When All is Null and Void

Chapter Forty

When the article came out on the Holostream at 7:30am the following morning Titus nearly threw up once more. The title was a blast of thick, bold letters: TITUS JAMES – Abused Child of Museum Head?Perhaps it might have been any other article written by the unknown gossips on the social columns.

A byline from a Ralston, though? In minutes, the article had sped around the world and entered millions of Holos. Titus didn't want to read it, but the dreadful curiosity of his was too strong to fight. Laying in bed, eyes still blurry with the sleep he'd woken from as his own Wrist holo alerted him of the story, Titus opened the document.

The world is acquainted with Rhea James, the stunning head of the Museum. For years, we have watched her develop a state of the art institution in downtown Manhattan that defies human imagination. Fifteen years ago, her husband, Carter James, died aboard his own privately owned jet. The world looked to Mrs. Rhea James, wondering if she might carry on. Certainly she has.

Recently, I sat down with Titus James, now seventeen, in order to garner an understanding of what his life is like. Save for rare public appearances at the quarterly Galas hosted at the James Estate, Titus is hardly in the spotlight. My desire was to discover the real person behind the enigma.

What I discovered is a heartbreaking tale of an abused child, believing he is unworthy of love--"________." Upon entering the James Estate for our interview, Titus ushered me to his bedroom, where he locked the door. He seemed fearful, and in the ensuing minutes he regaled for me a childhood of trauma at his own mother's hand. To prove this, he removed his shirt and showed me a long scar across his back. I was shocked, as the wound was so fresh.

Our meeting ended rather abruptly, and I must assume that Titus was afraid of his mother's wrath at finding out about not only this interview, but the contents shared therein.

Titus shuddered. He couldn't read any more, lest he grind his teeth into dust. A slurry of anger dug into his gut, shame winding tighter until his cheeks burned with it. What was Alaric Ralston getting at? What did he want? Titus wished he could Hop back to the interview and change the outcome.

He couldn't, and his powerlessness over the situation made him feel much sicker. He didn't believe it possible to feel any worse than he did until his bedroom door opened and his mom stood there, looking stricken and pale. Titus knew she'd seen the article.

Without so much as breathing a word, she strode across the room and stood before Titus. He wasn't wearing a shirt now, having slept in only a pair of shorts.

"Let me see your back," she said, and the tension there told Titus he could not disobey.

Standing, heart plummeting into the depths of his gut, Titus turned to show Rhea James the long, curved scar from the Gladiator. Always stoic, poised, and unaffected by the world, Titus was aware of the slow, desperate decay of his mother as she traced her forefinger along the scar.

She cleared her throat, forcing the emotions to the side. "Who did this to you?"

Titus' tongue lay thick like carpet in his mouth. "About a month ago..." he murmured. "Trier... but Peggy—" he halted, not wanting to incriminate his mother's assistant any further.

"Pull up data from storage," his mom said to her own Wrist holo. "Footage of surgery."

Only one surgery had occurred in the last month, and that was on the evening Titus had returned, bloodied and battered. The sound of his agonized, nearly animalistic groans and screams echoed from the tiny speaker on his mom's wrist.

A flush filled her face, disbelief and despair a bitter concoction. Titus had never known his mother to be anything but strikingly beautiful, but in this moment, she was ugly with anger. Not that she would hurt him—she would never. Titus was afraid that he had broken the woman who cared for him the most.

"You lied to me," she said, breathless and throaty. "You never—you..."

"Mom. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have met with Alaric. He wouldn't have written—"

She leveled her gaze at him. "I don't care about any damn article. I care about the fact that you kept this from me. What if you'd died? What would I do, Titus? I can't save you."

Titus was trembling. She didn't care how Alaric discovered the information. She just cared that the scar existed.

They stood in hair raising silence for a long moment before Titus watched his world crumble. "Give me your ring."

"What?"

Her voice was harder now, fire and brimstone flying in her usually calm demeanor. "Give. Me. Your ring."

"No," Titus said. "No, you need me."

"You're myson. I am supposed to protect you. Titus Elias James, give me your ring."

"You'll have to take it from me," Titus responded. She couldn't take it. He would be stuck. He couldn't be stuck. Hopping was what kept him alive. She had to know how much it mattered. "I'll get Ringlock." He would take that.

"I love you Titus. It is not safe for you to help me close the Void leaks. All of this isn't safe."

"But you need me."

"I have Caleb." Those words were worse than if she'd slapped him.

Without his consent, he watched his mother grip time in her hand. She stopped everything except for his rocketing thoughts. His heart halted, his blood stopped thumping. And in that stillness, Titus watched his mother unfurl his clenched hand and slide the ring off his hand without so much as blinking.

"From now on, you're no longer a Timewalker. I release you of your bond to the ring, and I reclaim it." She walked to the bedroom door and gave him one last glance before leaving and releasing her hold.

"I do this because I love you. And I will not lose you like I lost your father."

Titus was left, dumbfounded and shocked. Already, as his ring fled down the hallway in his mom's grasp, the change was palpable. The freedom that constantly called to him had slammed closed, leaving him in a desperate, inescapable prison cell.