Page 14 of Freedom
“Hey. Hey, Toby. I got you now, right? You’re safe here. You’re gonna be okay.”
And then Tobias collapsed, curling against his chest and clutching handfuls of Jake’s T-shirt like that was the only substantial thing he dared touch, and Jake pulled him in because dammit, Toby deservedmore, anything Jake could give.
When the sobs eased back into deeper, ragged breaths, Tobias whispered, “I dreamed,” and Jake’s hand froze on the back of his head. They stayed like that, still, for no more than the count of five breaths, and then Tobias took another deep shaky breath and continued. “I dreamed th-they came to take me b-back.”
Ice prickled down Jake’s spine. He bent his ear close to Tobias’s mouth, barely stopping himself from tightening his holds.
Tobias’s words were a thready half whisper against his shirt. He made no effort to speak louder. Maybe Tobias was half hoping he wouldn’t hear. “We were in Boulder.”
“I wouldn’t let them, Toby,” Jake whispered. Gentle, gentle; he tried to be when all he wanted was to make threats and promises, to vow retribution and snap necks. “No one will ever take you away from me.”
“Y-you... weren’t there.” Tobias drew a half-choked breath. “You h-hadn’t left me, not f-for good, but just like an e-errand or run. They k-kicked in the door. I couldn’t d-do anything. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t even c-call for you. I just... froze.”
“It’s not gonna happen, Toby,” Jake said vehemently. “Fucking never. I’ll get them—I won’t let them near you. And you won’t freeze up, you get to a damn phone or run like hell and find me, or fucking fight them off, but they’re never gonna get you.”
Tobias was crying openly again, head shaking against Jake’s chest. “I can’t... I can’t fight them. Ican’t, Jake.”
There were lines. Sometimes Jake could even tell where they were. And he knew, for the time being, that he had to back off.
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing Toby’s shoulders. “They’re not here. No one but me. They won’t get you.”
Some nights they turned to the TV for some kind of mindless distraction, like the Weather Channel and BowFlex ads. But tonight, Jake couldn’t make himself reach for the remote when they lay back down. He kept one arm curled around Tobias, who tucked his head to Jake’s chest.
He didn’t know how Tobias could roll over and get back to sleep after a nightmare like that. He certainly couldn’t do more than drowse fitfully, his own nightmares picking up the sounds of Tobias’s weeping. But that night, when Tobias’s sobs slowed into the even breathing of sleep at last, Jake had something else on his mind.
Tobias had said he couldn’t fight, and it occurred to Jake that it wasn’t just that the hunter bastards in Tobias’s head were stronger, faster, or armed. It was also that Tobias didn’t have the tools to resist.
Where could he go if Jake weren’t there? Sure, Roger would help—fuck, Roger had better help, or Jake would come back from wherever he’d been and deal out some Hawthorne vengeance—but Tobias didn’t even know how to find him, and what other options did Tobias have?
He didn’t have money, weapons, the location of Jake’s safe houses, a functioning ID, or even a working knowledge of a world of normal people. Tobias didn’thavethese resources. And while understanding the fucking strange world into which Jake had dragged him was probably one of the most important tasks and the one they worked on every day, Jake should damn well work on getting him everything. And then maybe next time those bastards showed up, in Tobias’s dreams or otherwise, he would have more options than fighting or being taken.
Jake had never once deliberately thought about the laws that had defined his childhood. He couldn’t remember once when he and Da—Leon had talked about when they should change a PO box or replace their old IDs. The only time he could remember talking about the emergency procedures besides Leon reminding him of them before walking out the door for another hunt was after the CPS shitshow when he was thirteen.
But tonight, with Toby sleeping exhausted under his arm and the dawn still far away, he had plenty of time to consider the strategies and rules that made up the fabric of his life and figure out how many of those he could refashion to support Toby too.
~*~
The next morning, afterbreakfast, Jake paid for another day at the hotel—clerk probably thought he was some kinda druggie with the dark circles under his eyes—and took Toby out shopping. Luckily, there was a fairly small cell phone store in a nearby strip mall, and Tobias didn’t seem particularly stressed out while Jake handled the salespeople and paid in cash. Next up was an office supply store, which was bigger, but when Jake took Tobias’s hand and asked if he felt up to coming inside, Tobias nodded. Jake got what he needed, and they headed back to the hotel. The table was small, but Jake gestured for Tobias to take one of the rickety chairs, dropped the bags to the side, and sat down across from him. From one of the bags, he slid a fresh leather-bound journal and a new pack of pens across the table.
“Okay, Toby. This is something I should have done ages ago, but better late than never.”
Tobias tensed slightly, his hazel eyes wide and fixed on Jake, but there was less blind terror there than there used to be. Jake kept track of small miracles.
“If things ever go south and we get separated, this is what we’re gonna do.”
It took a heck of a lot longer than he’d expected to lay it all out. The emergency drills and panic plans that had been the foundation of his childhood were just the beginning. Jake had code words for varying levels of emergency situations and eighteen running aliases that either rented PO boxes and safe house locations across the country or were authorized with access to his various credit cards. He had tricks for getting fake credit cards, staying under the law enforcement radar, forging signatures, patterns for which town, hotel, and fake name they’d take next if they split up, and the numbers for his actual bank account in Boulder, the one where the ASC deposited his monthly dough. Other than the bank account he’d only opened when he turned eighteen, he’d never had to think about these, and he’d certainly never said them in one go. He didn’t have to think about them, no more than he thought about those other details that were as much a part of his daily life as sliding knives into his boots every morning and doing an ammo check every night.
Jake was nervous. Not as nervous as Tobias, of course, but he still didn’t have any idea what Tobias’s reaction would be. These plans required a lot of him. He couldn’t just wait for Jake’s directions, and it wouldn’t always be crystal clear which course he should take. But fuck, it had to be better than nothing, right?
Tobias listened as he always did, relaxing perceptibly while keeping his eyes fixed on Jake, hand flying over his paper making tiny, copious notes in the neatest handwriting Jake had ever seen. He had questions sometimes, stuttered occasionally, asked in his quiet-but-not-terrified voice if he could get the map from the Eldorado when Jake was in the middle of listing safe houses, and generally absorbed the information like taking notes was a direct line into his long-term memory. He didn’t seem wildly relieved at the end, but Jake thought—well, he thought he saw Tobias’s shoulders loosen, his hands rest with more determination than fear on the table, like this could be the start of a new, better stage.
Jake could swear up and down until he was blue in the face that he’d always be there for Tobias, but the fact was that Tobias was too goddamn smart to believe that. He knew a situation could always go fubar, or maybe just that he would always screw up eventually, and that when that happened, a man damn well better have a plan.
And now Tobias had everything Jake did. He had safety nets and contact information for all the other hunters Jake trusted—that was a pretty fucking short list, but it should still help—and a brand-new cell phone with Jake’s and Roger’s numbers in the contact list. He had everything Jake could give him.
It could have felt like giving Tobias the power to leave him, but instead it was as comfortable andgoodas handing Tobias a bag of M&Ms in Freak Camp or splitting a sandwich. What was Jake’s was Toby’s, and every time Toby accepted what he had to offer, they built more between them than the memory of FREACS and fear.
~*~
