Morgan wanted a beer more than anything, but he knew he'd better not. Not when he was feeling like this. He was liable to spiral into an angry sort of depression when these memories hit him, even cold sober. Even a little alcohol could make it that much more likely.

He stood up and went into the kitchen, Clooney right on his heels. He poured himself a glass of milk, and grabbed a dog-biscuit and tossed it to the salivating mutt. Clooney crunched it up in less than three bites and wagged his tail softly. Morgan took his glass of milk and his dog back to the couch, and settled back in. He sighed, and patted the seat again until Clooney climbed back up. He tossed his arm around the dog's shaggy neck.

Carl had been clever. Before Derek had even known what was going on, he was in over his head.

It had seemed really innocent at first. If Buford hadn't been a child molester, some of it WOULD have been innocent. Carl had always been physically affectionate to the youth center kids, always there with a hug, an arm around the shoulder, or a pat on the back. No one could object to the favors he'd done, like driving Derek home when it was raining or buying him a soda. He encouraged the kids to talk to him about their problems at home or school, and he had a way of expressing exactly the right amount of sympathy. But as a profiler, Morgan knew that things like that were exactly how abusers tricked their victims—they started with little, innocent things, and gradually twisted them until they weren't innocent anymore. And Derek's case had been textbook.

After the trip Carl had taken him on, Derek idolized the man. He wanted to impress him, much like a son wants to impress his father. When playing football, he ran faster and practiced harder, drinking in his mentor's praise. He would stay late to help him put away equipment, or even just to help him clean up around the Youth Center. They would talk, or rather, Derek would talk and Carl would listen. At home, it was pretty rare for the seventh grader to get more than a few minutes of attention at a shot—when Ma wasn't at work, she was always busy trying to keep their home from falling into chaos, and his sisters were almost always too busy with their friends or boys to hang out with their brother. But Carl would talk with him about whatever, be it football, school problems, or girls, and he had good advice.

"If you want to take her to the dance, you're gonna have to ask her," Carl said, picking up another basketball and putting it on the storage rack. "You aren't afraid, are you?" Carl teased.

"Nah," Derek said. "But it's just...well..."

"Whatever it is, can't be that bad," Carl said.

"I-dunno-how-to-dance," Derek mumbled, stooping to pick up another ball.

"What was that?" Carl asked.

"I can't ask Lisa to a dance if I don't know how to dance! I mean, I do know how to dance, but not with a girl. Just, you know—" Derek bounce-passed the ball to his mentor and did a couple of moves he'd seen on Soul Train. "Not slow dances or anything, though."

"Well, that's easy enough," the man said. He put the ball away and flipped on the radio that was balanced precariously on the top shelf of the ball rack. "C'mere, I'll show you."

Derek gave him a look. "That's weird. Guys don't dance together."

"Who's gonna know? Anyway, you gotta learn somehow. You shouldn't miss out 'cause you don't know how to dance." He beckoned at Derek, who looked around the abandoned youth center before walking closer.

"Alright, I guess." He planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. "Now what?"

"Well, first off, you can't stand like that. You have to relax." Derek dropped his hands to his side, feeling completely ridiculous. Carl stepped forward into Derek's space, almost like he was going to hug him. "Then she'll probably put her arms around your neck," he said, demonstrating. "You'll put your arms on her sides, or around her waist."

Derek laughed nervously. "Man, this is too weird!" he protested, and if Carl's hands hadn't been locked behind his neck, he would have stepped back.

"No one's watching," Carl pointed out. "And it's not like I'm gonna tell anyone where you learned to dance. Go on."

Hesitantly, Derek placed his hands on Carl's sides.

"I'm not gonna bite," Carl said, and there was a hint of amusement in his voice. "Now, all you have to do is move, slowly, with the music. And I know you can do that." The man started to sway from foot to foot, and Derek followed him. "You might turn in circles, but real slowly! Don't make her dizzy. Yup, like that. Alright, now, I'm gonna follow your lead."

Derek concentrated on turning them in a slow circle.

"You're frowning. You shouldn't have to concentrate that hard, Derek. And if you frown at her, she's gonna think you don't like her."

