11. Chapter 11
Chapter 11
JASON
N ot again , I thought, as the grip of the dream had me.
Glowing eyes in the dark.
In the trees.
Teeth.
Pain.
So much pain.
Because something was pulling at me, yet when I looked at my body, nothing had hold of me other than the light. The light was where those eyes were watching me, yet they glowed even brighter than it did.
Why was I so small? Why was I on bare feet? Everything around me, the woods, the light, the looming figure within it, looked bigger than it should. Because I was small.
I was just a little boy.
“Jason!”
I looked up. The light had split the clearing down the middle, like a lightning bolt midair, but within the bolt’s light was something sinister. It had my father. It was pulling him in. And its light, the light it controlled, was pulling me in too.
“Jason, no!” Dad called when my feet slid forward across the ground. “Stay back!”
Daddy , I wanted to cry, too much in pain to speak. The monster has you. What do I do? How do I save you?
Its hands were like claws made out of tree branches. Vines from it wound around my father like rope, keeping him within the light, pulling him in with it. And above my distraught father’s disappearing face… was the glowing eyes in the dark, which only seemed dark because its black sockets were surrounded by light.
In the trees, fading away.
With skull-like teeth, sharp as fangs.
And antlers spiraling up from its head.
It hurt . It hurt so much to feel that pull, knowing I had to stay.
Because Daddy told me to.
“Jason! I love you . ”
“Jason! Jason, wake up!”
I woke to Ricky shaking me. “I-I… I’m awake,” I croaked, but I was shaking all on my own now, even after Ricky released my shoulders. Because I was crying, my cheeks sticky and wet, and I couldn’t catch my breath. At least only a few scales and tufts of fur had sprouted this time, and I willed them away.
Was that what had happened? Was that what took my dad?
And why had I grown antlers last night like I’d seen on the monster?
What had it done to me?
“Jason. Hey. Look at me. Are you okay?”
Maybe I’d imagined it. We didn’t know what I was yet. Maybe I’d only dreamt about antlers because I had them myself now. Maybe it was all mixing up in my subconscious. But how could I be sure?
“ Jason ,” Ricky said again, soft but desperate for me to answer.
“I-I, um…” I looked at him, and if ever there was someone I trusted with my whole self, antlers and all, it was Ricky. “I need to tell you about my dreams.”
So I did. About all of them. The ones that had been mostly on repeat, and how, since coming home, they’d started to change.
Ricky had plenty of ideas about what the dreams might mean, but like with everything else right now, it only gave us more questions to answer, and they all tied to the same few that really mattered.
What was I?
What was happening with the portal?
And if people were disappearing through it, what was taking them?
What took my dad?
Later that morning, I was too in my head to tell Mom more than, “Back to the lab today. We still don’t know much, but we’re doing all we can. I’ll be fine.”
I had to be fine eventually, right? After all, I had Ricky with me.
I had Ricky, and he had me.
He also very much needed to wear a scarf today to hide the hickeys I’d left on his neck.
We weren’t bringing in Mickey yet, but he’d likely have his vet visit soon. Whitmore wasn’t going to meet us at the facility today, so bonus . He’d messaged me that he was checking on something else and just told me to send him an update once we finished. The plan was to start with the same blood draws, scans, and peeing in a cup routine as yesterday, only now in my mixed form, and to submit to whatever other tests the scientists might think up. They were very excited to learn about my antlers. Then, in the afternoon, we were going to head to the monster realm.
I had almost bolstered myself up for the idea when Zinnia and Beck had to go and talk about how they couldn’t wait to see how I reacted to the trip.
“Meaning?” I pressed. “What do you think will happen?”
“We have no idea!” Zinna exclaimed. “Anything is possible given your unique chemistry. The makeup of your DNA is entirely different depending on which form. Going to the monster realm might change it into something entirely new all on its own.”
“Great.”
Once again, I was back to feeling like a guinea pig.
Another plus at least was that the cafeteria here served a pretty awesome lunch. Ricky went to bring stuff back for all of us. Then, once we were officially ready to leave the lab for our field trip, I was able to put on pants.
“Now!” Beck led us from the lab area toward the portal room. Even just nearing the thing made me feel like I might lose control of my molecules, and there was no way to be certain if that was nerves or something else until I crossed over to the monster world. “There is just as much likelihood that nothing will happen as something, but as scientists we must catalogue any change to your readings and physical structure.”
I took a breath. Not like heading to the gallows at all. Nope.
Ricky slipped his hand into mine and gave it a firm squeeze. That helped.
Remembering him giving my knot a squeeze last night helped even more.
