“Mmm.” Scout still avoids eye contact, nervously tugging on his shirt. Where Gavroche was proud of his work, Scout shrinks from looking straight at it.

“…None of their people ever hurt me. And all of them were running away. They weren’t trying to fight.” He points at the shadow of the party on the road. “We set up on a road that led out of the country. Dad said they don’t deserve to run, and we need to take back all the money and things they stole.” He lets his arm go slack in his lap. “But no one stole anything from me or my family. I went to school with some of them. They never seemed so different.”

Despite the dark shade of his skin, it takes a visibly greenish tint. “We wouldn’t even let them go if they offered to give us everything they had. Why couldn’t we let them go if all we wanted was their things?”

He swallows hard. “I dunno if anyone else felt like me. I was scared to say anything. They offered to let me rape one of the girls my age, and I lied and said I didn’t like girls like that yet. They thought I might be gay, and Dad was the one who told them to let me grow a couple more years and I’d be a man like them, so they didn’t need to try beating the gay out of me.”