Page 49 of In the Monster's Wake
Maybe he did like hurting people with words, after all.Kester did things because they pleased him.Maybe he’d wanted to hurt Jasper, or maybe he’d wanted to be right about it.Either way, he’d gotten what he wanted—Jasper knew that he wasn’t fully human and that the man he’d thought was his father all his life wasn’t related to him.
* * * *
ARCHIBALD HADN’T TASTEDJasper’s blood, but he suspected that what Kester was saying was correct.If anything, the reaction Jasper’s father had to what Kester was saying was a dead giveaway.The man was clearly panicking and didn’t want Jasper to listen to anything Kester had to say.
Jasper would be a fool not to.
Kester might be a cruel monster, and he definitely had his own agenda when it came to why he was telling Jasper all of this, but did it really matter when he was telling the truth?Why would he lie?There wasn’t a reason for him to, but therewasa long list of reasons why Jasper’s father would.
No matter the lies or the truth, now wasn’t the right moment to do this.When Archibald, Jasper, and Braith had planned this, they hadn’t thought they’d have to deal with hunters, too.
They definitely hadn’t thought they’d have to deal with family drama.
Archibald should have known the hunters would be called.This was a situation that would call for it if the hunters were any help.Right now, their presence was making things more complicated, and while Archibald understood why the caller had contacted them, he wished they hadn’t.
Archibald couldn’t kill Kester.If he did so in front of the hunters, they would kill him, too.They’d use it as proof that he was a violent monster and that he was dangerous.He wasn’t willing to risk it, especially if there was another way to get rid of Kester.The hunters might be hassles, and they were definitely human, but they were trained.They dealt with monsters every day.Some of them might die attacking Kester, but they had numbers on their side.There was only one Kester, but dozens of hunters crowded the room.
Every single one of them was staring at Jasper.
Jasper might not be a hunter anymore, but he knew these people.Even if they weren’t friends, they were people he’d worked with and had trusted with his life.Archibald couldn’t imagine how it felt for Jasper’s secret to be exposed to people like this.Knowing what the hunters thought of monsters, they would no doubt reject Jasper.They wouldn’t want him anywhere close since he was part monster.He’d gone from being one of them to being on the outside looking in, and even though he wasn’t interested in the hunters’ life anymore, it couldn’t be easy.
“He’s right, isn’t he?”Jasper asked his father.
Leroy crossed his arms over his chest.“You’d believe a monster over your father?”
“Areyou my father?I’m pretty sure you’d kill yourself if you ever found out you were part monster, so I don’t think it comes from you.You wouldn’t be with Mom if she had a child with a monster, though, which means I was probably adopted.”
“What does it matter?I raised you.”
“You raised me to be a hunter.You raised me to kill people like me.”
“You arenota monster!”Leroy yelled.“You are my son, and where you come from doesn’t matter.”
“It might not matter to you, but it does to me.Tell me.Did you find me?Or did you take me from my real parents?Do you have any idea of who they were?”
Jasper moved toward Leroy.Archibald reached for him, then thought better of it.He wasn’t afraid that Leroy would hurt Jasper.If anything, Jasper might hurt Leroy.The problem was the hunters scattered around them.Theywouldn’t hesitate to hurt Jasper, especially now that they knew he was a monster.
“You don’t need to know any of that,” Leroy snapped.
Jasper jerked forward.Someone yelled, and chaos exploded.
Several hunters went for Jasper, but Archibald wouldn’t allow them to hurt his boyfriend.He grabbed one of them by the arm and threw her against the wall, then tripped a second one.He didn’t do anything else.He was watching Jasper’s back, but that didn’t mean he wanted Jasper to get into even more trouble with the hunters.
“Enough!”Leroy yelled.
Everyone froze.The hunters stared at Leroy for a moment, but thankfully, they took a step back.That was when Archibald realized that Kester was gone.
“Where did he go?”he asked, turning to Braith.
Braith had moved with him to defend Jasper, and he was standing in front of a hunter who was threatening him with a knife.He didn’t look worried until he heard Archibald’s words.
“Dammit,” he swore.“He left.”
Jasper’s laughter was dark.“I hope you’re happy,” he told his father.“You wanted me to stop Kester, but you distracted me before I could.You’re on your own now.”
“You said you would take care of him,” Leroy argued.
“That was before I found out that I was a monster.All monsters are evil, aren’t they,Dad?They only care about themselves.Why should I care about stopping Kester?”