"It's not as easy as you make it sound," Derek defended. "What if I step on her feet or something? Or pinch her? Between swaying and trying to keep track of my feet and figuring out what to do with my hands, how is this supposed to be any fun?"

"Just relax. And if you link your hands around her waist, like a loose hug, you won't pinch her. As for the feet, you shuffle them rather than taking real steps. Nobody should get stepped on that way." His mentor grinned. "And I'm sure this will be plenty of fun with a pretty girl in your arms."

And it had been; he'd been nervous, dancing with Lisa, but he'd also been grateful that Carl had shown him how. And at the end of the night, she'd kissed him on the lips: his first kiss. Derek smiled, remembering.

He ruffled Clooney's fur again. "I thought I'd won the lottery that night, boy," he remarked to his dog. "Swear that I walked home on air. It was probably the best birthday present I've ever gotten. Made me feel like a real man." He smiled at his own youthful pride.

Clooney sighed and laid down, his heavy head resting on Derek's thigh. The smile dropped from his face as less pleasant memories replaced those of Lisa and her shiny, cherry-flavored lip gloss.

Why hadn't he realized how odd Carl's actions were as the weeks went by? That it wasn't normal, the way Carl would get just a little too close, brush up against him? His mind had rationalized it as accidental, even though it gave him a weird, uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had actually liked it when Carl would hug him or pat his back, and he'd only been grateful for the gifts the man had bought him. Alarm bells should have gone off when Carl had brought him back to the cabin for another weekend and told him he didn't have to bother with a swimsuit, since there was no one around for miles. Why had he said "Okay" to that? Why had he just ignored all those squirmy feelings in the pit of his stomach that had told him that something wasn't right?

These were old questions; questions he thought he'd made peace with long ago. But Hotch's actions tonight had brought them all back, screaming into the front of his mind.

After all, the line had been crossed all those years ago by a spanking. One very different from the one Hotch had delivered on that rooftop tonight, but a spanking all the same. It had been the beginning of keeping Carl's horrible secret, although Derek hadn't known it at the time. Even now, he remembered it like it was yesterday.

The boys scrabbled in the dirt, fists swinging. "Take it back, you ugly bastard!" Derek yelled, slamming his rival's head into the ground. Angel managed to get one fist free, and clocked him hard in the ribs. And then, suddenly, someone had the back of his shirt and was yanking him to his feet.

"What the hell is going on here!" Carl's voice boomed out over the two fighters.

"He was insulting my sister!" Derek hollered.

"Not an insult if it true!" Angel smirked, getting off the ground. Blood dripped freely from his nose. "And I heard all them guys saying that bitch a good piece of—"

"ENOUGH!" Carl said. "Not another word from either of you. My office, now!"

"To hell with that," Angel spat. "I'm gone."

"If you leave, don't bother to come back," Carl told him. "There's no fighting here."

"Psh. I got better places to be." The kid turned and limped out of the fencing that surrounded the youth center. '

Carl's hand was still fisted in the back of his shirt. The man gave him a little shove. "The office," he repeated sternly. Derek did as he was told, holding his head up defiantly as he made his way past the silently watching kids that had formed a circle around the fighters. He heard Carl say,"The rest of you, get to putting stuff away. It's almost closing, anyway. I'll see ya tomorrow."

Derek wrapped his arm around his sore ribs as he waited in Carl's office. He hadn't been in trouble at the youth center before; he respected Carl, and didn't want to make problems. But when Angel had started talking smack about Desi, he'd seen red. No one got to insult his family. No one.

Carl came in and shut the door with a bang "Explain." His voice was hard.

"He was saying shi—stuff about my sister. Said she was..." Derek reconsidered repeating Angel's words to his mentor; that kind of language wouldn't win him anything. "Anyway, my sister's no slut. No one gets to say that kind of stuff about my family!"

"I know that's gonna make you mad, Derek, but flat-out brawling? There's no excuse—"

"What if it was your sister? You'd just let some asshole talk about her like that and not show him what's up?" Derek glared at his mentor. "I don't believe that."