“Doctors!”
We had just passed the hallway leading to the main entrance, when one of the guards rushed around the corner to stop us.
“We had to call more guards to the front!” he huffed, clearly out of breath. “We had to lock down the main entrance after letting your son in for safety from a mob gathering outside.”
“ What ?” we all sputtered over each other, and Zinnia and Beck raced around me and Ricky to reach the panting guard.
“Where is—?” Beck began, but another guard turned the corner with Kai slumped against him. Because Kai was limping and needed help walking. Because he was bruised like he’d been beaten . Because one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut!
“What the fuck happened?” I demanded.
“They’re starting a protest outside,” the second guard explained, passing Kai to his parents, who immediately devolved into concerned questions in their purring, clicky language. “We’re handling the situation and have called the local authorities as well. We ask that everyone stay inside until the police arrive.”
“Oh, mi jhavi ,” Zinnia dripped concern, matched by Beck’s as they continued to dote on Kai like good parents should. But they shouldn’t have to .
“What happened?” I asked Kai.
He hushed his parents with a few weak, pleading clicks, and said, “I… I was tricked. There is an English word for it, but I can’t remember. Someone pretended to be a match for me on the app. I went to meet him, but he was not who I thought.”
“Someone catfished you?” Ricky snarled.
“Yes. That is the word.” Kai kept his eyes—well, one eye—on the floor, only able to stand straight because his parents were supporting him. “He seemed so nice. Then he started asking questions. Then… his friends came. I tried to leave. They tried to stop me. I… fought to get away. They did not like that I resisted and started to beat me. I finally hit one of them hard enough to escape, but they followed me here.”
Those fuckers .
All I could see while he recounted all that was red.
“Then they are really fucking stupid,” I growled.
“Jason!” Ricky tried to hold onto me. “You can’t—”
“They want to spout a bunch of bullshit about monsters on street corners, they can go right ahead. But pulling shit like this ?” I heard the real growl enter my voice and didn’t care. “I am done!” I tore away from Ricky and launched into a sprint for the front.
“Jason!”
Red. Nothing but red.
Kai was a nineteen-year-old looking for love. If they wanted to target monsters, they should look in the fucking mirror!
Ricky called after me the entire way, but I didn’t stop. I pushed past the guards at the door.
“Sir, please wait—”
“Make sure the police get here soon,” I told them and stormed outside, looking for Ronald McDickhole.
To my surprise, he wasn’t among the dozen or so people raising a fuss, but I recognized several of those who had been there when McDickhole was trying to gather flunkies outside Beastly Brewhouse. They were just like him. Worse .
“It is bad enough that app gives them access to easily manipulative humans they can brainwash to their cause!” some random ringleader was shouting, while others chanted the usual BS I used to hear on campus in Edgewind.
“Monsters are mayhem!”
“Now look what that one did to me!” The man pointed at his swelling cheek with one hand and through the glass of the main doors with the other.
I looked to the doors too. Ricky was exiting to join me, but although Zinnia and Beck had followed us most of the way, still helping to support Kai, they remained safely inside behind the guards.
“Is he the one?” I shouted through the closed doors, pointing at the ringleader, who was grossly too old to be catfishing teenagers.
Kai shook his head and pointed at another.
This kid was at least age appropriate, and he wasn’t yelling with the others. He looked like he’d been dragged along for the ride, and once I realized how similar in features he looked to the ringleader, I figured the catfishing jackass must have been forced into it by his father.
Still an accessory.
“Hey!” I screamed over their continued chanting. “Come up with something new already! Monsters are members of this community now, not mayhem, and you all better get real comfy with the idea of jail time and a huge fucking fine for assault!”
That caught a few of the protesters up short. They couldn’t all have been part of the beating, or I doubted Kai would have been able to escape them, but guilt by association, assholes.
“Bosco.” The ringleader said my name like it was a bug he’d swallowed. I recognized him now. He worked construction in town. His son did too, during the summer.
“Colt, right?” I ignored his ringleader father. “You graduated two years after me? I don’t remember you being a dick.”
“Y-yeah?” Colt tried to act tough now that I’d called him out. “Well, I don’t remember you being a monster. Were you lying, hiding like the paper said, or did they turn you into one of them?”
“Is that what they’re planning?” someone else shouted.
“Are they trying to turn all of us?” another joined in.
The din rose, and the chanting started again too.
“Monsters are mayhem!”
“Shut up!” I screamed.
“Jason.” Ricky touched my arm. “You can’t take on all of them.”
“Let ‘em try me.”
“ Jason .”
