Chapter 2
“I’m gonna call the number.” Jake flicked the reporter’s card back and forth between his fingers.
Tobias watched him with concern. Jake was restless, amped up the way he got before a showdown with an angry spirit, especially when the spirit had been giving them the run-around. This version of Jake was prone to shooting first and rushing into an abandoned house without a well-thought-out plan.
“I want to go with you,” Tobias said.
He didn’t actually want to. It was hard not to shudder at the memory of the hunter’s breath, words, and grip on him. Every instinct and nerve screamed at him to stay inside and hidden from strangers’ eyes. But he wasn’t about to stay behind in the motel room while Jake confronted an unknown threat.
Jake shook his head. He rarely told Tobias no directly, but Tobias could see that he wanted to. “This dickweed has been asking questions about you specifically. No way we’re dangling you on a stick for him before we get the lay of the land.”
Tobias pressed his lips together before saying coolly, “Well, there’s also no way I’m waiting here or in another diner for you to go it alone. We just tried that.”
“Okay, compromise. You stay in the Eldorado.”
Tobias considered that, then nodded. “Eyes on you at all times.”
Jake huffed out a laugh. “Sure. But you know I can handle myself against some asshole nosy reporter.”
“I’m more worried about what might happen to him,” Tobias retorted.
Jake flipped open his cell phone without dignifying that with a response. “Let’s see what the snoop wants.” He punched in the number, then put the call on speaker, setting the phone on the motel dinette table.
It rang twice before a man picked up. “Yo, this is Gordon.”
“Hey, Gordon.” Jake’s voice was warm and friendly, even a touch playful, while his eyes on the phone were flat and cold as a switchblade. “I hear you’d like to get to know me. It’s your lucky day.”
Tobias had never feared Jake’s ability to pull on a persona, to lie to a mark or a monster until the knives came out. Even as he knew he was safe, chills crawled down his neck.
Grant Gordon, who had never looked Jake Hawthorne in the eye, was stupidly thrilled at the idea of a meet.
He suggested a bar, and Jake countered with a cafe he and Tobias had scoped out earlier.
The mom-and-pop joint with a collection of ceramic cat clocks lining the walls was the least likely public location in Hutchinson for hunters to casually gather.
Plus there was parking across the street where Toby could watch, worry, and wait.
Or, Tobias thought grimly, step in if it looked like Jake was going to teach Grant Gordon why he shouldn’t meddle with hunters named Hawthorne.
* * *
Jake could admit—to himself, at least—that he was hoping for a fight. His knuckles itched for another go at Bentham, who’d gotten away far too lightly. So okay, yes, the responsible move was for Toby to keep an eye out from a reasonably safe distance.
Grant Gordon was exactly the kind of loser he had expected. Too thin and pale, like he’d come straight from his mom’s basement, with thick glasses and box-dye black hair sticking up over his head in overly gelled spikes. He looked like a wannabe Clark Kent.
“Jake Hawthorne,” he said, stopping a few feet away from where Jake leaned against the mural-painted brick wall next to the cafe. Gordon had a fancy-ass camera slung over his neck, a ridiculous skinny reporter’s notebook in his hand, and he looked both astonished and—to his credit—nervous.
Jake bared his teeth at him in the pretense of a smile. “Take a seat.” He lightly kicked one of the light metal patio chairs toward Gordon.
The man hesitated. “I can get us some coffee—”
“Nah. Take a seat,” Jake repeated, and Gordon sat down.
Jake sat across from him in another rickety patio chair, his legs extended away from the table, his body loose and easy and ready to commit violence in an instant.
His Bowie knife was strapped in its sheath, and his handgun tucked in the back of his jeans.
Overkill for some civilian human, sure, but he wasn’t going to be caught unprepared anytime soon.
“So you’re looking for a scoop, Gordy? Where you from?”
Gordon stared at him, mouth slightly open. With a visible effort, he shut it and swallowed. He named a tabloid known for chewing up and spitting out celebrities. “Look, you’ve never gotten to tell your story, right? Isn’t it time to let the public hear from Sally Dixon’s son—”
“That isn’t her name,” Jake said. His voice sounded calm. “But I don’t want to hear you say it.”
Gordon froze. He seemed to finally key into the idea that Jake might not be his prey. “O . . . kay. Whatever you want, man.”
Jake leaned in. “Oh, I’ll tell you what I want. The first thing I want is to know why you’ve been asking about unidentified freaks in a place like the Crossroads Inn.”