Carl seemed to consider that, studying him for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice had softened a little. "You're hurt," he said, looking at Derek's arms where they shielded his ribs. "Let me see."

"I'm okay," Derek denied.

"Derek." It was not a request. He patted the top of his desk. "Sit up here so I can see what kind of damage you got going there."

Derek carefully sat on the edge of the desk. He tried not to wince as he carefully pulled his shirt off, exposing a rapidly darkening set of bruises. Carl reached into a small fridge/freezer behind his desk and grabbed an ice pack. "Think they're broken?" he asked, wrapping the pack in the teen's discarded tee-shirt.

Derek shook his head; he'd never broken a rib, but had heard that it hurt like hell. He was sore, but it wasn't brutal or anything.

"Lemme check." Carl put the pack on the desk and ran his hands slowly over Derek's ribcage. His fingers were cold as they traced along his side. It might have tickled if he hadn't been so sore. "Worse when I do this?" he asked, pressing against his side. Derek drew air in through his teeth.

"Well, yeah, but it's a bruise," he said. "Gonna hurt if you push on it."

Carl snorted and dropped his hands. "I don't think they're broken."

"Told you," Derek replied sullenly.

Carl's face went stern again. "Derek, I can understand why you wanted to pound his face into the pavement, but that doesn't mean I condone it. I can't let it go unpunished."

Derek held his breath. His ma was going to be so pissed if she heard about this. "Carl, I—"

The man handed him the ice pack."You're banned for two weeks, son. And I'm gonna call your mother."

Derek felt his face fall, even as he pressed the ice against the worst of the bruising. "Two weeks? Mama's gonna kill me, man! She don't like to leave me alone all that time, 'specially not when she's working the graveyard. She says she wouldn't even know if I didn't make it home if you didn't drop me off after the center closes." He was stumbling over his words, trying to explain. "Carl, please!"

Carl looked regretful, but his voice was stern. "You know that the rules around here: no guns, no drugs, and no violence. Beating Angel Laurence into the ground definitely counts as violence. And there's got to be consequences. You should just count yourself lucky I didn't call the cops."

That made Derek blanch. Last time he'd been picked up, he'd been threatened with juvie. That in itself had scared him half to death, but then his mama had picked him up at the station. She had gone ballistic. The halls of the cop shop had echoed as she bawled out her son, or at least it had seemed that way to Derek. And when they'd gotten home, she'd whupped his butt. Then she grounded him for a month. Fran Morgan loved her children, but she did not tolerate bullshit. "Please, Carl, I'm begging you. You can punish me however you want, but don't ban me from here." Derek licked his lips nervously. "And please, please don't mention the cops to my ma. Please!" If he never saw the business end of that wooden spoon again, it would still be too soon.

Carl was considering it; Derek could tell by the look on the man's face. And it wasn't like Derek would mind helping Carl clean up the center. He did that anyway, just to hang out with the man. And even if he had to do the truly gross stuff, like scrubbing out the toilets, it would be way better than the fury his mama would kick up.

"What would your mother do?" Carl asked finally. Derek felt his cheeks heat up a little. He looked down at his dirty sneakers. But Carl didn't break the silence, so Derek knew he'd have to answer.

"She'd probably whup my butt. With a spoon," he admitted reluctantly, because part of him was pretty sure that thirteen was getting kind of old for a spanking. "She really, really hates fighting."

The silence seemed really long to Derek, but he was afraid to look up. He prayed that Carl wouldn't ban him from here and tell his mom. He let God know his willingness to scrub toilets for the next two years if Mama didn't have to hear about this.

Carl let out a sigh. "Alright, Derek. But this is for your mother's sake, as much as yours; I know that she worries about you being on your own too much. So I'll take care of it."

Derek tried not to sigh his relief too loudly. "Thank you. I promise I'll—"

"Hang on a second, son. You might not be thanking me in a minute here." Carl looked him straight in the eye. "This was a big deal. I saw you pounding Angel's head into the dirt. His nose was bleeding. You don't think that cleaning up around the youth center is going to be punishment enough for something that big, do you? You do that anyway, just to help out. If you were much older, much bigger, I would have called the cops, and that's no lie. I wouldn't have tried to break up a fight like that among the bigger boys, 'cause I have no need for broken bones."