He tightened his grip, and when I looked down at his hand around my forearm, I could see the scales, the fur, the claws unleashing. I didn’t want to will it all away this time. I wanted to let the real me out and—
“Stop this right now!” The boom of this new voice was more resonant than my warning growl—but what really caught everyone’s attention was the sound of sirens.
When someone made to sprint down the sidewalk, the crowd parted to reveal Whitmore moving through them. He called after the runner, “The facility’s cameras have already caught all your faces! I suggest staying where you are until the police arrive!”
“Colt Jensen,” I singled him out to Whitmore, “right there, catfished Kai with the Monster Match app, then his father and some of these other assholes ambushed him, and when he tried to get away, they beat him to a pulp.”
“You can’t prove—” Jensen Senior began.
“Proof, Mr.… Jensen, was it?” Whitmore stared him down. “That’s for the courts. Best you understand, however, that assault motivated by bias, especially when premeditated, is considered a hate crime. The penalties for that are quite severe for everyone involved.”
“We did not premeditate—”
“But you did plan to get Mr. Q’ah-la-khan—” which Whitmore said perfectly, I might add, clicks and all— “somewhere alone using false information, so you are going to have to prove in court whether or not the assault was also premeditated.”
The police were finally pulling up—three squad cars’ worth.
“Good luck with that,” Whitmore finished. Then he hauled me and Ricky inside by hooking us by our elbows. He stopped at Kai and his family, while the guards gave us space.
“Listen,” I tried to say, “thank you for deescalating—”
“All I want to hear from you right now, Jason, is silence,” Whitmore commanded. “Or are you never going to take this seriously—”
“I am—”
“ Are you? Because it didn’t look like it from out there. You need to get better control.” He snatched up my wrist to show the monster features still visible up my arm.
“Or what?” I yanked free of him.
I didn’t know why I had to be such an idiot and ask that. I knew the consequences. If I fucked up, like, really fucked up and got into a fight with someone in my monster form, Whitmore couldn’t protect me.
They’d send me away.
“You know what,” he confirmed. “Helping the research team figure out what you are and how it connects to the portal in the woods is all you should be focused on. Stick to that and help—”
“I was helping—”
“And stop picking—or finishing—fights!” he snarled. “Next time, call me first.”
I felt like a little kid, being disciplined by a teacher in front of the whole class. The others were quiet, but I couldn’t stop looking at Kai’s beaten face. And it was like that for no good reason . “They hurt my friend.”
“I see that.” Whitmore met Kai’s downtrodden stare. I never doubted that his sympathies were genuine. I never doubted that he cared. Which was the only reason I started to shake away my fur and scales and claws. “I’m angry too. They deserve to be the ones looking like that,” he gestured at the people being questioned by the police, several of whom were being escorted into squad cars, “not you, Kai. But if we stoop to their level, we prove them right and none of this gets better. Next time, call me,” he said to me again. “If one of them throws the first punch, and I’m there to witness it, I can have the pleasure of retaliating. Then it’s on me, not you.”
“Okay.” I took a breath. This sucked, because I wanted to be the one throwing punches, but I knew he was right. “I meant that thanks.”
“M-me too,” Kai stammered. “Thank you, Mr…, um, I mean, Agent Whitmore.”
“Any time,” Whitmore said. “Maybe stay off that app for a while. I’m sure you can find someone worthy of your company without it. But report this. The app creators will want to know.”
Kai nodded.
“Now, before they go get you patched up, I need a word with these two. Alone.”
That couldn’t be good.
Whitmore motioned for me and Ricky to huddle with him a few feet away.
“Uh, you couldn’t have done the laying into me part in private too?” I snarked.
“I thought we were in agreement about no more frolicking in the woods?”
Ricky and I couldn’t have looked more guilty with how we glanced at each other. Crap.
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“ Jason .” Whitmore loomed over us. I really hated that he was bigger than me. “I want to trust you, but now you have two serious strikes against you. This .” He gestured outside again. “And last night when you went into the woods without your phone.”
How did he know?
“I will take your silence for admittance. I was at your house, waiting for the last of your lights to turn off. I saw you go in there.”
“You what?” I should have expected that, but it was still creepy.
Wait.
“You can’t see our backyard from the street.”
Whitmore stared at me.
“Which admits we did it, fine, but seriously? You saw us? You were in my backyard? Or watching from around the side of the house?”
“Assume I am always watching.”
“First off, gross .”
“Which was why I didn’t follow you into the woods.” He raised his hands as if to say he hadn’t watched the us getting freaky part.
