Chapter 5 #2
“Fine. Great. Awesome.” Jake went quiet for a long minute, just enough for Tobias to feel sharp worry prick under his breastbone. Then Jake exhaled loudly into the phone. “Okay, it was lonely as fuck,” he admitted. “Felt wrong, leaving you behind. I’d forgotten—” He broke off.
Tobias swallowed, the ache in his throat abruptly worse.
“I’m fine here. Roger’s being really nice, you know how he is.
We just had dinner with spaghetti and meatballs.
Though Roger said it was technically angel hair, which is a type of pasta, and not spaghetti.
He wanted me at the table even though I’m covered in germs.” He coughed, turning his mouth from the phone.
“ ’Course,” Jake muttered. “Yeah, I know you’ll be all right there. Safest place in the goddamn U.S. of A. Now I just gotta remember the trick of a one-man hunt.”
“You said it wouldn’t be a problem,” Tobias snapped, gentleness gone from his voice. His fingers dug into the sheets of the too-empty bed.
“And it won’t be,” Jake said, soothing. “There’s nothing easier than this sort of ghost, it’s what they send kiddie hunters in training to wipe out. Just keep expecting to see you riding shotgun, is all. Now I gotta pass the whole night by myself, which sucks more than I remember, let me tell you.”
“I could keep talking. Help you stay awake,” Tobias offered.
“Better not. You need your beauty sleep if you’re gonna shake that cold.”
Tobias took in a shaky breath, feeling it rasp in his lungs and throat. “I can sleep during the day, like you are. Like we had been.” Maybe that would be easier, if he didn’t have to be awake when it was light enough to see how empty the room was of Jake’s things.
“Thanks, Toby. But even a ghost’s got ears. I better keep both hands free.”
“Okay.” Tobias swallowed again. “You’ll call me in the morning, when you get back to the motel?”
“Sure thing, Toby. Should be around eight. You just plug the phone in and get some sleep.”
Without warning, tears stung Tobias’s eyes. Hearing those words without Jake’s presence beside him, ready to pull him close, felt unbearable. He missed Jake now as much as he ever had, even inside the walls of Freak Camp. “It’ll be hard,” he choked out. “Without you.”
“Aw, Toby.” Jake’s voice was rough and smothered too. “Don’t do that. This was your idea.”
“It’s the best solution,” Tobias said, fighting for conviction. “But I still miss you.”
“Yeah. Me too. These spooks better show their ugly faces so I can get back there to my hero’s welcome.”
Tobias huffed a laugh. “I hope they do.”
For a minute, the only sound on the line was breathing and the occasional rustle as Jake shifted. Tobias gripped the phone hard enough for his knuckles to ache and tried to will himself to end the call. He couldn’t.
“Hey, Toby?”
“Yeah, Jake?”
“Nothin’. Just. Don’t go just yet, okay?”
“Okay.”
* * *
The second day went much the same as the first. Apart from meals, Tobias kept out of sight and didn’t make a peep.
Part of that, Roger figured, was shyness or nerves, but it was also clear that any effort to talk triggered a fit of coughing that left Tobias worn out and wincing.
Roger tried to keep his attempts at conversation to yes-or-no questions geared at figuring out what Tobias wanted to eat.
Just past two a.m., the proximity alarm went off.
The high-pitched, obnoxious beeping meant that a car or something larger (he had different alarms for folks trying to make it over the fence) had crossed into his driveway.
Roger swung himself out of bed, grabbed the shotgun he kept strapped to the bedframe, and stepped to his window while maintaining cover.
From there he could see the headlights stop and then slowly back out of the driveway before swinging away down the road, presumably the way they had come.
Swearing softly to himself, but without much heat, about wannabe outdoorsmen getting lost in his damn backyard, Roger replaced the gun (though he kept a knife on him just in case) before shuffling down the hall.
He shut off the alarm before starting down his stairs. He needed a glass of water, and if Tobias were up, Roger would let him know it had been a false alarm.
He flicked on the kitchen light, filled a water glass, and took a long swig. When he turned to the guest bedroom, a jolt went through him when he saw the door ajar. Except for when Tobias came out for meals, or when Roger checked on him, Tobias had kept it closed.
More cautious now, Roger rapped on the door with his knuckles. “You up, Tobias?”
No answer.
One hand on his knife, Roger pushed the door open a few more inches, enough to glance inside. The bedcovers were thrown back, but there was no sign of the kid.
Frowning, Roger moved back into the living room. “Tobias?” Still no answer. With a few quick strides, he confirmed that the office was also empty.
