Chapter 1 #3
The man had short cropped dark hair, peppered with gray.
He was stocky and not as tall as Jake, but his face terrified Tobias.
The cold, assessing gaze, the casual self-assured way he held himself, did not belong to just any hunter.
A lifetime of pain had taught Tobias to brace himself when confronted with that body language, that calculating look.
This one would recognize Tobias for what he was.
Tobias could hope that stillness was enough to escape, to remain unnoticed, but he knew in the pit of his stomach that it was not. It never had been. Hunters always spotted him.
The man walked first to the counter, though he didn’t order anything. His sharp gaze swept the room. Tobias knew that, even though his own eyes remained fixed on the floor ahead of him, still as a mouse before a cat.
Then the hunter turned and strode toward him, unhurried but purposeful.
In that awful, last moment, Tobias wished he could be the real that Jake had taught him to be.
He wished he could leap up, hurl his chair through the window, escape or defend himself with a shard of broken glass.
He would not win, but at least he would leave behind evidence of a fight.
When Jake returned, he could put the pieces together.
He’d be proud of Tobias, even though Tobias would be long gone.
But there would be no fight. No sign of a struggle. Tobias would just disappear, and the other patrons would say he had left voluntarily with a hard-eyed man clad in denim. Why would Jake even bother looking for him?
Then the hunter pulled a chair over to Tobias’s table and sat down next to him. Very, very close, so that Tobias felt the hot gust of the hunter’s breath on his cheek, and his knee touched Tobias’s, and that was the end of Tobias’s ability to think anything.
His hands were still resting on the table, curled and empty, dead things. Tobias couldn’t feel them.
“You’re Hawthorne’s freak, aren’t you, boy?” The hunter’s hand settled heavily on Tobias’s shoulder, gripping hard, as though he thought Tobias had the strength to run or leap up. “Still making him happy?”
Tobias did not breathe.
“You’re looking good, freak. Bet you are making him happy.
I bet Hawthorne’s the happiest fucking freakfucker in the country.
We’ve run together a couple times, and he was the best damn hunter I’d ever seen—after his old man, of course.
Whaddaya think, is he getting better or worse pounding your freak ass every night? ”
The hunter’s hand left his shoulder, slipped down his arm and to his lap. Tobias tried not to react, not to make a noise, but he couldn’t keep some sound escaping his throat. It was too late, but he still strained for the sound of the Eldorado. Please, Jake, please—come get me one more time . . .
“You haven’t forgotten you’re a monster, have you?
You go on giving Hawthorne a good ride, because the day you fuck up—and you will, that’s the one thing you can count on monsters for—you’ll be lucky if he gives you a bullet and doesn’t stake you out somewhere as vamp bait.
Maybe he’ll drop you right back at camp.
Maybe I get to have a go when you get there. ”
Tobias tried to blank out while the hand traveled downward, tried to go somewhere that the hunter couldn’t reach him.
The hunter couldn’t do any of those things that hunters had done freely at FREACS here, not in a tiny restaurant in front of civilians.
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But the hunter’s soft words rang in his head while he gripped Tobias’s groin roughly through his jeans.
Tobias tried to remember that Jake wouldn’t hate him, didn’t hate him. That Jake knew these truths already and had never hurt him. If it comes down to that, Jake will just shoot you. He wouldn’t make you ask more than once.
The hunter’s voice in his ear was a low rasp, too quiet for anyone else in the cafe to hear but loud to Tobias. “Heard you beg real nicely, don’t you, Pretty Freak?”
There were things that Jake didn’t know, things Tobias hadn’t told him. He closed his eyes and listened for the Eldorado. If only he could run to Jake fast enough, if they could just get away, then Jake would never have to know.
* * *
Still angry and a little rattled, Jake turned the Eldorado into the parking lot behind the little cafe where he’d left Toby.
So some piece-of-shit reporter was sniffing around after him and Toby.
And unsurprisingly, hunters were still assholes.
At least Barbara hadn’t explicitly thrown him out—Jake had chosen to walk out when he did—which was something.
Even so, he had a strong feeling that he was never going back to the Crossroads Inn during normal business hours again.
