind now, because they could "handle themselves," the owners had said. It didn't matter to him. He'd have stayed behind regardless. The library couldn't hold his interest anymore. It didn't change the fact that, even so many years older now, he'd still just sit in the corner, away from the other kids, staring off into space with those same creepy eyes.

The owners took to thinking he was slow, really. He never spoke, and he didn't want to read anymore. Maybe that trauma all those years ago had tinkered with something in his brain, the husband said. It was a possibility, the wife agreed, a sad one. They decided that maybe they should start warning parents coming to look for adoption. It was only fair, after all, wasn't it? It was then they started to treat him different. It was then they started to treat him like a baby all over again.

The day came where he turned 18. The anniversary of his arrival, they dubbed it his birthday, because he'd never told them otherwise. They never would know the irony. They'd made him a cake with his name on it. The only way they'd known his name was from the police records, when the files had come in from downtown about the murders years ago. It was small, but it was the same thing they did for all the other kids they still had around at this age. Really, it was a way of softening the blow – they'd find him a job, now, any job would do. Anything to get him out of the orphanage and keep him off the streets. They had all sorts of new kids to take in, after all. They somehow already had a job all lined up for him, though it had been difficult trying to explain such an intelligent sparkle in the eyes of one who was most certainly, they thought, deaf-and-dumb.

He stormed out of the room crying when they'd started to sing Happy Birthday. It was the first and only noise he'd made since he arrived that night, thirteen years ago, crying on the doorstep.

Burying his face in the bungalow he shared with one of the other kids, he cried himself to sleep, even though it was early in the afternoon. He never saw that redheaded kid trek slowly after him into the room, never heard him climb up atop the bed, never knew he was sitting there, silently waiting, watching.

Where did we go wrong, the wife-owner asked her husband? But the other kids could care less. They got free cake.

It was after nightfall when he woke up, and the redhead kid was sitting in a chair across from his bed, staring at him. He frowned, but said nothing.

The kid knew he wasn't stupid or slow or mute or anything the owners accused him of. He'd been there the entire time since that night so long ago, and he knew just what it felt like – he'd been through the exact same thing.

"Why do I care?" Those four words were the first in thirteen years to ever leave those pale lips. His voice crackled for a moment before settling on a wary baritone, years of unuse seeming to finally catch up with him.

"I want to help you."

"You don't know shit. Leave me alone." He laid back down and started to turn over, to face the wall again.

"Dante."

The silence that followed was thick enough to cut with a knife. Or rather, a sword. Because, cradled in the redhead's hands, was the blade they'd taken away, still in pristine condition, wrapped in a tattered bed sheet.

The silver-haired kid turned back over. "You…?"

"It was your dad's, right?"

Teal eyes grew dangerous, narrowing. "Who told you that."

"I just know these things." They'd hunted his family down, too. They were all seers, he said. They all knew what the demons were plotting, his whole family did. The demons made sure the message never got through on time.

He growled under his breath. "You're digging your grave deeper."

"I swear it's true," he protested, eyes wide – the other kid had started to sit up now, and it was only then that the redhead found him in the least intimidating. "Look, here."

The sword was thrust out toward him, the weight almost immediately lifted from the thin arms shakily supporting it. He didn't even need a moment's inspection to know that the redhead was, indeed, telling the truth.

Teal eyes rose to meet deep blue after a moment, gears grinding in his mind. "We need to get out of here."

The redhead stuck out his hand, a lopsided grin covering his face. "Name's Tony."

It was cautious, but he finally pressed his hand against the redhead's – who grasped and shook firmly.

"Nice to be in business with you, Tony."