He hadn’t heard Tobias come upstairs. Could he have gone outside? Was that car—no. Hell no, it couldn’t have.
Roger did another sweep of the first floor, checking the corners and bathroom. “Tobias?” All was silent and still.
Roger tried to imagine explaining to Jake that he’d lost Tobias. Balls.
“Tobias?” Louder now, he moved to one of the last shut doors on the ground floor, his hall closet. He pulled it open, and there, huddled on the floor between his boots and a box of scarves and mittens that Roger never seemed to get to his storage room, was Tobias.
He blinked up at him. The light was dim, but Roger thought his eyes looked fever-bright. “Hi, Roger. This is a nice closet. It’s comfortable.”
“Moron, no it’s not,” Roger said, with exasperation and relief. He relaxed his guard and extended his hand. He wasn’t sure if Tobias would take it, but after a moment, Tobias reached up and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
“Don’t worry about the alarm. Just a car turning around. Why didn’t you answer when I called?”
“Wasn’t sure it was you,” Tobias muttered. “Voices sometimes lie.”
Roger sighed. “Yeah, I suppose they do. You need to silver me, kid?”
Tobias shook his head, mouth quirking. “If you’re a shifter, I’m probably a-already in trouble.” Then he ducked his head to his shoulder to cough, which continued all the way to his room.
Roger stopped at the threshold as Tobias stumbled in and sat on the edge of his bed, gulping a drink from his bedside table before hunching over, elbows on his knees.
Roger hesitated, not sure if he should just skedaddle to let Tobias rest, or if there was something he could still do to help. Tobias glanced up. “I—I hope Jake will be okay.” The words were quiet. Roger figured that was as close as Tobias would come to admitting he missed him.
“He’s got more brains than he used to,” Roger told him. “After all the knuckleheaded, asinine things I’ve seen him bully through, wisecracking the whole time—don’t worry about it. He’s got more reason to be careful now. He’ll come back.”
Tobias nodded, and Roger closed the door.
As he climbed the stairs back to his bed, he briefly considered calling Jake.
It was possible that beyond getting Toby to eat and stopping Toby from doing household chores while sick as a dog, Roger should have gotten advice on what to do when Tobias was at the crawling-into-closets stage.
Not yet, he decided. Roger didn’t need to distract Jake on a hunt, not while Tobias clearly was unafraid of him and didn’t object to being removed from the closets. They were still getting by.
* * *
Roger’s first clue that Tobias was taking a turn for the worse came when he didn’t appear for breakfast on the third day.
After knocking on his door, Roger heard prolonged coughing, and there was another long pause before the door cracked open.
Tobias’s haggard face appeared, half-hidden in the dark of the room, one arm in a baggy sleeve half obscuring his face.
“Could you—” He turned to cough into his elbow. “Just leave—the food out after you’re done, I’ll get it then. I should probably—stay quarantined.”
Roger frowned at him. “If you’re feeling worse, you’d better move out to the sofa. I’ll bring you something on the TV tray. From there I’ll be able to see if you start ringing death’s doorbell and we need to haul ass for a hospital.”
Tobias shook his head. Even in the bad light, he looked extremely pale. “Can’t go,” he rasped. “Jake has my papers.”
Roger absorbed that for a minute. “Well. Come on out into the living room anyway.”
Tobias took up reluctant residence on the sofa, huddling under his quilt.
He ate and drank what Roger brought him, thanked him (Roger assumed it was thanks; it came out somewhat garbled, on account of Tobias keeping his mouth under the blanket the whole time), and then slept fitfully for the rest of the morning.
Just after a lunch Roger didn’t bother waking him for (he figured the chicken noodle soup could wait, as the kid was actually sleeping soundly for once), Tobias bolted upright on the sofa, startling Roger in his office where he was crunching some numbers on income versus the price of bullets.
Tobias’s eyes were wide, staring straight ahead.
“I made a mistake.” He spoke clearly, though not loudly.
Roger couldn’t be sure Tobias meant him to hear or respond.
He was about to get up, offer soup, maybe ask the kid about the mistake, when Tobias threw the blankets back and scrambled off the sofa to dash toward his guest room, shouting, “I have to go!”
“What—” Bewildered, Roger got to his feet and followed Tobias to his room, then nearly ran into him as he reappeared, hurtling toward him.
“Roger, I made a mistake.” Tobias’s cheeks flushed feverishly while his whole body radiated tense, urgent dismay.
“I—I miscalculated, but it may not be too late. I have to go. Please, can I please borrow a car?” He started coughing, and kept it just in his sleeve, the other arm wrapped around a hastily-packed bag.