Chapter Eight
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IT WAS ALWAYS DIFFICULT to talk to Jasper about his past, mostly because of his parents.
Archie didn’t know what it was like to have a father like Leroy.
His father loved him. Archie wasn’t sure that Leroy had ever loved Jasper, though.
That was why it had been so confusing to realize that he’d willingly adopted Jasper, who wasn’t even human.
Finding that report hadn’t helped make sense of any of it, but Archie couldn’t keep it a secret.
He had to tell Jasper, who would do whatever he wanted with the information.
Unfortunately, Archie suspected he knew what Jasper would do. He wasn’t happy about it, but he wouldn’t try to stop him. It was time that Jasper got answers, and while talking to Leroy probably wouldn’t help with that, it wouldn’t stop him from trying.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Jasper said as he squared his shoulders.
They were in Archie’s apartment again. They spent a lot of time here because Archie lived alone, while Jasper shared his place with Corey and Kerry.
Archie had hinted at Jasper moving in with him, but so far, Jasper hadn’t said anything about it.
That was fine with Archie. They were making things work like this, and he knew that sometimes, Jasper needed time with his best friends.
He needed to be reassured that even though he wasn’t the man everyone had thought he was, they wouldn’t change their mind about loving him.
Besides, it was good for them to spend some time apart.
But tonight, Jasper was here. Archie had cooked, and he’d been planning on keeping his mouth shut until they were done eating the pasta he’d put together after work. It looked like Jasper had a different idea in mind, though.
Archie sighed and put down his fork. “Maybe I should wait until after dinner.”
“Or maybe you shouldn’t. You look like you were about to explode with anticipation. Hell, if you don’t, I will. I can tell this has something to do with me. If it didn’t, you would’ve told me already.”
Archie took a sip of water from his glass to waste a few more seconds. “It does have to do with you. I was poking around the hunters’ archives again today when I found a report I hadn’t noticed earlier.”
Jasper put down his fork, too, and cleaned his mouth with his napkin. “Now I know I really won’t like this. Tell me, Archie. Just rip it off like a band-aid. That’ll be better than waiting for you to say it.”
“That report I found was about Leroy finding a child. There’s not much to it, but there are a few words from Leroy. He said that he’d contacted people to find the child a home and that he and his wife were willing to adopt. He said that the child would be placed with them.”
“I feel like he skipped several things there,” Jasper said, pointing out the obvious. He sounded casual, but Archie knew that this was anything but casual to him. He knew they were talking about him. No other child involved in this mess.
“He definitely did. I don’t know exactly how the system works, but I doubt someone would’ve given him and your mother a child just because they asked for it. There has to be more.”
Jasper tapped his fingertips on the table. “But we don’t know what that more is.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever find out unless someone talks.”
“And the only person who has all the info we want is Leroy. Unfortunately, he won’t talk to me.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s clear that he was involved in what happened at the sanctuary and with your parents. He clearly doesn’t want you to know.”
“I don’t know why,” Jasper said with a snort.
“Does he think I’m going to hate him if I do?
Because I already do. I hate him because of the way he treated me when I was growing up.
It has nothing to do with the sanctuary and my biological parents, although if he did have something to do with their deaths, I’m not going to be happy.
I’m not going to hate him more, though. I don’t think I can hate him more. ”
Maybe Jasper was convinced of what he was saying, but Archie had his doubts.
Jasper still considered Leroy his father, even though Leroy had hurt him.
Part of him probably always would. After all, Leroy might not be Jasper’s biological father, but he had raised him since he was a child.
He was the only father figure Jasper had ever had.
That wasn’t going to change, no matter what happened with him.
Jasper shook his head. “You know, I have something to tell you, too. It’s even more messed up.”
Archie’s stomach dropped. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He hadn’t been since they’d started talking. “What?”
“Kester visited me at work today. Luckily, I was alone, because it would’ve been a bloodbath otherwise. I’m still not sure what he wanted. He asked me if he could go to the sanctuary, and I told him to fuck off.”