Derek felt his heart start to pound at the mention of the cops. If Carl wasn't going to make him work it off here at the youth center...he had no idea what his punishment would be. "So then, uh...what you gonna do?" He drew his lower lip into his mouth, waiting.

Carl's gaze was intense. "Honestly, I think your mama has the right idea. So unless you've changed your mind about wanting me to take care of your punishment, I'm gonna spank you."

That was not what Derek had been expecting to hear. He inhaled rapidly through his nose. "Spank me?" he repeated, surprised.

"Unless you'd rather stick with the original plan, and have me call your mom," Carl said, watching him closely. "It's your choice."

Derek weighed it in his head. If Carl told his ma, odds were she'd pull out that wooden spoon, and ground him besides. But both of those things paled in comparison to the guilt Derek would feel, stressing out his mama like that. And it would cause her a lot of stress to know that Derek had nothing to keep him out of trouble during the long hours she was at work. If Carl spanked him, well, that would suck, but he'd survive, and it would save him a lot of trouble at home. He swallowed hard and gathered up his courage. "Okay," he said.

"Okay?" Carl asked.

"I'd rather you did it. I mean, I just don't want to freak out my ma, you know?" He felt both terrified and brave. Carl was, plain and simple, bigger and stronger than his mother, and he knew this was gonna hurt. "I shouldn'ta been fighting, so this is my own fault anyway. Mama shouldn't have to suffer for it."

Carl squeezed his shoulder. "There's the Derek Morgan I know and love," he said. Even in these weird, somewhat scary circumstances, Carl's praise gave Derek a warm feeling in his chest. "Alright, champ, let's get this over with."

The big man sat down on the straight-backed chair in front of his desk. "Put down the ice pack," he said. Derek put it down on the surface of the desk, unsure of how this was going to go down. "Stand up," Carl continued to direct. Derek wondered if his mentor could see his nervousness. He put his hands on Derek's hips and pulled him forward between his knees. "Drop your jeans."

That froze him. It wasn't because he was ashamed of Carl seeing him or anything; at the cabin, he'd gone swimming in nothing but skin and Carl had assured him that his body was perfectly normal for his age. But that was in the middle of the woods, way far away from any other people, and this was in Carl's office. Not that there was anyone here except the two of them, but it just felt strange. His stomach was starting to knot from nerves. "Carl?" he asked, and his voice sounded young and nervous to his own ears. "Mama never made me..."

"Son, your ma knows you're too old to be getting undressed in front of her; she doesn't want to embarrass you. But there's no reason for you to be embarrassed; it's not like you have anything I haven't seen before."

Derek still didn't move. His heart was pounding like he'd just run a race. "But—"

"And anyway, your mom uses a spoon. But it isn't like I paddle kids on a regular basis around here, so all I've got is my hand." Derek's eyes dropped to Carl's hand; suddenly, it seemed absolutely massive. "And I have no intention of wearing out my hand trying to get through a bunch of clothing."

It made a weird sort of sense to Derek, but still his stomach was twisted up like a ball of yarn after a cat got to it. Reluctantly, he tried to undo the button of his jeans, but his hands were sweaty and shaking. Carl said, "I've got it," and gently batted his hands aside. Derek stood, frozen, wanting to protest that he could do it, but unable to speak. Before he found his voice, his mentor unbuttoned his jeans and gave them a yank, sending them pooling down around his knees. His boxers followed soon after. Embarrassed, Derek covered his penis with his hands, which Carl thankfully ignored.

"Alright. Because your ribs are sore, I'm going to put you over my knees," Carl explained. He maneuvered Derek around to his side. Derek shuffled, hobbled by the constraints of his clothes. "It should keep them from getting jostled too much."

