Chapter Two #2
“There’s no need to. Everything’s out by the door.”
“What do you mean?”
Cullen opened the front door that Jasper had just closed and reached out.
He held up a backpack stuffed to the brim, hauling it inside the apartment before closing the door again.
For a second, Jasper could only stare. Of course that was everything Cullen owned.
He’d been on the run from his father, and he wouldn’t have survived as long as he had with more stuff to drag around.
It wasn’t right, though. Cullen had had a life before Kester had decided to find him.
Why had he stayed here now that it was safe for him to go back to that life?
Jasper wanted to ask, but something told him that Cullen wouldn’t answer.
Maybe he would, in time, but not right now.
“I was going to go out,” he said.
“Do you want me to leave, then?”
“No. You can come with me.”
Cullen’s eyes widened. “Where are you going?”
“The monster district. I’m hoping to find something about my birth parents.”
Cullen nodded as if he understood. “Right.”
Maybe he did understand. Jasper was curious about him, and maybe this would give them a chance to talk and get to know each other. Cullen needed help, and Jasper was willing to provide that help. Cullen didn’t deserve what had happened to him.
It didn’t take long for Jasper to be ready.
He led the way out of the apartment and to his car, smiling when Cullen started chatting.
It was as if now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop, and he kept up a steady stream of words as Jasper drove them to the monster district.
Jasper was an only child—which, considering his situation, was a good thing—but he’d been raised with other kids, and Cullen reminded him of some of them.
It had been like having younger siblings, and Jasper felt a bit like that with Cullen, too.
They didn’t have to share blood to become friends.
Jasper liked that Cullen was relaxed with him, even though he didn’t understand why the monster felt that way. Cullen was safe, though. Jasper would make sure of that.
Once they were in the monster district, no one looked twice at Cullen, who was visibly a monster.
The same couldn’t be said for Jasper. He looked human, so of course, people turned to look at him as soon as he parked his car.
He didn’t really care. He just wanted to find answers and get out of here.
That was easier said than done.
The problems started almost as soon as he got out of the car. They didn’t even leave the parking lot before someone yelled at them.
“We don’t want your kind here.”
Jasper sighed and turned. A massive monster was coming toward them. Jasper wasn’t scared—he’d fought monsters bigger than this guy in his hunter days—but he wanted to avoid getting too much attention. There was already enough of it on him as it was.
“Hey,” Cullen said to the monster when he reached them.
The monster ignored him. His full attention was on Jasper. “We don’t want hunters here,” he said.
“I’m not a hunter. I’m a mechanic,” Jasper told him.
The monster’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t care what you do now. I know you’re a hunter.”
Jasper sighed. “I’m just looking for information. You might’ve heard of my boyfriend, Archie. He owns a PI agency.”
The monster hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t care who you’re fucking. You’re a hunter, and you need to leave.”
“He can go anywhere he wants, just like any of us,” Cullen said, stepping forward again.
Jasper caught his arm and pulled him back.
He didn’t want or need Cullen to fight his battles.
There was an easy way to end this conversation, but Jasper wasn’t ready to come out as a monster yet.
He needed more information before he could.
Fighting with this monster in full daylight when he wasn’t a hunter and didn’t want to fight anyone wouldn’t help.
“Fine. We’re going,” he said, hoping to placate the monster.
“We don’t have to,” Cullen insisted.
But Jasper was done. He’d known this wouldn’t be easy, and he wasn’t giving up, not completely, but for now, this was enough.
He didn’t need to know anything about his past. He wanted to, but not desperately enough to get in a fight. “I’ll try again another time,” he told Cullen.
“It’s not fair,” Cullen muttered.
Jasper wanted to tell him that life wasn’t fair, but Cullen already knew that life was unfair. He didn’t need Jasper to explain that to him.
* * * *
ARCHIE LOOKED AROUND the neighborhood as Braith tried to get one of the Hendersons’ neighbors to talk to him.
He’d never been on this particular street before, but he’d been around, so he’d known what to expect.
It was a residential neighborhood just like so many in the city.
The houses were small but well cared for, and there had been kids playing on the street when he and Braith had arrived.
It was a nice place to raise children, and Finn should have been safe here.
“We’re just trying to find Finn,” Braith was saying.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about him,” the woman at the door said, still glancing around as if she expected someone to ask her what she was doing.
Maybe she was. There was no way to know what had happened to Finn, and while Archie doubted the neighbors had anything to do with it, he could be wrong.
What the woman said caught Archie’s attention, though. “Do you know something about someone else?” he asked.
The woman paled. Her skin was already paper white, so Jasper hadn’t thought that possible.
It was impressive. She looked around again, but nothing had changed.
The street was still mostly empty, with just a cat walking down the sidewalk.
They could hear the sound of people talking in the house next door, but no one was paying attention to them.
The woman still leaned closer, her green hair sliding forward with the movement. It looked like whatever she was about to say was a secret, and Archie’s heart raced as he waited to hear the words.
“Finn isn’t the first boy to disappear in the area,” she said softly. “Two others are gone.”
Archie and Braith exchanged a glance. They hadn’t expected that.
Mr. and Mrs. Henderson hadn’t said anything about it, maybe because they didn’t know.
Wasn’t that something they’d be aware of, though?
Jasper felt that most of the neighborhood would know about the two missing kids, and it would have been important for the Hendersons to tell them.
It might be a coincidence, but Archie doubted it.
“Can you tell us about them?” he asked.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know anything. I just know that two other teenagers have vanished. Their parents didn’t go to the authorities because they knew that no one would help them.”
“We will,” Braith said. “It’s why we’re here.”
“I hope you find the boys. Finn’s a sweetheart. My kids love when he babysits them.”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Archie promised. “But we won’t be able to do much if we don’t find any information.”
“I promise that I’m not hiding anything. I just don’t know much. I’ve heard about the boys through a friend of a friend. I don’t know their parents, but I know they vanished recently. It’s like someone or something is taking our boys.”
“You said you have children?” Archie asked.
“Three,” the woman said. “My eldest son is twelve.”
Not much younger than Finn. Archie didn’t know how old the other kids who’d disappeared were, but suspected that whoever was taking them had a type. He also understood better why the woman was afraid.
Once they were sure they wouldn’t get anything else out of her, Braith and Archie said goodbye and stepped off the porch.
The woman looked relieved to be able to close the door, but unfortunately, she hadn’t helped them that much.
They knew they had two more kids to look for, but they still had no idea where to start.
“Something’s definitely happening here,” Braith said as they walked.
“Three kids isn’t a coincidence. I’m curious about how old those kids are.”
“If I have to guess, I’d say around Finn’s age.”
“Which means someone’s kidnapping teenagers.”
“I wonder why.”
Archie did, too. He doubted it was good. No one took three teenagers for good reasons. “We’re going to have to talk to the Hendersons again. I’m surprised they didn’t tell us about this.”
“They might not know. You heard the lady. She was told by a friend of a friend.”
“Maybe.” Jasper didn’t want to think they had anything to do with their son’s disappearance.
He didn’t think they did. It would have been easy for them to keep quiet about Finn like the other parents had.
Instead, the Hendersons had gone to the police, then to Archie and Braith, and they were willing to pay them to look into Finn’s disappearance.
“This case is bigger than we expected,” Braith said, sounding grim.
They both knew there was a chance that all three of the kids were already dead. That wouldn’t stop them from doing everything they could to find them.