“What’s his obsession with the sanctuary?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t think he’s going to tell us. I’m not even sure he actually wants something from there. Part of me thinks that he’s doing this to taunt us. He knows there’s no need for him to ask permission to go to the plot of land where the sanctuary was.”
“What he wants is for us to know that he wants to go there.”
“Yeah. I don’t know why, and I doubt he’s going to tell us even if we ask. He’s even worse than my father.”
“He didn’t hurt you?” Because if he had, Archie would hunt him down. He didn’t care how much stronger Kester was. He was going to defend his boyfriend, no matter what it cost him.
“He didn’t touch me. He taunted me, insinuated that he knew what happened to my birth parents and why I’d ended up with Leroy, but nothing concrete.
He tried to bargain with me, but whatever he’s offering, there’s no price I’d be willing to pay for it, not to him.
I’d rather never find out what happened that night. ”
“I agree that it wouldn’t be worth it. He’s going to try to convince you otherwise, though.”
“I know. I’m incredibly curious, too, but I’m not willing to give him what he wants.”
They didn’t even know what Kester wanted.
He seemed to have taken a shine to Jasper, and it was anyone’s guess why or what his final goal was.
Was he taunting Jasper just because he could?
Because he was having fun with it? Knowing him, there was a good chance that was the case, but they couldn’t know for sure.
Kester wasn’t wrong, though. Whatever Kester knew, they shouldn’t give him what he was asking for. That was a recipe for disaster, and they were already dealing with enough of those.
* * * *
THROUGHOUT THE EVENING, Jasper couldn’t stop thinking about Leroy and the kind of father he’d been over the years.
Jasper had always had the impression that Leroy hadn’t wanted him.
His mother hadn’t been particularly affectionate, either, but he was pretty sure that she’d loved him, or at least, he had been.
He wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except for the fact that Leroy definitely had never loved him like a son. He hadn’t loved him at all.
He’d been an incredibly harsh father ever since Jasper was a child.
Jasper had to be the best in school. He couldn’t allow other children to be better than him because that wasn’t the kind of people their family was.
He had to be the best at training once he’d started, too.
Leroy wouldn’t have it any other way, and he’d trained Jasper himself for hours at a time, pushing him until Jasper felt like he was about to faint and until he threw up.
Jasper’s mother had been there, taking care of him after those training sessions, quiet but with steady hands.
She’d never told Leroy to stop. She’d never even tried.
Jasper had always thought it was because she approved, and he was even more convinced of that now.
They might have wanted a child, maybe even desperately enough to adopt a monster child, but once they’d had him, they hadn’t known what to do with him.
They hadn’t known how to be parents, especially to a child who wasn’t fully human.
They’d put up a good front for the hunters, but Jasper had always known that their family wasn’t normal.
He turned his head to the side to watch Archie.
He was sleeping peacefully, his mouth slightly open, his hair spilling around his head on the pillow.
Jasper wished he could fall asleep, even if it wasn’t that peacefully.
He’d rather take nightmares and bad dreams than be there staring at the ceiling like he had been for two hours.
He checked the time. It wasn’t that late, just after midnight, but he knew that staying in bed wouldn’t help.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure that anything would help.
He couldn’t shut his brain down. He kept thinking about what happened at the sanctuary and how his father had known to find him there.
Or had it been by chance? Maybe that night, Leroy had found Jasper and had decided to take the opportunity to get an instant family. Maybe he hadn’t even known that Jasper was there.
That didn’t sound right. Leroy was a powerful hunter. He’d been in charge of several teams even back then. Before they moved in, they would’ve known exactly how many people were in the building and possibly where they were located. They would’ve had a plan to deal with all of them.
That was why it didn’t make sense that the operation had gone so badly that everyone involved had died and the building had been razed to the ground.
That wasn’t how hunters behaved, no matter how big an operation was.
If Jasper thought about it, this felt like rage, but how had none of the hunters stepped in to stop what was going on?