The reporter swallowed. “Yeah, so. Let’s back up a little.” He held up his hands palms out, like that would soothe the wild beast. “I’m on your side, man. I want to represent you. I think you’ve got a story to tell, and I’m here to help you broadcast it. That’s all I want.”
Jake was tempted to flip the patio table onto Gordon’s head. He didn’t do it, but he could feel the rage simmering. “Get to the point and answer my question.”
Gordon eyed him. “Look, I’ve got a cousin who’s a hunter. Rachel Morton?” As Jake didn’t react, Gordon hurried on. “So there’ve been rumors . . . well, about you. And an, um . . .”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “A what?”
“A . . . an accused supernatural. Supposedly, someone who used to be in the FREACS facility.”
Gordon wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and continued. “But he’s unidentified. That’s the rumor. So maybe he was never meant for the camp, you know? If true, that’s a travesty of justice. That should be a national story. If the ASC made a mistake—”
Jake stood up, and the reporter’s chair screeched as he pushed backward.
Jake didn’t let his eyes flick toward the Eldorado across the street. Toby had been there a minute ago, and he would be there when Jake walked away from this fame-hungry muckraker. Jake would never betray Toby in any situation, not even with a glance.
He studied Gordon for a long moment, forcing his hand to relax from his knife, waiting for the dangerous surge of adrenaline to fade.
When he was calm again, or calm enough, he sat carefully on the edge of his chair, leaning forward with one arm—not his knife hand—on the patio table.
“Those are the rumors. So what do you know, Gordon?”
Gordon swallowed again. “Not much more. You might travel with him, maybe even hunt with him? But there’s got to be more to it, I can’t imagine you—”
“You’ve got no idea what I would or wouldn’t do,” Jake said quietly.
He stared at Jake, then grabbed the camera around his neck, fiddling with the buttons.
“Look, I just got this tip, okay? And it’s my job to follow up, to see if there’s a story.
I think there is one, if you’re ready to tell it.
I mean, there’s something between you two, I could see it at a hundred yards—” He thrust the back of the camera toward Jake.
A tiny screen displayed a photo of Jake and Toby standing by the Eldorado outside their current motel.
Another shot of them looking at each other, their faces in shadow.
Then Gordon flipped through the next few: Jake and Toby hauling duffels and plastic bags from the nearby grocery outlet; Toby throwing his head back in a rare laugh, his face sun-illuminated and beautiful; a view of their backs as they walked to the motel room door, Jake’s hand touching the small of Toby’s back.
His blood rushed cold and his heart sped up again, and not just in simple shock. It felt like a winter mountain river running through his veins, fast and fierce and cold enough to kill.
“Am I wrong?” the dead man walking asked.
Jake took the camera from him. He yanked the strap over Gordon’s head, ignoring the reporter’s indignant “Hey!” as he stood up and walked away, heading for the narrow alley beside the cafe.
Gordon raced after him, even tried to grab his shoulder. Jake ignored him until they reached the other side of the dumpster. Then he smashed the camera against the wall, following it up a second later with Gordon’s face as he drove him into the bricks.
The man howled as blood poured out his nose. Beneath the rush of rage and adrenaline, Jake knew this wouldn’t stay private for much longer. He smashed the camera twice more under his boot.
“Jake!”
Toby was running up, darting between the curious bystanders at the alley’s entrance. “Jake, enough!”
He held up his palm toward Toby, who stopped short.
Then he knelt by Gordon, who was holding his bleeding face.
“It’s still your lucky day,” he told him.
“I’m taking this camera as a souvenir. If you got any backups of these photos, delete them.
You ever come within a hundred miles of us again, you won’t survive it. That’s a Hawthorne guarantee.”
He stood up and walked out of the alley, broken camera in hand, ignoring everyone except Toby as he left the alley.
“He wanted a special on America’s lost boy,” Jake told him as they reached the Eldorado. “And it’s time for us to go.”
Toby nodded and held off on questions as they packed up at the motel, until they were back inside the car. “What direction?”
“Doesn’t matter. North. Hit the interstate for a couple hundred miles.”
As Toby drove, Jake picked apart the broken camera until he found the memory card, which he broke in half with a satisfying snap.
It should probably worry him, how much anger he still felt thrumming through his veins.
He drew slow, even breaths, in through his nose and exhaling between his lips.
Toby was hypersensitive to currents of anger, and Jake would not make Toby suffer for one second because of Gordon’s invasive bullshit.
But he still had to talk about it.