Chapter 4 #2
This may have been a different sort of hunt, but they had a standard operating procedure.
There were times to stay hunkered down in the Eldorado, and times to burst out of the doors guns blazing.
There were times that one Hawthorne really should go out first while the other one set the trap, or found the right amulet, or got the salt.
Right here and right now, no matter how much Jake would have preferred Toby to stay here while the hostile witness before them held a firearm, he knew by the look in Toby’s eyes that was never going to happen.
Toby was coming too, no matter what Jake said. But he would wait for the nod and they would go together.
Jake fucking loved him. Even when he was being a brave, stubborn, badass idiot who was basically giving him the middle finger. Wincing internally, Jake gave the signal.
They opened their doors slowly and raised their empty hands as they stood.
“Get lost somewhere else,” the woman called to them. “And take your vacuum cleaner or religion to someone willing to waste money on junk.”
“Hey, we’re not selling anything, I swear,” Jake called.
“We’re looking for Gina Wilde. My name’s Jake Hawthorne.
” Toby’s head snapped to him. They hadn’t planned that.
Well, maybe Jake was sick of the truth about Toby being the only thing under scrutiny, when Toby hated scrutiny more than almost anything.
Maybe it was dumb, but he wanted to make some kind of offering or distraction whether it mattered or not.
The woman wasn’t impressed. “I don’t give a fuck if your name is Jesus Christ. In case you can’t read, those signs said no trespassing. Get out of here.”
Jake kept his hands up. “This’ll only take a minute. We’re looking for information about the Wrights. Peter and Beth Wright. The ASC was chasing them back in 1989 and they died in a car accident. Do you know anything about that?”
She hesitated. Then Toby said, “I’m Tobias Wright. Their son. Probably, I mean.”
* * *
The woman lowered the shotgun. In his peripheral vision, Tobias saw Jake snap his jaw shut.
He felt oddly detached, like he was speaking the lines expected from him and not something he really believed. It was hard to believe in anything about “parents” or “family.” But his being Peter and Beth’s son was where the evidence pointed.
The woman stared at him, and Tobias kept still under her scrutiny. Finally, she gestured with the gun towards some large wooden logs placed around a fire pit not far from her cabin. “Sit there.”
He crossed the yard with slow and deliberate steps, Jake following him. Only when he sat down on a log did he realize he was shaking, and it had nothing to do with fear of the armed stranger facing them. He drew in a shuddering breath and clasped his hands tightly.
Jake took a seat with a couple feet of space between them. Tobias didn’t look toward him, but he felt steadier with Jake’s solid presence within arm’s reach.
The woman dragged over a pink folding chair, laid her shotgun across her lap, and frowned at Tobias. Her long dark hair was streaked with gray, and she wore muddy jeans and a long-sleeve camouflage shirt.
“How do I know you’re who you say you are?” she asked.
“You don’t,” Tobias said simply. He shrugged, his shoulders moving in a jerk. “I barely know who I am. I don’t remember anyone in my family.”
“You died. I read about it. I saw photos of the car wreck.” Her eyes narrowed. “Where’ve you been?”
Tobias took a deep breath. He knew what he had to say, though he had never before spoken the words to someone who didn’t already know. It was like hurtling head first off a cliff, but also grimly inevitable. All the secrets had to come to light.
Slowly, he made himself speak each syllable. “I. Grew up in Freak Camp. The A-ASC took me there in December 1989.”
Jake was very still next to him, not moving a muscle.
Tobias forced himself to unwind his hands, to tug down the collar of his shirt and find the edge of the flesh-colored tape concealing the worst of the scarring around his neck.
He peeled it back, grateful for the distraction of the pull at his skin.
His heart hammered in his chest, and he focused on a spot in the distance behind the woman, above the peak of her cabin roof.
“This is from the collar I wore for eleven years. Jake got me out a little over a year ago.”
She didn’t scream or jump to her feet, only continued staring at him with the same intensity.
“What kind of freak are you?” It was impossible to read anything into her tone, the question sounding strangely ordinary, like she was asking what school he’d gone to.
Jake shifted next to him, barely perceptible.
“I don’t know,” Tobias answered. “I’m unidentified. That was part of my ID number: 89UI6703. The 89 means I entered the camp in 1989. And if I am—if I was Tobias Wright, that lines up with December ’89, doesn’t it?”
Her eyes flickered to Jake, then moved back to Tobias. Her mouth parted, lips moving silently as she gazed at him. Finally she said, “I’m Gina Wilde. If you’re who you say you are—I used to babysit for you.”
Tobias flinched back, and Jake sucked in an audible breath.
“I was neighbors with your parents. The goddamn ASC—it was me they were hunting.” Her face contorted for a moment in what might have been grief or shame.
“And it should’ve been my brother, though they didn’t know it.
” She shook her head, her gnarled fingers readjusting their grip on the shotgun barrel, her gaze faraway.
“He was the real piece-of-shit. But he was human, so I guess that automatically made him innocent in their eyes. It’s always gotta be the resident supernatural who’s the killer, right? ” Her voice was laced with bitterness.
“You’re the shapeshifter,” Jake said. It was more of a statement than a question.
She glared at him. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing, if you’re telling the truth,” he answered. “We don’t hunt anyone minding their own business.”
