Chapter 3
They were holed up in their cabin for less than a week before they had to admit this wasn’t working. They weren’t going to feel safe while hunters were out there talking about them, maybe with more knowledge than Jake and Tobias had.
Jake called Roger to ask about Rachel Morton, the hunter Gordon had mentioned. This didn’t go far—she was just one of dozens of hunters who was in the ASC’s good graces and might get updates directly from a Dixon.
They needed to dig to the source. Only problem was that they had no idea who or where that was.
Jake and Tobias had discussed whether they wanted to risk breaking into ASC offices, but even Jake hadn’t been gung ho about it, and Toby flatly refused.
So they’d continued poking around back channels and larger library archives, searching for any unsecured trove of files or anything related to unidentifieds.
As far as they could tell, it was a designation that the ASC had used a handful of times in the first years of operating Freak Camp, and then it had slowly vanished from records. There was nothing even to suggest what unidentifieds had in common.
Reading newspapers from 1989 left Jake grinding his teeth and Toby deeply regretting ever agreeing to this.
That year was only five years after the Liberty Wolf Massacre and the opening of the Facility for the Research, Elimination, and Containment of Supernaturals; the country was still terrified and grateful to the ASC for every scrap of reassurance.
“Hunters and Saviors” read a typical headline, accompanied with a stern photo of Jake’s grandfather Elijah Dixon, who had founded the ASC and opened the FREACS facility.
Opposite him was a black-and-white photo of Jake’s mother, Sally, before she had been killed defending the president in the Liberty Wolf Massacre, which had been the seismic event that brought supernaturals into the harsh light of the public eye and hatred.
Each day of grueling research led Jake to spend too many hours at the bar nearest their motel.
Tense hours that he might have called “research” or “relaxation,” but regardless he and Tobias didn’t talk much.
Jake’s gray eyes, stormy as the northern Atlantic in winter, stared into the distance of the past and barely saw anything else.
One night, as they lay side by side in bed, Jake told him about his few memories of his mother and Morgantown, where they had lived.
How she had taken him to the nearby park and pushed him on the swings almost as high as he wanted.
How she made him chocolate chip pancakes on the weekend. How she smiled at him.
“Dad was different back then too. Laughed a hell of a lot more, for one.” Jake sighed.
“We never went back, after. I just remember that park and our house. Mostly just the backyard where she had a row of yellow flowers and one of those splash pools for me. I guess that must’ve been the last summer. ”
Tobias could almost see it, like one of the many cozy homes they’d passed by in their travels. A place where a young child could grow up safely.
One name in the archives kept recurring: Judge Mervyn Hughes.
Profiles praised how he stepped up to assist the ASC with dozens of cases of accused freaks.
He conducted closed-door hearings that, according to the journalist, efficiently and discreetly swept away much of the supernatural menace without so much as a final glimpse from the public.
He lived in Burlington, Vermont.
“You know what, Toby, it’s been too long since we had an old-fashioned B&E,” Jake said in a would-be offhand tone that did not fool Tobias for a second. “I’m itching to get my hands on some court case files, how about you?”
Tobias threw him an irritated look. Jake was well aware that he was never a fan of any criminal activity, as much as they could avoid it.
So far Tobias had managed to skip any face-to-face encounters with law enforcement, and he fervently hoped it would stay that way.
He didn’t think all his hard-learned lessons about how to act like a real would hold up.
More likely, he’d be cringing on the floor like a freak that knows its place.
He gave a hard shake of his head to clear the Director’s voice from his head. “Courthouse or home office?”
“Let’s go with the home office. Should be easier.”
“No kidding.” They’d done a little reconnaissance outside a courthouse, and it had left Tobias feeling ill and tight-chested in a way he was not interested in exploring further.
Two days later they made a pit stop in Ohio. In the morning, while Jake headed to the breakfast room, Tobias made a stop at the motel lobby desk to do their routine check of local papers.
The girl behind the desk looked a lot younger than the woman who had checked them in a couple of days ago, not far from Tobias’s own age. She had a soft round face and brown hair in a loose braid. She fiddled with the end of it as Tobias approached.
“Do you have any regional newspapers?” he asked. The local news sources tended to have better hints of any recent monster activity.