Derek felt himself blush right to the roots of his hair. Over his knees? What was he, five? His mama never did that; hadn't since he was a little boy. Wasn't he too damn big for that? But he didn't say anything, because he was afraid that if he protested, Carl would decide to tell his mom instead. Or even worse, call the cops. And anyway, he'd told Carl he could punish him however he wanted...

The man positioned Derek, who was shaking as adrenalin flooded his system, carefully over his lap. Derek pressed his hands against the floor and tried not to think. "That okay on your ribs?" Carl asked.

This had to be the weirdest conversation he'd ever had, Derek decided, but he nodded. Carl's hand rubbed at his back for a moment, and Derek was suddenly, horribly aware that except for the jeans bunched around his knees, he was pretty much naked. He felt his face flame anew. It was not the same, being naked like this as it was when going swimming. His belly clenched, and for a moment, he wondered if he might puke.

Then Carl's hand fell hard against his butt, and there was a loud cracking noise. The pain was immediate. His concerns over being so exposed were forgotten; all Derek could think about was how much this hurt. He gritted his teeth, determined to take his punishment like a man. He didn't want Carl to think he was a baby.

But despite his best intentions to stay silent, Carl was strong, and his hand was huge. It hurt way more than Mama's spoon, which Derek wouldn't have even thought was possible. He could hear his teeth squeaking, even over the loud smacks of skin against skin. They came fast, hard, and unrelenting.

SMACK! A particularly hard swat to the back of his thigh was what broke him. It sent the tears that had been pooling in his eyes spilling down his face. He couldn't contain the strangled cry, and instinctively, he threw his hand back to protect his burning skin. Carl grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the small of his back, barely even breaking stride.

It wasn't long after that before Derek started to plead. "O-ow! I'm sorry! Carl, I'm s-sorry!" He couldn't remember the last time he'd been spanked hard enough to make him cry, but he was sobbing now. "P-please!"

Carl didn't seem to even hear him. Derek felt like he was choking on his own snot, and he struggled against his mentor's restraining hand, his legs jerking and kicking from the pain. "P-please! S-s-stop!"

Yet it still continued, each second seeming to stretch for minutes. Finally, he could do nothing except wail wordlessly, like a bawling baby. And then, suddenly, Derek found himself upright again, wrapped in his mentor's arms and sobbing helplessly into the front of his shirt.

It took him a minute to calm his ragged breathing enough to hear what Carl was whispering in his ear. "Shh, that's my good boy. You'll be okay. Shh, champ. Okay. Okay." His hand smoothed over Derek's hair.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry!" Derek cried, his voice muffled by Carl's shirt. His vow to take this punishment like a man was long-forgotten. "S-so s-s-s—"

"Shh. I know. You're okay. Just breathe for me. That's my boy." Carl continued to croon nonsense into his ear, the same hand that had brutally spanked him now rubbing his back.

It was a couple of minutes before Derek pulled it together enough to realize that he was still practically naked. He tried to push away from Carl's arms, embarrassed, but Carl didn't release him. "It's okay, Derek," he said into his ear. "Just relax."

"I-I just wanna, uh—"

Carl cut him off. "You don't have to be embarrassed, Derek. I know that hurt; it was supposed to. I expected you to cry. But it's over now, and you're never going to fight like that again, right? I'd hate to have to give you another spanking." He grabbed Derek's arms and let him take a step back, studying him. Derek's eyes felt like they were practically swollen shut from crying so hard, and he was trembling with the aftereffects of all that sobbing, but even so, he just wanted to be able to get dressed again. He felt terribly exposed and vulnerable, especially now that Carl had his biceps in his hands, effectively preventing him from covering himself from view.

"N-no sir, never," Derek promised fervently He looked down; between his nudity and the fact that the man had just spanked him, he was too embarrassed to look his mentor in the face.

Suddenly, Carl hooked one hand behind his neck and pulled him forward again. Derek's face shot up, half-afraid that the man was going to continue with that awful spanking. Maybe he hadn't believed him? But Derek meant it; he was never, ever going to fight again. At least not here! If something like this happened again, he was going to take his chances with Mama!

But Carl didn't spank him anymore. Instead, he was surprised by a kiss that landed directly on his lips. Derek jerked back so hard he hit the desk behind him. He yelped as the hard surface came into contact with his sore butt.

