Chapter 2 #2
Close to the one-hour mark of heading north, Jake asked Toby to pull over at an upcoming rest stop. “It’s okay,” he added at Toby’s worried look. “We’re okay. You just always give me the stink eye for distracting you when you’re driving, so let’s get off the road.”
“I do not give you the stink eye,” Toby said, even as he switched on the turn signal.
At the rest stop, he pulled into a space at the far end away from any other cars, then turned to face Jake expectantly, an apprehensive furrow between his eyebrows.
Jake spoke slowly. “That jackass had been following us. He took pictures of us getting out of the Eldorado the other day.”
Toby didn’t move a muscle, but his stare intensified.
Jake expelled his breath and sat back. “Fuck. What a shitty fucking week.”
They sat together in silence for a long time. Toby passed a hand over his forehead, then said quietly, “Can we get off the grid for a while?”
“Yeah. Best idea I’ve heard all year. Let’s get five hundred miles away from Dodge.”
* * *
That night, near the border between Nebraska and Iowa, they pulled into the dirt driveway before a cabin in a small state park that was the closest to nowhere they could reasonably get without camping.
Jake wouldn’t even consider tent camping unless absolutely forced by a pack of Dixons on their heels. Shit was bad, but it wasn’t that bad.
They’d eaten their dinner from a drive-thru a couple hours ago, and all they had to do now was lug their duffel bags inside and drop onto their bed, which was an unexpectedly decent size for a state park cabin.
Tobias collapsed onto the mattress with a groan, throwing his arm over his eyes. Jake had switched driving with him after the last rest stop, but he was stiff in the way that came from too many hours in the Eldorado.
Jake unzipped his duffel to dig through it for something, then sat down beside him with a sigh that sounded as worn out as Tobias felt. Without opening his eyes, Tobias reached out an open hand, and Jake gripped it at once, strong and warm.
Neither spoke for a few minutes. Tomorrow they would review their security protocols, retrace their steps, try to figure out how they had given themselves away. But that was for tomorrow.
Tobias tugged on Jake’s hand. “C’mere.”
There was just enough space for Jake to lie down next to him, at least when Tobias scooted over and pulled him close, one leg hooked around Jake’s calf.
Jake let out a muffled groan, and Tobias hugged him tighter, looping his arm around Jake’s back. His solid presence was comforting, and Tobias inhaled the space between Jake’s neck and shoulder.
Jake released another ragged breath. “Toby. Tiger.”
It was the first time they’d been this close since Bentham had caught him and they’d had that awful conversation that night. Tobias still shuddered when he thought of it, even though Jake had been so wonderful and said the most incredible things. I still love you.
But he couldn’t shake his deep-seated shame and self-loathing. He didn’t know when or if that would ever happen. It might be embedded as deeply as his freak DNA. But he wanted to try to move past it, for Jake’s sake.
No, for both their sakes.
He wanted to believe he had nothing to be ashamed of, no reason to recoil from Jake’s touch. That he wouldn’t contaminate Jake.
He knew Jake was being oh-so-careful with him these days, checking with a glance before even touching Tobias’s hand. But when Toby wasn’t in the worst kind of headspace, Jake’s touch was always the best. That had always been true since they were little kids.
It felt good now. Safe, warm, and also the beginning ache of wanting more, though he didn’t want to put a name to that desire.
He lifted his head to find Jake’s lips with his own.
The kiss was sweet and exploratory, Tobias’s lips tracing the shape of Jake’s mouth. He pressed closer, seeking full-body contact. Jake’s warm, calloused hand slid over his hip and up his back, and Tobias shivered.
They continued making out, time slipping away under the feel of lips, tongues, hands.
Jake kept his hands above Toby’s waist like usual, but Tobias kept tugging him closer with his leg hooked on Jake’s.
He wanted to push himself into Jake somehow, to be surrounded by him, all of his senses filled with nothing but Jake.
Maybe he’d get there one day, when they were ready to do this without clothes. Or at least less clothing.
But the next time he rolled his hips forward, with an unpleasant shock he realized he was hard.
He pulled away with a sharp gasp, the first hint of nausea and shame rising in him.
In an instant, Jake had caught Tobias’s hand in a loose hold. “Hey. Toby. It’s okay. We’ll slow down, all right?”
