Chapter 11 #6
Tobias’s expression went blank, in the way it had in too many of those damned tapes—the fucking tapes where Tobias didn’t cry, didn’t even struggle, because Jake could see hopelessness and resignation, acceptance, the not-even-despair in every line of his body.
* * *
Tobias had difficulty drawing breath to speak.
“I didn’t think you’d . . . You never seemed to .
. .” He swallowed. It hurt going down, like that last sip of beer had burned his throat raw.
He gathered his strength, pulling up anger with it because he didn’t have much else left.
The idea, the confirmation, that even some part of Jake regretted them dragged up old, groveling, panicky instincts that threatened to send him to the floor to beg.
He gritted his teeth and rubbed at his forehead, trying to ground himself.
“This is a fucking bad moment to admit that you care about being seen as a freakfucker.” Tobias downed the rest of the beer in his hand in one hard chug and threw the bottle hard into the garbage can, where it shattered. He felt close to breaking too.
Roger picked up the remains of the six-pack in front of Jake and moved it out of his reach. “I think you’ve had enough.”
Jake looked at him, panic in his eyes, and Tobias almost felt pleasure at that and seeing the disapproval writ large over Roger’s face. “Goddamnit fucking hell, Toby.” He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “It’s not fucking that. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No,” Tobias said, straightening. He held himself carefully, as though injured and not sure that the tourniquet would stop the blood loss in time.
“No, I think you meant exactly what you said. You’re drunk and you’re angry, but when you’re fucking drunk and fucking angry, that’s when you say things that you mean.
That you really mean.” Tobias laughed, and it had no humor.
He couldn’t look at Jake, and his hands were rubbing his arms of their own accord, but he wasn’t cold.
“They don’t always come out the way you want them to, but they’re fucking true, Jake. ”
“Toby . . .”
“No, Jake,” Tobias snapped. “I want you to say it again. It’s fine, it’s fucking fine, it makes sense, but I don’t want you to lie to me anymore when you tell me it doesn’t matter that you .
. . I can’t have you back down now and then keep lying to me later because that means .
. . Fuck. Just fuck, Jake.” The part of him that wasn’t numb or curling up on itself in pain hated that this was going down in front of Roger.
It had been a hard-fought victory for himself over the years to feel like he could look Roger in the eye when acknowledging his relationship with Jake as something okay.
Healthy. To believe, in front of this man who had been nothing but good to him, that being with Jake was nothing he should conceal or cringe over—that he didn’t need to beg forgiveness for how thoroughly he’d tainted Jake. Now he felt ready to throw up.
But he focused on Jake and the raw, ugly truth flung between them.
“It doesn’t change anything.” Tobias didn’t know where the words came from, but he knew they were true.
“You can say you have r-r-regrets, and it doesn’t change a damn thing between us.
I’ll still love you and f-fuck you and hunt with you.
That won’t change. You have not one fucking thing to be afraid of.
But you will tell me the truth, right now, you will fucking say it or .
. . or I’m gone. Because you can have regrets, Jake, but if you lie to me right now, I’ll know that you regret more than .
. . more than what you’ve lost. It’ll be us you regret. ”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Toby.” Jake looked frantic, shaken, and Tobias wanted to believe him, but he couldn’t yet. Jake had encouraged him for years to stand his ground, to speak for himself. He wasn’t going to fucking crumble when the stakes were so high.
“So how did you mean it?” Tobias’s voice was still shaky, angry. “What is it exactly that you gave up for me?”
* * *
Distantly, in the part of his brain that wasn’t cursing his stupidity, Jake was fucking proud that Toby was strong enough to shove him to a metaphorical wall and threaten to leave his ass behind.
Most of him was even glad that Roger looked ready to shove him against a physical wall for the stupidity of blaming Tobias in any way for how his life had gone.
The rest of him hurt.
Jake took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
He couldn’t look at Tobias or Roger if he wanted to get the words out.
“I miss Dad,” he said. “Not every day, but sometimes I miss him so much it hurts. And I wouldn’t .
. .” He had to open his eyes then to look at Tobias because Tobias had to believe this, he had to.
“I wouldn’t put you back in that fucking hellhole for even a minute if it meant that I could have him back.