But did that mean Whitmore was the presence I’d felt? Had it just been him, spying on us, that had made me feel like someone was watching? And if it was, why had the presence felt like it was coming from the woods?
“If it happens again, you’re graduating to ankle monitor. Do we have an understanding, gentlemen?” Whitmore pressed.
Ricky and I nodded.
“Out loud.”
“Yes,” we said.
“Good. Now go make sure your friend is okay.”
As we left, I couldn’t help noticing that Kai gazed at Whitmore with a fond sigh.
“What even is your type?” I asked him later, while we waited for our turn to talk to the police after he’d been treated—and yes, we took plenty of photos of his injuries first.
“Type?” Kai blinked at me.
“You matched with me on the app. You matched with catfishing asshole Colt, who looks nothing like me. You drooled over my snake body as much as your sister did. Now Whitmore?”
Kai’s cheeks turned that blushing indigo color, more so than from any bruising. “You do not think him handsome?”
“ Urg ,” I groaned, because yeah, Whitmore was a dreamboat, but did everyone have to notice? At least Kai was a better option than my mom.
By the time we’d made our reports to the police, taking a trip to the monster realm had been officially postponed. Thankfully, Zinnia and Beck agreed with my contingency plan.
Kai needed a movie night.
RICKY
A literal hate crime involving our friend definitely warranted an early end to the day. I also think Zinnia and Beck were more endeared to Jason than ever. He’d stood up for their son without a second thought. Stupidly and almost to his detriment, but he hadn’t even thought about the consequences before defending a friend. It was one of Jason’s sweeter qualities that I’d always loved about him, even before I knew I could love so much else.
Sandy didn’t mind having a new dinner guest either.
“You’re sure you can eat anything?” she asked Kai.
Burgers were on the menu tonight, which Kai admitted he’d never had before.
“My sister has tried everything and never reported any discomfort,” Kai said. “I am excited to try ham -burgers.”
“Just call them burgers,” Jason said.
Mickey the cat seemed to like Kai too and snuggled right up in his lap after dinner like he knew the poor guy needed some purring and soft texture therapy.
For movies, we decided on The Shape of Water first, since the monster looked a lot like Kai, but I vetoed Jason’s suggestion to watch the 80s Swamp Thing afterward. The campiness might go over Kai’s head.
“Also,” Jason said as we started the first film, “don't follow the monster’s example when he eats the cat.”
“He is going to eat a cat!” Kai snuggled Mickey even more protectively. “I do not know if I can like this monster.”
“It’s not usually something I could forgive either, but he wins you back over in the end.”
He did—the monster hadn’t known any better, in his defense—and after watching a fellow fish monster get a happy ending with a human, Kai asked, “Do either of you know Agent Whitmore’s given name?”
“ Urg ,” Jason groaned.
“Sorry, never caught it,” I said.
“Dude, you are not still gushing over him,” Jason accused. “Do you have a hero complex or something? You like the dashing white knight types who come to your rescue?”
Meaning Jason too, I didn’t point out.
“White knight?” Kai tilted his head at us. We had given him the corner of the L-shape, so he could stretch out his legs, giving us the rest of the sofa to snuggle on.
“Figure of speech,” Jason said. “Actually, what does white knight mean? No one would have worn white armor. It would have been silver from the metal!”
“Don’t overthink it.” I snickered.
“All I’m saying,” Jason returned to Kai, “is why Whitmore? He’s too old for you.”
“I am a matured adult of my species,” Kai said. “Why should age matter?”
“Sure, but he's gotta be like twice your age. That's a big difference.”
“Not to me. There would always be differences between us. He is human. I am a monster. Surely, you don't take issue with that.” Kai glanced between us.
“No, it's just... urg!” Jason groaned again. “Can't you crush on anyone other than him? Or me. Not Ricky either, obviously. But, um…” He trailed off because, after all, Kai had tried to do that, and it hadn’t turned out well. “Sorry.”
“I promise it is not only because Whitmore rescued us,” Kai said. “He caught my attention the other day too. He is very, um… hot.”
Jason laughed. “He is hot. Can’t deny that.”
“And we cannot choose upon whom we crush , correct?”
Jason looked at me nestled against him and his smile made me melt. “No, we can’t,” he said. “And better you than my mom.”
“What was that?” Sandy breezed by us on her way through the living room. She had very graciously given it up for the night.
“Nothing!”
Since it was also time to restock on popcorn and drinks, I got up to start on provisions, while Jason spread out a selection of Blu-rays for Kai to choose from.
“Is that the same monster as the last movie?” I heard Kai ask and glanced back to see him pointing at the 2004 Hellboy movie with Ron Perlman.