"I'm sorry, Derek. I didn't mean to scare you," Carl said, and suddenly the man was standing over him, too close. He looked remorseful. "Are you okay? Did you hurt your ribs?" His hands darted to Derek's ribs again, as if to feel for damage.

Derek shook his head, pulling back a little. "I'm o-okay," he mumbled. Derek bent and quickly yanked up his jeans, his butt screaming at him again as the fabric rasped over the sore, inflamed skin. He didn't know what to think. Had Carl really just kissed him on the lips? Had that really just happened? It reminded him of the kiss Lisa had planted on him after the dance, and that made his stomach twist, because that wasn't right. Kisses like that belonged with Lisa, not Carl. He swallowed hard, then steeled up the raggedy ends of his courage.

"You k-kissed me," he whispered, more than a little confused. "Why'd you..."

"Oh, Derek, I wasn't thinking," Carl said. "I'm sorry, champ. My dad always hugged and kissed me after a spanking. He said he wanted me to know he still loved me, even though I'd been naughty. I was just going on instinct. I meant to let you know that you're forgiven, champ." He hugged Derek again.

Derek felt more confused than ever. Carl's dad had kissed him on the lips? His own parents never did that; they kissed on the cheek. But he knew for a fact that some parents kissed their kids on the lips...He guessed that didn't matter all that much. Maybe he was only freaking out because he was just embarrassed about Carl spanking him. And it was weird to be undressed in front of someone in a place where people usually had their clothes on; it reminded him of the awful dream he'd had last week, where he'd been in front of the class and suddenly had no clothes. But on top of those uncomfortable feelings was that familiar warmth in his chest that he felt any time the man treated him like a son. If Carl was just treating Derek like Carl's daddy had treated him, well, there was nothing bad about that, right? After all, Derek's daddy had loved him and his sisters more than anything. Carl's dad surely felt the same way about his son. But even though this made sense, Derek's stomach still felt funny. He shoved that strange feeling aside and nodded. "Okay," he said, and his voice sounded almost normal again. "Okay, Carl. I p-promise, no more fighting."

"That's my good boy." Carl released him, then patted his shoulder softly. "Get your shirt on, and I'll take you home, okay?" he said, taking a step back. "Your mama home tonight?"

Derek shook his head. "But you said you weren't gonna tell her," he reminded the man tentatively, pulling his shirt away from the ice pack and carefully slipping it over his head. He shivered as the cold fabric slipped over his skin, and briefly wondered if an ice pack would help his tortured butt feel any better.

"I won't, son. I was just asking. C'mon, let's get you home."

And just like that, Carl had gotten his hooks into him. Derek suddenly became aware of warm wetness on his cheeks, and he swiped angrily at the tears with the palm of his hand..

He hadn't known how completely fucked up Carl's actions were then. That no sane adult in that situation would have done such a thing to a kid; not the spanking, especially not like that, and sure as hell not the kiss. But he'd been so young, that when Carl explained stuff to him, he didn't know enough to know the explanations didn't make sense. He hadn't liked Carl's kisses, especially as they became more and more sexual, but he hadn't known that it wasn't normal for an adult to kiss a kid like that. And every time he'd objected when Carl escalated the abuse, the man would tell him how special he was, and how much he loved him, and that people who loved each other did things to make each other feel good. And it felt good, didn't it? And some of it had, and even when it didn't, even when it hurt or he was scared, he kept quiet because he had been so confused. Because there was a part of him that had loved Carl and wanted to please him, especially in the early stages. And there was another part of him that was fiercely proud. He could remember his daddy telling him that Morgans always repaid their debts. Carl had given him so much—he'd kept him off the streets and out of juvie, for one, not to mention hundreds of dollars worth of gifts. He'd written that letter to the judge that had convinced him to expunge and seal his juvenile record, which had indirectly gotten him into school. Then there was the football coaching, and the trips, and the things that he'd wished his dad could be there for. Derek had thought he owed his mentor, and the only thing that Carl had wanted from him...was him.