The only way Jasper would get answers was by talking to Leroy, but Leroy wouldn’t talk to him. Who else was left? Jasper supposed he could call Sarah, but she wouldn’t know about the night the sanctuary had been destroyed. She hadn’t been there.
But she might know other things, things Jasper hadn’t thought to ask her until now.
He pushed away the sheet and got out of bed, careful not to wake up Archie.
Archie didn’t even move, and Jasper gave him a fond smile.
He was lucky to have found someone like Archie, who hadn’t left his side even after they’d found out what Jasper was.
Of course, it would’ve been weird for Archie to leave since he was a monster, but still.
Jasper wouldn’t have blamed him or anyone else for not wanting to get involved.
His life was a mess, and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better anytime soon.
Jasper grabbed his phone from the nightstand and slipped out of the bedroom.
He didn’t turn on any lights, settling on the couch by the light of the lampposts that came from outside the window.
He hesitated, knowing it was late and not wanting to bother Sarah while she might be sleeping, but he felt like ants were walking under his skin.
He needed to do something to give himself peace.
He decided to start by texting her. If she didn’t answer, he wouldn’t call.
Are you awake?
Part of him hoped that she wasn’t, while part of him hoped that she was. He wanted answers, but it also scared him. There was also the fact that he wasn’t sure that Sarah would have any answers.
I am. What’s going on? she answered, telling Jasper what he needed to know.
He hit the call button. Sarah had to have her phone in her hands because she answered right away. “Jasper? Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know. My boyfriend found a report that someone wrote after finding me. There wasn’t much in it, but I can’t help but wonder if taking me home was an opportunity he saw and decided to take or if he created that opportunity.”
Sarah was quiet for a moment. She had to understand what Jasper was saying. Jasper wanted to push her, but he’d found out over the years that the best way to get someone to talk was to be quiet. People tended to want to fill the silence, and that was when they revealed more than they wanted to.
“I can’t be sure of anything,” Sarah warned.
“I know. You already told me that. I’m looking for answers, though, and any details could help.”
“As you know, I wasn’t at the sanctuary that night, so I don’t know about Leroy being there or how he found you.
I do know that I saw him before then, though.
He kept coming to the sanctuary and watching us from outside.
We all thought it was because he was a hunter and being paranoid, and we even made fun of him.
I thought he was spying on us and trying to find a reason to arrest us, but we weren’t doing anything wrong, and he knew it. ”
“So he might have seen me before that night?”
“I’m almost a hundred percent sure that he did. You and your mom especially spent a lot of time outside. I also heard that he’d been asking questions about the children who lived at the sanctuary. I assumed it was all related to him being a hunter, but now, I wonder.”
Jasper leaned his weight back into the couch.
He didn’t think it had been a coincidence and that Leroy had just taken the opportunity when a child suddenly dropped into his lap.
No, from what Sarah was saying, it was clear that Leroy had been watching the sanctuary.
He’d been watching the children, maybe choosing the one he wanted for himself and his wife.
Jasper.
Jasper was going to have to talk to Leroy.
He didn’t think his father would give him answers, but Jasper had to try.
The problem was that Leroy wouldn’t talk in front of Archie.
He wouldn’t even be in the same room as Archie.
He hated Archie because he was a monster, and there was no ignoring that the way he could ignore it when it came to Jasper. Jasper looked human. Archie didn’t.
“Thank you,” Jasper said.
“I wish I could do more for you,” Sarah said.
“I wish I could tell you what happened to your parents. I might not have been there that night, but I know that they died standing up for what they believed in. The sanctuary was their dream. They wanted humans and monsters to live together peacefully just the way they were. In the end, it killed them.”
Had it? Or had Leroy wanted a child so desperately that he’d been willing to kill and destroy the sanctuary for it?
It sounded far-fetched, but then, so did Jasper being part monster.
Had the sanctuary really been destroyed because of Jasper?
Because Leroy wanted him? Jasper wasn’t sure he would ever find out, but that wouldn’t stop him from asking.