Gina stood up then, her glare intensifying as she flexed her grip on the shotgun, though thankfully she didn’t raise it. “If you’re with the ASC, you got five seconds to get back in that car and outta my sight.”
Tobias made himself speak through his dry mouth. “We told you who we are. Do you really think either of us has anything to do with the ASC?”
After a long moment, she sat back down, and Jake exhaled, barely audible.
Tobias swallowed and forced out the next question. “What happened to the Wrights?”
Gina rubbed her mouth, studying him. “It could be you,” she said quietly, more to herself.
Then she seemed to rouse herself and focus on the question.
“They were friends of mine. Didn’t know nothing about me being a shifter, or anything about the supernatural far as I can tell.
Ordinary folk. But like I said, the ASC got us mixed up.
” A hard, bitter edge entered her tone. “I never should’ve let them borrow my car. ”
“Is that why they were chased?” Jake asked.
She gave a jerk of a nod. “Beth and I both had dark hair and about the same look. Still sloppy work, which is what comes from a bunch of incompetent thugs. Thought they were closing on a shapeshifter when they ran your parents off the road, I figure. I thought you’d been killed too.
” She looked away. “Everything in the papers and gossip circles said as much.”
I thought you’d been killed. Tobias had the inappropriate urge to laugh, and he bit his lip to keep it in.
Hadn’t he been killed? Hadn’t Tobias Wright died sometime in that first year, perhaps even before he met Becca?
It wasn’t like he could ever go back to being Tobias Wright. That boy was long, long gone.
Jake said, “You mentioned your brother. What did he have to do with all this?”
Gina swiped at her eyes, then cleared her throat with an angry growl. “Dom was the fucker who killed those folks back in ‘89. As human as you get. I confronted him when I figured it out, but he offed himself before I could get the nerve to turn him in.”
Tobias felt Jake glance at him, but he couldn’t think of the next question. His mind was curiously blank.
Jake picked up the next point after a pause most civilians wouldn’t notice. “So the Wrights were human? The only supernatural in the area was you?”
She snorted. “Can’t swear I was the only one, but the Wrights had nothing going on. That includes you.” She nodded toward Tobias, and he flinched again and dropped his gaze.
“What happened to their bodies?” Jake blurted out. “I mean—do you know where they were buried?”
“Cremated,” she said. “Like most folk since Liberty Wolf. Ashes were scattered in the flower gardens in the West Virginia National Cemetery. I don’t know if that’s what they wanted, but there’s worse choices. Beth liked flowers.”
Tobias’s breath hitched. Beth liked flowers. My . . . mom liked flowers.
He couldn’t bring himself to speak, but Jake asked for him. “Can you tell us about them?”
Gina’s gaze rested on Tobias. “Yeah. ’Course I can.”
* * *
Thankfully, Jake didn’t try to get him to talk during the drive back to the motel, which was good because Tobias didn’t feel capable of saying a word. Instead he just slid in one of their Bowie cassettes and kept the volume moderately low by his usual standards.
When they parked in front of their door in the motel lot and Jake shut the engine off, neither moved nor spoke for a long time, until the motel’s lights flickered on before them.
Tobias licked his lips and tried for words. They were hard to shape and push into sound. “Do you expect me to be different?”
He could feel Jake’s glance. “What do you mean, Toby?”
Tobias shut his eyes and shook his head. “I mean . . . I kn-know this is important. But w-what do you expect to happen now? Do you think I’m going to be d-different?”
Jake half-raised his hands, as though in protest. “Dude. No.”
“You wanted this,” Tobias pressed on, “so badly. But I’m still just—” He snapped his mouth shut before he could say a freak from Freak Camp.
Jake didn’t hesitate. “You’re Toby. The boy I love, right?
” His voice actually cracked a little, and Tobias finally looked at him.
Jake’s face was shockingly vulnerable, and something clenched around Tobias’s heart.
“Hell no, I don’t think you need to be different now.
I want you to be the same badass nerd I’ve known my whole life.
I want you to be whoever you want to be, wherever you want to be.
That can change or not, today or tomorrow or ten years from now. It’s up to you.”
Tobias let out a shaky exhale, closing his eyes and dropping his head back. “I don’t know who I am.”
“I do,” Jake said.
* * *
The next day, they visited the West Virginia National Cemetery. It was a beautiful September day, the sky cloudless and a breeze blowing. The cemetery had acres of green grass spotted with neat rows of older tombstones, all arranged around a central garden of flowers, white and pink and yellow.
As they walked up the neat stone path leading to the cemetery gardens, Tobias tried for a lighter tone. “Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so’?”
Jake shot him a quick look. “Don’t think I need my ass kicked today.”
Tobias rolled his eyes.
It was just like any other walk they’d taken to see a garden. Which his mother had liked too.
It was a good thing Jake had been there through the whole interview with Gina, because otherwise Tobias would’ve written off all of yesterday as a hallucination. Maybe one sparked by a malfunction of his deceitful, freakish brain.
He could still hear the Director’s voice, cold and merciless as it spelled out the truths about him. That still felt as real and authoritative as it had before. He wondered if that would ever change.
Yesterday felt like it had happened to someone else. Like Gina and Jake had been talking about someone else. And really, they had been.
He was Tobias Wright.
89UI6703 of Freak Camp.
Tobias Hawthorne.
Maybe one day it would feel real.