By the time that Derek figured out that what Carl was doing was really, really wrong, there were hundreds of reasons not to tell, and the biggest of them all was the fear that other people would find out. Like Lisa, or any of the other girls he was interested in as the years went on, because surely they'd think he was gay if they knew. Or like the guys in his gym class and the football team, who made fun of "faggots" all the time in the locker room; Derek wasn't so sure that he wasn't one, because otherwise, why would Carl have done that stuff to him? Like his sisters and his mother. God, the last thing he wanted to do was tell his mama about this stuff. She'd probably cry, and Derek just wouldn't do that to her.

Then there had been his own worries, his own guilt and shame and fear. After that spanking, he'd always been a little bit physically afraid of Carl, who was big and imposing. He was afraid that what Carl was doing to him meant he was gay. He was even more afraid that if anyone found out, they would say he was gay, and in his neighborhood, that was practically a death sentence. After all, why would a guy who liked girls (which Derek very much did) let a man do that kind of stuff to him? He'd been in college before that identity crisis let up completely.

Carl had helped him get accepted to that school, after writing that letter to the judge and getting his record expunged. Derek wouldn't have made it into Northwestern on his own, even with his football skills, because he never would have gotten the scholarships that made it possible; criminals didn't get scholarships. Carl had never had to tell him not to tell anyone; he just made it impossible for Derek to do so because he had so damn much to lose if he did.

But Derek had lost a lot anyway. Derek had been a few months shy of fifteen when Carl had stolen his virginity, but he had taken Derek's innocence long before. He'd felt so guilty, so dirty all the time. He'd hated it all, even the stuff that didn't hurt, even the stuff that had felt good, because there was something inside of him that told him that it was wrong. Unfortunately, that same something hadn't blamed Carl, but rather himself. He'd spent his teens thinking that he'd made the man do this stuff to him, because he was too good-looking and too eager for attention from a father-figure; Carl would say things like, "How could I resist a boy as pretty and willing as you?" Morgan the profiler understood that those words were the rationalization of a sick son-of-a-bitch preying on a kid who was desperate for a father-figure, but Derek the boy hadn't understood any such thing.

After they'd connected the murders to Buford, it had struck Morgan that he'd only lived to adulthood because he'd never told Carl no, never even threatened to tell anyone about what the man was doing. He'd barely made it to the bathroom before becoming desperately, violently ill. He could have been one of those dead boys, killed by a man who said that he loved them, he realized. Those ashen, gray faces...his could have been among them. He'd hidden in the bathroom for nearly half an hour, trying to pull himself together again.

As a teenager Morgan had desperately hated himself. He'd hated his own cowardice. He'd begged Carl not to do make him do certain things, begged him not to touch him...but he'd never run away and he'd never fought back. Carl would put his hands on him, and he'd be helpless to stop the man, doing what he was told as a part of him hid in the corner of his own mind. Even as he got bigger, grew to the point where fighting Carl off was a physical possibility, he'd never tried. He'd always just stared up at the sky as Carl had told him and tried not to think about what the man was doing to his body.

In college, his self-hatred grew even stronger. He was far away from Carl, and the man had lost interest in him anyway as his body changed from lanky teenager to muscular young man, but he still felt that fear that one day, all of this stuff was going to come back and bite him in the ass. He pushed it deep into the dustiest corner of his mind, sleeping with every desirable woman willing to grace his bed...and there had been plenty. It had reassured him that he was normal, that they couldn't see what Carl had done to him.

Working with James as the teen got ready to testify had helped him forgive his younger self, or so he'd thought...until tonight. Tonight, he hated that kid he'd been so much.

Another angry tear escaped, and he growled as he swiped his hand over his cheek again. Part of him wanted to go back to that old way of dealing with it—to call up a beautiful honey and fuck until he could erase that phantom feeling of Carl on his skin. It was only eleven—he could still pick up a girl at his favorite club.

Instead, he got up and headed back into the bathroom. Another shower wouldn't hurt anything, and he wasn't really feeling on top of his game tonight.

He stayed in there, scrubbing at his skin until the water turned cold.