Tobias didn’t answer but pressed his face into the thin pillow, trying to control his breathing and heart rate.
They’d been here before, and Jake had tried to talk him through it.
This was just what bodies did when they felt good and safe and attracted.
He wasn’t a gross freak tainting Jake. Jake liked it, wanted them to feel good together.
And it was just as okay, as right, for Tobias as it was for him.
Or so Jake told him.
Slowly, Tobias inched back toward him, bringing their lips back together. Kisses were good. So good. Sweet and safe, even when they turned hot and wanting. But Jake kept it gentle and slow now, languorous even, like they had all the time in the world.
Like no one had been on their tail, close enough to watch them, to even get photographs of them together when they thought they were safe.
Like hunters couldn’t recognize Tobias across a room and know exactly what he was, what he was meant for, where he belonged.
He shuddered again at the memory of the hunter’s hands on him.
Jake would keep them safe, as safe as they could be, but the world was full of Dixons and hunters and reporters who had not forgotten either of them.
And Tobias couldn’t fully shake the feel of the hunter gripping him.
He would be damned if he let Freak Camp and those fuckers who ran the place dictate what he and Jake could do to each other, how they loved each other. But tonight was probably not the best time to push himself.
* * *
Alice Dixon got the call at two-thirty in the morning.
Her life being what it was, she’d only hit her mattress an hour before that.
She and some of the higher-ranking members of the family (Jonah, Tina, a handful of others) had been in a conference call with another government agency until late, and then she had typed up her notes and tomorrow’s to-do list before closing her eyes.
“This is the ASC hunters’ emergency service line, you’ve reached Alice Dixon,” she said, enunciating the best she could into the phone. If this was Derrick Yolkov again, looking for a free tow of his piece-of-shit car—
“We need damage control,” the male voice at the other end snapped. “And we needed it three hours ago.” He rattled off an address about an hour away from her location, closing with “If the cameras get here before you do, we’re all fucked.” And then the line went dead.
Significantly more awake, but still yawning and bleary, Alice pulled on jeans, a clean shirt, and coat, then hit the road.
This crap was her least favorite part of the job, and she really needed to prioritize hiring trusted assistants to be on call for the emergency service line.
She wished she had time to swing by an all-night convenience store for an extra-large coffee, but it hadn’t sounded like an option.
Her destination was a quaint suburban two-story, unremarkable except for the worried hunter pacing the porch, watching the road like he expected the hounds of hell.
“You Alice Dixon?” he demanded, as soon as she was close enough he wouldn’t have to shout.
He was somewhere in his late thirties, early forties, with weather-beaten skin and long claw scars down his neck partially hidden by his overgrown hair.
He stared her in the face but didn’t quite meet her eyes.
She wondered what kind of freak had taught him that particular habit.
“You called me,” she said coolly. “What do I call you?”
“If you ask me, you should put these assholes down,” he said, ignoring her question.
With a few more hours of sleep, Alice would have bristled and pushed until she got her answer.
But for all that experienced hunters were hard to read, she could see something distraught in this man’s face.
“But you probably won’t. Look, I hunt because—well, everyone’s got his reasons, and I’ve got mine.
It ain’t a pleasure, it’s a necessity: us versus them.
But this—” He pulled himself together, took a ragged breath. “This ain’t that.”
“Right,” Alice said. “I’ll take care of it.” Or if she didn’t have the clout—it still happened sometimes, though less and less often—she’d make sure that Jonah knew, and he would take care of the problem.
“You do that,” he said, and stepped aside.
The door was unlocked (it had been kicked open), and the rooms beyond smelled like blood and death. Boot prints tracked through the bloodspray in the entryway.
“The wife was coming to answer the door,” the hunter said flatly. He stood just behind and to the left of Alice, about two paces back. Watching my non-dominant hand, she thought, and out of easy striking range. “Jackson shot her.”
Alice swallowed. She didn’t have a weak stomach, but his tone . . . she didn’t like what she heard underneath it.
She followed the bloody footprints, and he followed her.
The main room of the first floor was a combined living and dining room, with the kitchen visible over an island. Each section of the house was delineated by different flooring: tile kitchen, pale living room carpet, massive throw-rug in the dining room.