Chapter Two #2
Jasper was curled on his side in the dirt beside the fence, knees drawn up, arms over his head, not making a sound. And that silence told me everything I needed to know about how many times this had happened before.
I crouched down a few feet away, hands open and visible at my sides, and kept my voice level. “My name is Decker Reynolds. Your grandfather sent me. I’m not here to hurt you.”
He scrambled back until his spine hit the fence, eyes up and braced, a split lip already swelling dark in the thin light from the street. He was running the math—I could see it in the sharp focus of his gaze—weighing whether one threat was better or worse than the one that just left.
I didn’t move closer. I stayed low, hands still visible, and waited.
“You work with babies,” I said, offering the detail my grandfather had given me—something that wasn‘t about his body or his designation. “Neonatal. At the hospital in Omaha.”
Something flickered across his face—not quite recognition, but the next best thing. He nodded once, a short, tight movement.
“My grandfather is a friend of your grandfather’s,” I continued. “Earl. He asked mine for help. They’ve known each other fifty years.”
Another nod, slightly less guarded this time.
“Can you stand?” I asked.
He could, though not easily. He was lean and pale in the thin light from the street, taller than I’d expected, with the kind of wiry build that came from working hard, but not eating enough.
A bruise was forming along his jaw, and his knuckles were split where he’d tried to block a blow. He moved with the careful precision of someone who’d learned exactly how much damage his body could take.
“Inside,” he said, the word barely audible. “My grandfather—“
I nodded and stepped back, giving him space.
He led the way to the back door, moving with the wariness of prey animals—each step measured, head constantly turning to track potential threats.
The door opened into a small kitchen with yellowed linoleum and a table with two chairs.
The lights were off, but a lamp glowed from the living room.
Jasper paused in the doorway, one hand on the frame. “Grandpa?” he called, his voice steadier than it had been outside. “We’ve got company.”
The man who appeared in the doorway to the living room was frail—bones visible beneath paper-thin skin, shoulders stooped with age—but his eyes were sharp and alert the moment they focused on me. He took in my height, my build, the way I held myself, and nodded once.
“You’re Cal’s boy,” he said, not a question.
“Yes, sir.” I stayed where I was, making no move to approach. “He sent me to get your grandson out of here. Tonight, if possible.”
The old man—Earl—turned to Jasper, who had positioned himself between us, still keeping his distance from both. “This is the man we’ve been waiting for,” Earl said, his voice carrying a quiet force that belied his physical appearance. “You need to go. Tonight. Now.”
Jasper looked at his grandfather for a long beat, something working behind his eyes, then nodded once—a decision that looked like it was already made before I ever showed up.
The packing was fast and sparse. Jasper moved through the small house touching things briefly—a hand on the kitchen doorframe, a pause at the shelf above the radiator where a collection of small carved animals stood in a neat row—saying goodbye to a place without using the word.
He packed a single duffel—clothes, a few books, a photograph in a wooden frame I couldn’t see the subject of.
A toothbrush. A battered paperback with a broken spine.
Nothing sentimental except the photograph.
Nothing that couldn’t be replaced except maybe the carving of a horse he slipped into his pocket at the last minute.
His grandfather took both of Jasper’s hands in his and told him not to come back until it was safe. No raised voices, no drawn-out farewell, just two people pressing the weight of the moment into a handhold.
“I’ll call as soon as I can,” Jasper said, his voice catching on the word.
His grandfather nodded. “You will.” Then, to me: “Get him to Montana. Cal says you’ve got connections there—people who won‘t ask questions.”
“Yes, sir.” I didn’t elaborate on what those connections were or how I’d come by them. The fewer details, the better for everyone.
We were out the door and in the truck within the hour, heading west into the Nebraska darkness. I drove. Jasper sat with his knees pulled up and his face turned toward the passenger window, not talking.
The silence between us wasn’t comfortable yet, but it wasn’t hostile either—just two people who’d both had a long night, not yet sure what the other one was.
I didn’t push.
I watched the flat dark road unspool ahead of us and didn’t let myself think too hard about what I’d just agreed to.
The plan—if you could call it that—was to get back to Black Butte, put Jasper up in one of the guestrooms until I could talk to Rawley, and then figure out next steps from there.
Not exactly a thorough extraction, but it was what I had to work with.
We’d been driving for nearly two hours when Jasper spoke for the first time.
“I’m not your responsibility,” he said, the words coming out stiff, like he’d rehearsed them and still wasn’t sure they were right. “Once we get to Montana, I’ll figure something out. I won’t—“ He stopped, started again. “I’m not looking for charity.”
I glanced over at him. In the dim light from the dashboard, his profile was all angles—cheekbone, jaw, the straight line of his nose. “Nobody said you were.”
He turned to look at me then, really look, his eyes doing the same quick assessment mine had done when I first saw him. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “You don’t know me. You don’t owe me anything.”
It was a fair question. One I’d been asking myself since my grandfather had first explained the situation.
I could have told him about the debt I owed—about standing by people who’d stood by me, about being the only person someone trusted.
But those explanations would have required more words than I was willing to spend.
So I gave him the simplest truth I had. “My grandfather asked me to.”
He held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded once and turned back to the window. The conversation was over, but something had shifted between us—a door opening just a crack, not enough to walk through but enough to see what was on the other side.
The road stretched ahead, empty and dark. Montana was still twelve hours away. I settled in for the drive, hands steady on the wheel, and tried not to think about what would happen when we got there.