“No, but it is the same director. He must have a thing for fish people. And this movie was before we knew about the monster realm. People went wild for Abe Sapien. The monster fuckers are out there, dude. You’ll find someone.”
Sandy sat at the kitchen table with her laptop but tilted her head at Jason’s very loud declaration.
I met her baffled expression with a shrug, and she laughed and went back to work. She really was great. She could handle all of Jason’s new forms, no matter how much he worried she’d be spooked. She’d barely batted an eye when we introduced her to Kai.
It made me miss my own mom, dad, and everyone from back home. I was going to have so much to talk to them about during my weekly check-in when I called. Even after omitting the classified parts.
“Can’t my someone be Whitmore?” Kai asked.
“Maybe,” Jason said as I started more popcorn on the stove. “Just try dreaming bigger.”
“I have not met many men larger than Agent Whitmore.”
“Not what I meant.” Jason laughed.
He was very sweet with Kai. Other than Cael and that spider monster Jason had mentioned, he’d never had monster friends. I hadn’t either. I was glad we were changing that.
Hellboy with Hellboy II on deck had been selected, with Jason coming over to help me with drinks about the time the popcorn finished.
“You’re adorable,” I said.
“Fact. Why this time?”
“You’re really good with Kai. He definitely needed this tonight.”
“Yeah. And it wasn’t only pity or anything. He’s cool, right? I’m glad we became buddies.”
“Me too.”
“You’re not jealous?” Jason waggled an eyebrow at me.
“You treat him like a little brother.”
“Aw, I was hoping to see you jealous again.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed just above where I had Sandy’s scarf still wrapped around my neck like a fashion statement instead of as a way to hide the many hickeys he’d given me.
“Not my speed.”
“But I am?”
“What do you mean?” I turned in his hold to face him.
“I know you don’t mind the monster stuff, but you don’t mind the, um… what did you say? Me being impatient, short-tempered, and, uh…”
“Having no filter?” I finished.
“That.”
“Everyone has flaws.”
“You don’t.”
“I do too!” I pushed him, but he held onto my waist. “I have plenty. I got us in trouble with Whitmore because of our woods frolicking. I can get hyper-focused on things and miss totally obvious things, like you pining for me for years.”
“That was pretty terrible of you.”
I pushed him again. “And… I take too much for granted.”
“Like what?”
“Having my big, happy, close family. How easy school stuff always was for me. That my best friend would always be there, totally forgetting that you might have life-changing things happening right under my nose, and I easily could have lost you. I still could—”
“You are not going to lose me,” Jason said hushed, glancing at his mom at the dining table. No one was eavesdropping right now, not even Kai, who I could see over Jason’s shoulder petting Mickey. “No one is losing anyone. Because neither of us are going to be idiots again, we are going to figure out what I am, and the assholes of the world are not going to win.”
I had been trying so hard to convince him of that. It felt good to have Jason turn the tables.
“Deal?” he asked.
“Deal.”
“Good. Now let’s get movie number two started!”
Kai enjoyed Hellboy even more than The Shape of Water for the brighter colors and happier tone. Abe wasn’t even his favorite character. He liked Hellboy and how much that character loved cats.
“I promise to be like Hellboy and never eat you, Mickey,” Kai said to the cat who still hadn’t left his lap. “For you are soft and nice and I like it when you vibrate.”
We were definitely enjoying having Kai as a friend.
We still planned to watch Hellboy II , since it had been decided that Kai would spend the night and return to the facility with us in the morning, but we moved downstairs to Jason’s room, so Sandy could get some sleep without us making a ruckus right below her bedroom on the second floor. Jason didn’t have a separate TV, but he had a huge, curved computer monitor that worked perfectly, with all three of us sprawled on the bed.
Maybe because of his ordeal or another dose of pain meds before movie number three, but Kai fell asleep with about half an hour left. We didn’t wake him. Or Mickey, who had followed us downstairs. But I did take the opportunity to scoot closer to Jason and steal a kiss.
“You know…” Jason pressed his forehead to mine, which was just as sweet as when he’d done it while sporting antlers. “Today almost felt normal. Tonight, I mean. Not the earlier parts. But you help me feel normal, even with a new fish buddy.”
“It is normal. You’re normal. Normal for you. We’ll figure out the rest, and I am not going anywhere.”
“I was hoping you’d go somewhere.”
I waited for Jason to elaborate.
He grabbed the remote and turned off the movie. His grin might as well have had fangs already because it was absolutely devious. “We have a whole other room. We should use it.”