Page 22 of Freedom
~*~
The house was old,the wood dry enough to light up from a cigarette ad, but they managed to stamp out the fire before it did more than burn away the bloodstain that was Dead Eddie’s last physical tie to the world.
The widow and the kid were shaken but grateful. Jake was just glad they were still breathing and the bastard hadn’t managed to strangle them to death before they arrived. The fact that they weren’t screaming or telling him and Tobias to get the hell out of their house before they called the cops was the icing on the cake. Lifesaving heroics and ASC badge aside, civvies didn’t always have the best reaction to their first brush with the supernatural and those chasing it down. It was always a pain when they had to run like hell after a job because some shell-shocked civilian wouldn’t believe that they’d been trying to save their asses.
WhenIhave to run like hell, Jake corrected himself. Sure, it might be him and Tobias now, but he hadn’t even asked him if once was enough, hadn’t made sure that the grin on Tobias’s face when Dead Eddie turned into charcoal hadn’t been some kind of nervous tic. Too soon to tell, too soon to start picking out curtains. Though the widow would have to do that soon, given the mess they had made putting out the fire.
“Thank you,” Margie said again, one hand on Jake’s arm, the other on Tobias’s. “God, I mean, I can’t thank you enough. When I saw him, and he was the same and going for Liam like he always—I couldn’t... I thought I’d... and then he... God, thank you.”
Tobias looked nervously at her hand on his arm, but he wasn’t bolting, twitching, or looking like he expected her to hit him, so Jake could concentrate on projecting a hundred percent confidence and shooting the widow a cocky—and, because they’d won, reassuring—grin.
“Just part of the job,” Jake assured her. “No trouble at all. Sorry we were late, had a little digging to deal with on the other side of town.”
She gave him a tight smile. “Should have scrubbed that damn floor long before this. It’s just... easier to throw a rug over things sometimes than todealwith them, like I didn’t know that comes back to punch you in the face.” Her laugh wasn’t quite stable. “Maybe you shouldn’t have put out that damn fire. We’re not staying here, not... no more.”
Jake glanced at the kid, Liam, but he just looked relieved.
“Well, that’s why we’re here. Helping people, hunting evil since 1980. You can call the ASC hotline or your local law enforcement if you need anything else. But honestly, my advice is that you first get some friends or family to come pick you up tonight. Don’t hang around, and don’t be alone.” Maybe some help like that would have taken care of her rat bastard husband before he had to die twice.
Jake kept the smile on his face all the way out the door and to the Eldorado, one hand on the small of Tobias’s back to make sure he was with him, and then burned rubber out of there.
About four miles out of town, after easing his speed to a respectable five over—the Eldorado deserved to go fast, but moderation kept the cops too bored to bother him—he glanced over to Tobias to see how he was taking it.
Tobias grinned at him, meeting his eyes easily and without hesitation. “We burned that bastard,” he said, and Jake heard the same deep satisfaction in Tobias’s voice that he felt every time he took a supernatural scumbag off the streets.
“Hell yeah we did,” Jake agreed. “You were smokin’ in there. The way you handled that poker, just unbelievable. Wanna do it again sometime?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and then stopped short when he realized it sounded like he was flirting. With Tobias. That was against all the rules.
But Tobias was still grinning, his face shining in a combination of relief, hope, and sheer energy. “Can we?”
No matter how good this moment was right now, the prospect of jumping down that road still made Jake pause. Some of that must have shown on his face, because Tobias’s eyes dropped and his hands slid between his knees. Jake could see him pulling himself together, fighting down the rush, and he hated that, but the buzz from the hunt was strong enough that he didn’t immediately feel the need to punch something. He could think about what Tobias needed instead of just how angry it made him that Tobias was still so afraid to admit what he wanted.
“I l-l-liked it,” Tobias said in a rush, not looking at him, words starting out strong and fading almost to a whisper. “I l-l-liked helping you and being useful and... and it was g-good. Seeing something...eviland s-stopping it. That felt good. I’ve never felt good after a fight before.”
Jake wondered who Tobias had been fighting, how much he hurt them, what they had done to deserve it—because any asshole in a fight with Tobias deserved what was coming to him, in Jake’s book. “If you’re sure,” he said slowly, “we could stop those bastards together. You know, as a team. As Hawthornes.”
Jake would never forgive himself if anything ever happened to Tobias, but he was going to teach him how to hunt anyway, even though it was a fucked-up life that sane, well-balanced people should avoid if they wanted to stay that way. He would teach Tobias how to be a hunter because he had asked and because Jake wanted that too. More than anything, he wanted a life with Tobias, but hunting was the only life that Jake had.
He’d have changed for Tobias. He’d have tried, at least. But now Tobias had asked. And had actually run after him to kill a ghost. That was a good start, and more choice than Jake had ever had.
Tobias watched him, hazel eyes wide. “Really?”
“You were awesome, Toby,” Jake said. “You can watch my back any day.”
~*~
After running intothe house, Tobias’s constant worry about disappointing Jake vanished. Any thought butKeep the ghost off JakeandProtect the civilianswas completely buried, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t afraid of anything. Not of the reals, not that Jake would find him useless, not about anything but that the ghost would get close enough to hurt Jake—though even then, in the back of his mind, Tobias hadn’t really believed that Jake would get hurt. Because he was Jake.
It had felt good, not being afraid. To have a purpose and be truly useful for maybe the first time in his life. He had killed things before, destroyed things, hurt things, been hurt, been afraid, had even helped other monsters (Don’t think about Kayla, you can’t help her now, you need to keep yourself together, need to be good for Jake), but never before had he been able to look in the eyes of a real woman and a child and know that he had helped remove some of that fear from their lives.
He hadn’t even been terrified that because they were reals, they might find out he was a monster too. He had helped them because he had made the choice to run after Jake. The woman had touched him on the shoulder and smiled at him—a stress-panicked smile, like Kayla’s after a fight or one vampire’s to another, but a smile anyway—and the boy had just looked at them, and Tobias had known that they were grateful because he’d done something good, he’d saved them.
And then he had asked Jake to let him help him. To help him save people. Even asking him hadn’t been difficult when adrenaline pumped through his veins.
A yes would have kept him high for the rest of the day, would have been the best thing anyone had ever said to him.
But Jake had looked at him, gray eyes bright and charming and sweet, and had smiled the smile that made Tobias’s heart beat too fast and him flush from ears to fingertips.You can watch my back any day, Jake had said.
Mile after mile flew past, and Tobias was almost too happy to breathe, warm and dizzy (God, I would do anything for you, but if you smiled at me, nothing could possibly hurt). For a moment that could stretch into infinity, everything in the world was good.