I wouldn’t trade you for a second, Tobias.
But it hurts, and some days I wish…” I wish Leon Hawthorne wasn’t a crazy bastard willing to kill his own son.
I wish that he could have been different, that I could have been someone who could make him proud.
“He was my life and he’s gone, and I’d be lying if I said I was dancing two-steps about that, but I know there’s no way that I could have you both in my life. ”
Tobias swallowed visibly. “Is that it, Jake? Is that seriously it? You can’t lie to me about this.”
“That’s . . . that’s what I meant, but there’s more.
” Jake paused, his gaze moving over the front of Roger’s house.
It had stood just like that in his earliest memories.
“You know… well, maybe you not as much, Tobias, but Roger . . . you know how I grew up. Always on the road because Dad—my father couldn’t let go of Mom, didn’t ever really believe her death was what we were told it was. ”
“Yeah,” Roger agreed quietly. “That’s Leon.”
“He lived for revenge, for figuring out what happened to her, making them pay, and he never could do it because the werewolves or whatever that killed her are dead, or gone, or didn’t leave a fucking trace.
I never got it, you know? I thought my dad was this fucking awesome hunter and man, and as I got older, with you, Tobias, I realize that there’s gotta be more to life than revenge.
There should be more than hunting, even if it’s everything, because I have you, and Roger and .
. . fuck, the Eldorado and burgers. But I can feel it, Tobias.
Watching what they did to you, I understand him better than I ever fucking did.
I can feel that obsession I saw in him like a fucking chestbuster.
I don’t want it. I don’t want it, but I don’t know how to fucking stop it from eating me alive like it did my dad.
“The only thing I’ve got,” he continued, feeling light-headed, but relieved at having admitted to the rage, “is the idea that I can head it off. Strike at the heart of that fucking camp and reduce it to ashes before I start jumping at every damn shadow, thinking it’s another one of the bastards that made you bleed.
That’s what I want to do, Tobias. I want to burn down this obsession before it poisons me. Or before it poisons us.”
The silence after Jake’s words stretched a very long time. Tobias and Roger alike stared at him, and Jake could feel his skin crawl, his heart kick up into high gear in a fight-or-flight response.
Then Tobias blew out his breath and nodded. “That . . . that almost makes sense.”
“What?” Now Roger stared at Tobias instead, incredulous. “You can’t be serious. That’s . . . yeah, I get that, Leon was an obsessed bastard . . . is, probably . . . But going after FREACS is a stupid death wish of an idea with a shit-all chance of success.”
“Yes, it is,” Tobias agreed, and looked Jake hard in the eye. “If we did this, you could let it go? You really think you could walk away afterward?”
The adrenaline burning in Jake’s blood took on a different feel, a changed intensity.
Fight-or-flight was definitely riding toward fight.
“Yeah,” he choked out. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t put a bullet in another one of those bastards’ heads if I saw them in the wild.
But if we went in, hit them where it hurts .
. . yeah, that would be the end of the hunt. Even if the bones weren’t salted.”
“Tobias,” Roger said. “You can’t—”
“Okay,” Tobias said. “We’re not going off half-cocked to burn it down, because that kind of stupidity just does their work for them, but…
yes, okay. If we can come up with a plan that Roger agrees isn’t just a fiery suicide mission, something that both of us can come out of alive—we’ll do it. Because I want this finished.”
Jake felt a grin burst across his face, a satisfaction that would have been frightening in any other situation. “Hell yeah,” he said. “Let’s burn it down.”
* * *
Of course it wasn’t that simple. Roger, Jake, and Tobias talked for a few hours about everything they knew about the camp and its security features (which was a conversation that Jake had very little input in, and that Tobias had to leave the room for twice).
Roger logged Tobias into his ASC intranet to see what he could find, and Jake went to help Roger dig up everything they knew about the layout, the structural design, and the current guard roster from his records.
“It’s all going to be out of date,” Roger said as they hauled boxes.
“Yeah, they’ve gotten more tight-lipped about their plans than they used to be,” Jake said.
“That too,” Roger agreed. “But I also haven’t been to FREACS in years.”
Jake was clearly about to ask why, and then realization came over his face. They were silent over the boxes for a long minute, before Jake gave a short nod of acknowledgment.