The moment he entered Tina’s, the first—the only—thing he saw was Toby hunched at a table with the hunter who had left Crossroads before Jake. And the hunter sat close enough—
Jake’s blood ran cold with an unholy mix of rage and fear. Toby hated being cornered, flinched away from anyone who leaned in too close, but here he wasn’t moving. He sat hunched in on himself, as though he expected the bastard to shove a knife in him any moment.
Jake would have punched the fucker’s face in just for crowding Toby, but for that defeat in Toby’s shoulders? He was going to do far worse.
He moved before either of them saw him, fighting the urge to draw his gun in front of the civilians. Toby’s eyes were blank as the hunter’s whispers became audible to Jake.
“Crusher’s been missing you real bad too. He never shuts up about how good you used to—”
Jake grabbed the sick fuck by the back of the neck and hauled him out of his chair. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Funny how calm his voice sounded in the last moment before his control snapped.
“Hawthorne!” the pervert said, eyes wide. “Dude, man, relax. We were just having a chat about the good ol’—”
Jake aimed two vicious knee kicks, catching him in the abdomen and groin, then shoved him face-first to the floor.
The hunter made a high-pitched squealing noise and curled in on himself, and Jake had to think hard about whether he wanted to kick him in the face or drag him outside and gut him.
The cafe’s patrons were staring at him, and he could see one of the waitresses, white-faced, fumble for a telephone.
Toby was staring too, but it wasn’t relief in his eyes.
There was blank terror, like he didn’t recognize Jake at all.
The guy—Bentham, that was his name—dragged himself to his feet, one arm curled around his abdomen. The hatred in his eyes made Jake reach for his gun while stepping between the fucker and Toby.
But Bentham didn’t make a move, beyond spitting weakly toward Jake’s feet, missing his boots. “Enjoy your slut, Hawthorne. I know a lot of men have. And he begged for it too. Right, Pretty Freak?”
Before Jake could decide what to do (what he wanted was to kill the son of a bitch, but they were in public, in front of civilian witnesses), the piece of shit dragged himself out the door.
Jake took a step after him, the desire for violence briefly overwhelming any other consideration, but a small sound behind him made him turn.
Toby looked like he was a moment away from losing anything he had eaten that day.
In an instant, Jake was back at his side, reaching for his shoulder. “Toby—”
Toby jerked away, lifting his shaking hands up to the sides of his face. “Don’t,” he whispered, eyes closed and breaths sharp and shallow. “Don’t, don’t, don’t.”
Jake swallowed and took a half-step back, lowering his hands. He stared at Toby—hunched in on himself, what was visible of his face a tight mask—and knew he was gone far beyond what Jake could reach with a few words. They needed to leave this place and fast.
“Toby,” he said at last, voice low and hopefully not too rough. “Let’s go, man. Let’s get out of here.”
He didn’t know if Toby could hear him or if he’d have to touch Toby to get him to move—that would be the opposite of helping right now. But after a few awful seconds, Toby stood and turned shakily toward the door, head down, arms folded tightly across himself.
Jake had to shove his books into his backpack and take it with him because Toby hadn’t even glanced at them.
Jake kept enough distance that he could catch him if he tried to bolt—hadn’t happened yet, but that was something Jake had been afraid of every time Toby got triggered bad—but stayed far enough away that he wouldn’t be tempted to touch him, even if he stopped suddenly.
Toby remained stiff as he stumbled to the Eldorado and stopped by the passenger door.
Jake moved toward the driver’s side automatically, and then he looked at Toby again. He saw his hands clench on his shirt, how he wasn’t even looking at the smooth black door of their car. Jake swallowed, walked around, and tried not to feel anything when Toby backed away from him.
He opened the door and took a step back. He wished Toby would look at him, but until they could talk, until that horrible look faded from Toby’s face, there was nothing he could do. “Come on, Toby. Let’s go.”
Toby got in without letting go of his shirt.
Jake’s hands hurt gripping the steering wheel too tight as they drove back to the motel, and it took an effort not to jerk the turns. It was just as hard to keep his words behind his teeth, not to curse himself aloud for ever leaving Toby alone when they were in the same town as the Crossroads Inn.
But swearing wouldn’t do any good. Definitely wouldn’t help Toby. In half an hour they had lost—how many fucking months of progress? How long would it take this time before he could even reach for Toby’s hand without him flinching like he’d been shocked?
Fuck, how long before Toby looked at him again?