Her eyes widened as she nodded and reached below the desk to pull out a thin newspaper.
“Sure, we’ve got the Advertiser-Tribune.
It’s a daily. Might be able to find a copy of the Fostoria Review Times too, if you want.
” She slid the paper across the counter to him, but her hand lingered on it.
“How’s your stay been so far? You sleep all right? ”
“Fine, thanks.” Tobias reached for the paper, but she didn’t let go. Her eyes were on his face with a tentative, hopeful expression. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but it made him nervous.
“I guess you’re just passing through—been on the road long?”
“Just a couple days,” Tobias said. It was his usual nice, noncommittal response.
“You traveling with your brother?” Her tone was courteous, delivered offhand the way people sometimes did, even though they had no real right to or interest in the information.
“Yeah, I am.” That too was often the easiest answer, especially when strangers suggested it first. People tended to dismiss them then as something ordinary and uninteresting, allowing Tobias and Jake to fade into the background like so much scenery.
“Well, there’s not much to keep you here,” she said, in a sudden frank rush.
“Just Richie’s old hamburger diner, he does the best onion rings and milkshakes in Ohio.
Oh, and there’s the Indian Maiden Head north of town.
” She paused, then smiled wider at him, unmistakably hopeful now.
“It’s not much, but might be worth swinging by before you head out of town.
I get off in a couple hours, I could show it to you, if you don’t mind hanging around. ”
Baffled, Tobias was about to make an excuse about needing to hit the road, when he heard a cough behind him. He turned and saw Jake leaning against the doorway, grinning at him. “Not hungry, Toby?”
“Jake,” he said in relief. “Um—” He turned back to the girl behind the counter. “Thanks, but I think we’ve got to get going.”
“Of course,” she said, drooping. “Safe travels.” She returned to picking at the end of her braid.
Uncertain and a little uneasy, Tobias took the paper and retreated to Jake, who smirked at him and fell into step as they entered the breakfast room.
“I don’t know what she wanted,” Tobias muttered to him, as they filled the hotel’s Styrofoam bowls with cereal and milk.
“Dude,” Jake said, as though Tobias ought to know exactly what that had been about.
Tobias tensed, mentally flipping through his internal file of social interactions.
Complicated, often contradictory, and always exhausting, interacting with reals—with other people was still something that he struggled with, no matter how carefully he analyzed past experiences.
Jake waited until they sat down, facing each other over cereal, bagels, coffee, and juice, before he said, “She was flirting with you.”
Tobias stared at him.
“She thought you were a serious babe,” Jake went on, smiling like he found it amusing, but he didn’t sound like he was joking.
“Can’t say I’m surprised, since she’s got eyes.
And she’s probably stuck in high school with a lot of pimply losers who don’t know how to use deodorant.
So yeah, damn straight she wanted to take you out around town—”
“Okay, stop.” Tobias raised a hand, palm out. “Stop. I get it, but that’s not funny.”
Jake cocked an eyebrow. “What’s not funny?”
“That. That whole—idea.” Tobias gestured vaguely with his spoon before stabbing it into his cereal, a little harder than he’d meant to. He stopped to wipe up milk droplets with his napkin.
“I’m not teasing you,” Jake said quietly, earnest in a way that made Tobias look him in the face again. He’d heard that tone before, but usually it was about life and death and monsters and how Tobias wasn’t one. Not a tone he had expected to hear today.
Anger rose inside Tobias, a furious impotence seizing his chest for reasons that he didn’t want to look at too closely. “No,” he snapped. “You just think that because—” He broke off, biting his lip.
Jake let out a scoffing laugh. “Because what? You think I’m the only one on the planet who’s got eyes to see how hot you are?”
“Stop it,” Tobias snapped, then looked out the window, breathing in slowly through his nose and forcing his hands to relax on the table, where they had been twisting and clenching, as though bound.
He heard Jake exhale, the chair creak. “Hey. Talk to me.”
With an effort, Tobias returned his gaze to the table as he tried to put his swarm of feelings, memories, and half-formed thoughts into words. “Pretty,” he said. “The word you’re looking for is ‘pretty.’”
For a moment, it was silent between them. Then Jake said hoarsely, “Fuck no, Toby. I mean—”